Projection Art Research

I chose to look into the works of Clement Briend and Craig Walsh, who both have worked with projecting onto trees. I am drawn to the projection onto trees because I love trees, and because it is intrinsically interesting due to the fact that this object is not stationary (moving branches and leaves) or flat, and so would present a challenge to the artist in some way.

Clement Briend is a French photographer who delves into projection installation. He has done two series of these projections onto trees: one of gargoyles on trees near Paris, and the more famous one being the projection of Buddhist spirits and deities onto trees in Cambodia.

His works attest to the connection between the real and the imagined, or how the ephemeral that cannot typically be visually seen, can be displayed in the world. In his series focusing on Cambodian trees, he projects his photos of sculptural works that relate to spiritual beliefs in Cambodia, and projected them onto the real world, where these spirits are believed to reside. He reimagines the space, and transforms it into a place where the invisible and the magical can be physical and visual. 

I understand the intent of Breind's work, but I am curious about the exact message of his work outside of the context of reworking the reality of the space. Why only religious imagery? And how will the Cambodian people reimagine this space in a few years?

Breind's works peak my interest because I can identify with the need to have people recognize and visualize the spiritual in the world of the natural, keeping in line with the goals of my projects this past year. I would love to make the trees in QA woods come alive by having faces and whispers come out of the forest because during my first two years of college, I would walk through those woods and speak my thoughts to the trees, and felt that the trees were alive and responding. I want to transform the space into a friendly place, and not a space in which fear needs to be the overwhelming feeling while one is walking through the woods as it has been in the past. I am not sure that this space would be particularly ideal, though seeing as how it is now well-lit and somewhat out of the way for viewers.  

Craig Walsh is an Australian artist who is well-versed in projection art, though he has many other talents. He has done a work projecting storytellers onto trees in Sydney's Hyde Park South in which he celebrates the area as a place where several protests have happened historically. Three faces, that represent different social change movements, were projected onto the trees, and they spoke of the place's history throughout the duration of the work.

I think this work does a good job in tying together place and meaning, while transcending time. The park in itself is a monument to its historical past in relation to social change movements and protests, but there is not necessarily a memorial. The park continues to be a gathering place in which social interactions between groups of people continues to influence the future of the people as a whole. To attest to the park's history while also addressing the fact that social change is still important and relevant to this day transcends the time restrictions of the project.

This work made me think about doing a projection art project about the different faces of St. Mary's in light of the negative incidences that have happened regarding discrimination and harmful stereotyping, as well as the group I am involved in that is attempting to address this issue. I could project different faces that tell their stories and how they represent the St. Mary's campus.

I was also very interested in a project by Miwa Matrayek, Myth and Infrastructure, in which she combines projection and performance by having her shadow interact with the projections. The combination is an impressively-timed performance piece that creates a sense of magic and mystique that would only normally be seen in animation or movies. The combination of the real and physical performance with the projected, creates a surreal atmosphere and allows the viewer to explore the division between the real and the unreal. I enjoy the interactive aspect of the piece and would love to find a way where anyone can enter themselves into the projection piece.

I was thinking about making a commentary about "fitting in" where a person has to try to fit their shadow inside a silhouette projected onto a building by standing closer or farther away from the light. The place where this person would stand would get a piece of tape to mark their place. I'm not sure where else this would go, or how to finish this thought yet.

http://thecreatorsproject.vice.com/blog/french-photographer-uses-projections-to-explore-link-between
http://craigwalsh.net/projects/view/Art-and-About-Festival-Hyde-park-Sydney/

Website Research

So, my goal for this project is to do more of the animations and to tweak my website to make it look better. I have chosen a couple of websites that have the basics of what I want the end product to look like.

Last semester, I chose Paravel as a website that I enjoyed the taste of. I still want to keep this model of organization.

Within the site is a portfolio of different sites that the team has worked to create. The layout of the site is very simple, using black and white rollover images in a grid layout to organize their works. After clicking on their images, you are taken to a new page where they have a large image capturing the design of their sites. 

      Below the main image, the page is divided into several small sections by a simple gray line. Each section contains small captures of aspects of the sites they create, and then simply describe the process of their designs. Their images are very clean, but they add in elements of "homemade" which is most likely Ray's doing. 

       They create responsive web sites, which are supposed to be very easy to use and available to resize on several different technological appliances, so they make good use of Div Tags, as opposed to AP Div Tags, which is a good choice in a time where smartphones and tablets are becoming more popular in use. Their simple and sleek web layout is attractive, easy to read, and easy to negotiate. 

I also wish to emulate the journalistic blog style of my friend, Carolyn, who used a template to build her website The Young Catholic Woman. She adds a lot about her personal anecdotes and opinions, and she ends up having lot of writing, but this is successfully broken up by large pictures that help to add visual content. Sometimes her visuals are interesting because there has to be a forced connection between the visual and the written context, this connects with the Osborne reading that we did about how we receive art in distraction, and how art is distraction.

