Introduction to Multimedia
PREVIOUS EXAMPLES
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Assignment 1
Identity, Space & Transformation
As a fictitious space woven from filaments of memories weathered with time, the digital Memory Space Collage seeks to understand the relations between personal identity and one’s interpretation of the built environment. Lived experiences sculpt and define how people perceive their surroundings. The collage amalgamates memories lived near a window overlooking stone, sea and sky.
As a fictitious space woven from filaments of memories weathered with time, the digital Memory Space Collage seeks to understand the relations between personal identity and one’s interpretation of the built environment. Lived experiences sculpt and define how people perceive their surroundings. The collage amalgamates memories lived near a window overlooking stone, sea and sky.
Assignment 2
Light, Time, and Shadows
Through experimentation with and contemplation of the concept of time the students begin to discover and understand their labyrinth models from the drawing class as more than just fixed objects but as objects that live, react, and transform through time. Different mediums bring out unseen properties and unexpected results. The students begin to probe the effects of light conditions, shadows, projections, and motion. They learn to draw with light and comprehend the intricate relationships that spring up when the model is subjected to time, light, shadows and motion. Through each exercise an understanding of the potentiality of the model emerges that leads to further exploration, speculation and imaginative insight.
The following Labyrinth Photos explore the ethereal nature of ever-changing shadows as they come alive and move throughout the day. The photos also explore the ability of photography techniques to change the model’s character, uncovering multiple sets of new imagery that were originally unknown in the model.
The following Labyrinth Photos explore the ethereal nature of ever-changing shadows as they come alive and move throughout the day. The photos also explore the ability of photography techniques to change the model’s character, uncovering multiple sets of new imagery that were originally unknown in the model.
This model reimagines the space outside of the first-year studio located on the 4th floor of the Azrieli School of Architecture. The photo captures the model as if the viewer of the image was an occupant in the space. The texture of the model was highlighted with the black and white filter and image quality. With the use of different lighting, the spatial properties of the model were highlighted.
The following Labyrinth Photos explore the ethereal nature of ever-changing shadows as they come alive and move throughout the day. The photos also explore the ability of photography techniques to change the model’s character, uncovering multiple sets of new imagery that were originally unknown in the model.
Assignment 3
Traces in Time
Cyanotype Exercise 1
The labyrinth is recorded using the blue print technique (cyanotype). The model is projected onto the water color paper through shadows and sunlight reacting with the cyanotype chemicals. The result is perplexing and ghostly. The introduction of time creates an entirely new experience of the model as can be seen in the eerie appearance of shadows as the day progresses.
Cyanotype Exercise 2
In this exercise the same technique is used except instead of using a 3d model a photograph of the model is taken. The photograph is digitally converted to a grey scale, inverted, and then printed onto a transparent film. The image on the film is then undergoes the same blue print process. The effect of this cyanotype exposure is substantially less speculative as a process due to the nature of photography as a medium of fixed recordings. In this exercise the photograph and cyanotype paper are in direct contact, thus eliminating shadows and 3d light effects. Instead the reversed spatial alternation allows the eye to wander inside new possibilities that may lead to future transformation and visionary forms.
Shredding Exercise 3
In this exercise the image produced in Exercise 2 is shredded using a paper shredder. Using the strips of shredded paper the student is challenged to create a new model from the material of the past. The model has been pulled apart and needs to be put back together, however the parts have now completely morphed. The strips of paper are suspended between layers of transparent film and become a reconstruction that is unique and yet retains the essences of the original model.
Photograms Exercise 4
In contrast to the first cyanotype exercise in this exercise the student uses light sensitive paper that is exposed to changing light effects created by moving the model around. This process reveals levels of dark and light tonalities as produced over time. The expression of the ‘moving’ labyrinth onto a two dimensional surface serves to compress multiple temporally displaced images into a single representation.
Photographs, Photoshop and Video Exercise 5
The shadows cast by the model have been recorded using a camera at the following times: 8:00am, 10:00am, 12:00noon, 3:00pm, and 6:00pm. After this the background is digitally removed leaving the model and the cast shadows on the paper. The shadows are then animated using Adobe Premium Pro.
Using a photosensitive solution to apply on pieces of watercolour paper, various shades of cyan-blue capture images of my line-model creating authentic blue-prints. Parts of the model directly sitting on the paper create the crispest and most defined parts of the blue print, whereby higher parts of the model block less light casting more blurry, ghostlike shadows on the paper. The line-model reflects the shape of a light photon’s transverse wave and how it bounces off surfaces it interacts with.
The dialogue spoken between material and light has a unique ability to create an atmosphere within a space. Overlapping layers of varied transparency, color and texture are harmonized as light filters through the pavilion depicted in the Cyanotype Collage. In combining the sun’s memory imprinted by shadows with digital manipulation, the collage stems from both natural and human landscapes.
Extracted from a crustacean-inspired model, this series of pieces explores the rigid and quick movements, and presence of an abstract hermit crab. Through the process of cyanotype, I allowed my model to bathe in the sun, creating and revealing the shadows and denoting the points of contact with the paper. The sun itself created new lines and forms, further developing a symbiotic relationship between my model, the sun, and the paper.
Using a photosensitive solution to apply on pieces of watercolour paper, various shades of cyan-blue capture images of my line-model creating authentic blue-prints. Parts of the model directly sitting on the paper create the crispest and most defined parts of the blue print, whereby higher parts of the model block less light casting more blurry, ghostlike shadows on the paper. The line-model reflects the shape of a light photon’s transverse wave and how it bounces off surfaces it interacts with.
