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Vexillology Exercise

As requested, I designed this fictional flag for a fictional country. As you are not paying me to write extensive backstory on this country, I did not take it upon myself to do so; it has no name or particular imagined location, but suffice it to say that in designing this symbol, I tried to envision its constituent culture as the one in which I most wish to live.

To that end, I settled on a color scheme of maroon and gold -- strong, but also warm and mild. I chose to incorporate triangular structures, like the struts of a girder bridge, because triangles are hailed by architects as the most structurally sound shape known to geometry. Because of the way each line must lean on the others, and none are fully separated from one another, this is a shape that offers unparalleled stability through unity. That said, stability is not the only important facet of my ideal world. Thus the circle in the center: it resembles the sun, which to me symbolizes life, and wonder, and wholeness, and humility in recognizing that the universe does not revolve around oneself; furthermore, where the triangle offers unparalleled stability, the circle offers unparalleled flexibility -- you can crush it and bend it and twist it however you like, but it will never break.

By situating the circle in the center of the triangular trusses, I also created a shape loosely resembling an eye, which I did not envision as a symbol of some kind of invasive 1984 surveillance culture, but of a total, unblinking, unflinching awareness of the world as it is. The abstract eye here represents for me the courage to be honest, and to understand the world honestly; it also represents the promise that each and every person stood beneath this flag will be seen and understood. The triangles’ stability, the circle’s flexibility, the eye’s honesty, and the balance of the overall symmetrical layout, all filtered through the warmth of the red and gold, come together to represent a place built upon the foundations of a sublimely empathetic truth. This is the world I wish to live in.

#flag #my media

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Solo Photo Roman -- Nina

(eternal thanks to my immortal king Hozier for the sick beats)

#photography #video #slideshow #my media

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Urban Landscape: Fae St

#urban landscape #nyc #brooklyn #dumbo #photography #my media

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(made sound)

#sound #audio

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(found sound)

#sound #audio

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Directing Activity: Realizing Storyboards

#activities #direction #photography #storyboard #my media

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On Direction

The exercise of directing/being directed in image construction today was an illuminating one. I envision myself as a director one day, and for a long time I’ve labored under the fear that despite my ambition to sculpt my own stories for the world to see, I wouldn’t be assertive enough to step fully into a leadership role. I’ve often worried that my direction would be ineffective because I would be too timid to give actual, concrete -- well, directions. My hope is to cultivate a collaborative atmosphere on my film sets, so that, while I would act as a unifying voice for the ideas presented, my fellow artists would feel free to lend their own unique perspectives and expertise to the story being told. I worry constantly about asserting my own ideas too forcefully, and thus stamping others’ ideas out, so I tend to overcorrect by not being assertive enough.

I actually found that this wasn’t quite the case today. Rather, issues in communication between me and my “actors” sprouted more from a limitation in perspective -- I could see so clearly what I wanted the image to look like, but I realized quickly that I needed to go into more detail in order to articulate to my collaborators what I needed from them. This was something I learned partly as a product of being directed, and either being frustrated at the lack of clear direction, or pleased with the presence of it. I have always held that a good leader needs to know what it’s like to be led in order to do their job well -- only by having been in a subordinate position can one truly understand the needs and expectations of one’s subordinates. Today, that belief was cemented. I found the exploration of directing from both sides of the line both fun and valuable.

#activities #direction

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Response: Frank Film

This film seems to rely largely on gestalt principles having to do with repetition -- so things like similarity, uniform connectedness, and good continuation. Similarity is employed visually by grouping together images of things that either share a common shape, as in the sequence of circles toward the beginning, or that share a common ideological/intellectual category, as in the collage of animals later on. Uniform connectedness is achieved visually through the reproduction of a single image multiple times and/or in multiple spaces, and auditorily through the even cadence and flat tone of the narration, particularly the continuous list of F-words throughout. Good continuation relies largely on time -- again, images and words both are spaced out evenly within a given time frame, and while the rate of image appearance in specific sequences varies, the overall flow of information remains constant except for the point at which Frank begins to question the trajectory of his life, where all sensory information grinds to a momentary halt, the screen going black and all sound going silent for a split second.