For websites, where the general idea of being online is an inherent distraction because there is such easy access to alternate information, the tone of websites and the affected culture of reading seems to need a lot of visual content to help distract the reader every once in a while in order to maintain interest in the information. Carolyn's use of large pictures that alternate sides of the blocked text area succeeds in this type of distraction.

Animation Artists

HAYLEY MORRIS

With the advent of new technologies, one might think that stop motion animation would become obsolete, but the new technologies have only served to increase the flexibility and the possibilities of stop motion for animator and animation director Hayley Morris. Morris works out of her studio in Brooklyn, New York to create animations for music videos and companies that wish to advertise their projects (Hayley Morris). Her animated works include a mixture of mediums, such as drawing, painting, sculpting, textiles, lighting, and sound. Conceptually, her works tend to be surrealist dreamscapes due to the very saturated color schemes that she chooses, and the transformations in her animations that take place.

            

In connection with my work, I admire Morris’ ability to balance advertisement and art, but also to combine multiple modes of animation and film. I aspire to create an advertisement for the Campus Farm that includes 3D and 2D stop motion animations by layering the stills. Morris has combined different lighting techniques, rotoscope watercolor animations, and live action into her stop motion. To focus, I will limit my critique and analysis to her work on the music video for Iron & Wine’s “Joy”.

For the music video, Morris shot all of the stills of the music video, using paper, paint, and other materials to create a foundation for the music video, setting the video in a somewhat bland or dead forest. The image of a woman was projected onto the set pieces and then she rotoscoped those images frame by frame using a computer program like Dragonframe that has many animating features, such as the ability to rotoscope, lip-syncing with animated facial features, and vector-based drawing tools (Dragonframe, Motionographer). The rotoscope added a dreamscape element to the video with a brightly colored woman who would appear throughout the gray scenery, adding “joy” to the landscape, and replacing the dead with the living. The animation went well with the nature of the song and captured the meaning and tone very well: the chill and somewhat haunted tone of the music with the loving and romantic lyrics about a very emotional testament toward a person who is the only one that can bring joy to the singer.

            

This piece is very strong in creating a sense of tone and atmosphere in the piece. Combining the method of rotoscoping in combination with the 3D stop motion creates a depth and atmosphere that could not have been attained alone. The continuous shift in the coloration of the woman enhances the dreamy atmosphere of the sound and imagery, and while the majority of the set remains still, the rotoscoped overlay creates an ethereal sense of motion.

            

In terms of her dreamy worlds, she says that creating animations that too closely imitate reality are pointless and does not fully capture the possibilities offered by animation (Bowlegs). I hope to emulate her sense of imagination in creating a strong setting and tone in my work by successfully combining 2D and 3D animation styles in order to enhance the spiritual, magical nature of the work.

http://www.bowlegsmusic.com/culture/film-director-hayley-morris-24740

http://hayleymorris.net/

http://motionographer.com/2013/04/15/hayley-morris-iron-and-wine-joy/

http://www.onepointfour.co/2012/05/25/the-amazing-animated-world-of-hayley-morris/

MATT SMITHSON

Matt Smithson is an animator who has also exhibited works in painting, printmaking, and motion graphics. Smithson has created several animations for different companies and movements for humanitarian purposes. His animations are uplifting, inspiring, and informational. His art background and interests extend beyond this commercial art, delving into more surreal and odd concepts that are inspired by his dreams (Cataloguing), but I am most interested in his advertisement goals in relation to animation.

            

In his advertisement for First Book, a nonprofit organization that helps to provide new books for children of lower income families, he uses a simplistic and abstracted cartoon style of animation combined with bright, saturated colors to create a fun and warm-hearted setting for the animation. Having the characters abstracted with little identification helps viewers to identify with the characters, along with their issues and successes throughout the course of the advertisement. Smithson also abstracts the setting down to very simplistic and symbolic images- the unshaded lines capture the essence of each object- a book is simply a rectangle with a line or smaller rectangle indicating a title. The use of geometric shapes to fill the setting is also another characteristic of his work. While for this particular animation, it may help to enhance the focus on the child, in his other works, it serves to keep within the theme of abstraction and to aid in the transitions. Smithson’s transitioning method is very smooth- the transformations of the objects and the scenery flow seamlessly and are not distracting or jarring. The only problem I have with the transitions are that they seem very typical of these types of animated commercials, and also somewhat relate to the sense of space and transition in Prezi presentations.  

While this style may not necessarily be entirely original, I think they speak testament toward the effective flow of advertising, storytelling, and how to get the message across to a viewer. The storyline of the advertisement is captivating, and emotionally appealing, which serves to successfully draw the viewer into the message in order for the branding to appear at the end of the advertisement. The characters are simple and relatable, the rest of the art and symbols are also simplistic and do not distract from the main character or the conflict, but enliven the commercial with constant motion. This is typical of any commercial, and I hope to emulate this successful storyline with such a captivating manner. 

http://www.manvsmagnet.com/Firstbook

http://nottoscale.tv/director/man-vs-magnet/

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zB3MXD0ThFo