The purpose of this repetition seems to be to immerse the viewer in the narrative of Frank’s life emotionally and conceptually. The narration gives context to the images, both concretely in the actual telling of the narrative and abstractly in the seemingly random recall of related ideas beginning with F; the images, in turn, provide vital visual stimuli, creating an emotional impression that the film’s soundtrack largely lacks. One comes away with a surprisingly comprehensive idea of what it would be like to be Frank.

#response #frank film

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Gestalt Images

Found Photos -- from Star Trek (2009)

closure:

common fate:

figure-ground:

good continuation:

proximity:

similarity:

uniform connectedness:

[[thanks, star star]]

Made Photos -- from me + my brain + my shitty phone camera

closure:

common fate:

figure-ground:

good continuation:

proximity:

similarity:

uniform connectedness:

#gestalt concepts #found media #my media #photography #film stills

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Response: Vampires of Poverty

This was a truly fascinating film. They used the generic conventions of documentary filmmaking to toy with the idea of truth versus fiction, constantly jumping back and forth across the line between the two and forcing the watcher to revise their understanding of the objective reality beyond the film. At first, it seems that we are watching a cinema verite rendering (in black and white) of a staged rendering (in color) of poverty in Colombia. The film focuses largely on the “behind the scenes” action, where the director and crew manipulate their subjects in order to achieve their desired effect. At the same time, the un-narrated, laissez-faire, literally colorless footage of the documentarians at work quietly and satirically models a more truthful, and perhaps more ethical, methodology: stand back, don’t talk, don’t interfere, just observe, and apply as little post-production as possible.

But it becomes clear by the end of the film that everything -- not just the color footage, but the black-and-white as well -- has been staged. The final interview is probably the most truthful moment in the film, where the filmmakers/actors strip away all artifice and simply describe what it is they’re trying to say. Where the majority of the film violates the implicit contract of documentary filmmaking, which promises the closest possible approximation of objective truth, this last scene reveals the lie. They have, in effect, utilized all the empathetic potential of fictional storytelling without the viewer being aware that it’s fiction. When they finally reveal what they’ve done, one doesn’t quite know whether to feel affronted or amazed -- but regardless, our empathy with the cobbler, and our momentary belief in his existence as a real human being, has its effect: we become painfully aware of the ethical problems inherent in documenting suffering.

#response #vampires of poverty

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14th St Green (soundscape)

Does it smack me in the face all at once, the proverbial wall? (I’m eleven years old, coasting down a steep slope on a bike, wind howling in my ears; I try the brakes, but no response, and then stone and stillness, abrupt, as I learn a hard lesson about momentum -- ) Or does it shift and sway, rush and eddy, retreating, gathering forces, and then marching forth, swelling over me, rhythmic and absolute? Power overwhelms, but does it burn or wash, whiskey-warm, down to my toes?

A low hum, constant -- rubber blood crawling over asphalt arteries, adrenaline pumping exhaustion into the atmosphere. Rumble, screech, honk honk, whine: Forward. Forward. Forward. A persistent drumbeat, intermittent, like a palpitating heart; a tune meanders, implacable, across.

Crunch, crunch. A child’s voice: “Would you like to buy some Oreos?”

Thunk. Tiny; imperceptible but to me, and the tree I lean on.

Shhhhhhh. Breath swirling in my lungs.

A low hum. Constant. The drumbeat steadies. So does my pulse. (I’m twenty-two years old, drunk, sunburned, throwing myself down at the ocean’s feet. I laugh as she whips the sand from beneath me, as she tosses my boneless body against the shore; I smile as she soothes my scrapes with silken fingers, as she washes over my head, a longed-for lesson in inertia -- )

A low hum, constant. A heartbeat; a breath. If I’m quiet enough, I can hear the birds.

#soundscape #poetry

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Greetings, Earthlings

object:

[cred: me]

portrait:

[cred: rebecca james]

#images #photography #my face