Assignment 4
Contiguous Perspective Transfiguration
In this assignment the students are challenged to develop an understanding of movement of process and thought that may be repeated, returning and recovering familiar steps but rendering new layers of meaning. This kind of motion can be compared to Pavel Florensky’s description of the truth seeker. “For the one who is strolling {in search of truth} it is necessary to go, and not merely arrive, and to proceed at an unhurried pace. Finding interest in some stone, tree, or butterfly, [the student] stops so as to study them closer and more attentively…in a word, he strolls in order to breath fresh air and pass time in contemplation, and not just to arrive all the more quickly, out of breath and dusty, at the designated end of his journey.” The students are faced with a journey that has an end that is not prescriptive. It a multidirectional, interweaving and sometime dissolving sequence of steps that is anticipated rather than known.
Memory Exercise 1
Each student is given a small piece of concrete that was removed from the Architectural Building after the 2016 summer renovation as a foundation for their work. 15-20 photographs are taken within the Architectural Building from different perspective views and are attached to the given piece. Like shards of memory scattered throughout the Architectural Building the models represent a past universe that exists in parallel with the present one.
Digital Lines Exercise 2
By challenging the limitations of their tools the students are asked to take a photograph of their Memory exercise and connect the spaces with different types and line weights using Adobe Photoshop. The line drawing tool in Photoshop is not particularly easy to use, which is why it was chosen for this exercise. The question being posed is essentially “How does the choice of tools influence the intention of the creator? If the tool is difficult to use can this impede the expression of conceptual model? Is it possible to overcome the limitations of one’s tools? The intended lesson here is that difficulties with one’s tools is an expected part of the any imaginative process. Accidents can and will happen but they should be viewed as possible discoveries rather than failures.
Palimpsest Exercise 3
Three images are selected from the 20 photographs taken in Exercise 1. The images are printed on transparent paper along with a text of each student’s reflection and are layered on top of each other on a light table. By changing the order of the transparent films the student experiments until a desired effect is created. The double exposure of light sources coming from below (the light table) and above (a table lamp) blurs the boundaries and allows light to travel through the three layers of transparency without interruption.
Multi-perspective Exercise 4
Whereas the model from Exercise 1 incorporated distance between the various photographs, in this exercise distance is entirely flattened. The model is placed in front of a white background and 15 photographs are taken from different angles and scales. In Photoshop the base of the model is removed. Using David Hockney’s “joinery’” technique a contiguous multi-perspective image is constructed. “The object ceases to be fixed permanently on the near side of thought and recreates itself on the further side as far as the eye can reach.” (Andre Breton). Unlike one or two point perspective drawings the multi-perspective approach creates an infinite series of latent possibilities.
Within the Reimagined Studio Collage, overlapping layers synthesize a new spatial identity through capturing fragments of the physical environment in the currents of the imagination. Conventional perspectives of the existing Azrieli School of Architecture and Urbanism studio space are reinterpreted by photographs of the School digitally manipulated and stitched together to simulate a theatrical atmosphere of creating beneath a canopy of clouds.
Representing the Labyrinth model from the Drawing course in a different medium allowed for the reinterpretation of the model and an exploration of detail and depth. Using Solarfast, this print demonstrated hidden characteristics of the work. Details in the model’s construction and characteristics of its form are emphasized in the print. The photograph and Solarfast print were then used to observe/transform aspects of this model, sometimes concealed, by accentuating/masking using light and shadow
This project explores the movement of industrial forms viewed within a confined space of the architecture school. Fluid motions are captured within the rigid forms and materials and invite an unconventional perspective of a mundane space.
Within the Reimagined Studio Collage, overlapping layers synthesize a new spatial identity through capturing fragments of the physical environment in the currents of the imagination. Conventional perspectives of the existing Azrieli School of Architecture and Urbanism studio space are reinterpreted by photographs of the School digitally manipulated and stitched together to simulate a theatrical atmosphere of creating beneath a canopy of clouds.
Assignment 5
Concealing and Revealing
In this set of exercises students are challenged to examine the decision making process with regard to what is revealed or hidden in a drawing or model. This is accomplished through the manipulation of décollage, crumplage, laser cutting and the use of a scanner. The aim is to move from two-dimensional drawing to three-dimensional representations and then back to two-dimensions, from drawn lines to three dimensional folded spaces, from solid to void, and from text to drawing and drawing to text.
Exercise 1
The perspective labyrinth drawing is transformed into a three dimensional representation through the technique of décollage (removing, erasing and cutting pieces of the drawing) and crumplage (folding and hiding certain aspects of the drawing). Similar to a section drawing the décollage technique is a mechanism of selection and speculative marking of what needs to be revealed or concealed. The outcome allows for multiple translations and as many possible meanings that the transformations may bring. The sense of direction of reading the piece is multi-axial. The eyes cannot cease to wonder as the tree-dimensional drawing continues to change.
Scanner Exercise 2
The three dimensional drawing is placed and manually moved inside the scanner at different speeds. The results are recorded and transformed using Photoshop and additional reinforcement of colors and contrast is applied to the images. Here once again the tool is brought into question in terms of its internal properties and limitations. As the student learns the predictable outcomes and their exceptions they are encouraged to compare the safe path versus the path of surprise.
Exercise 3
After reading Italo Calvino’s book Invisible Cities the students are asked to take the result of Assignment 2 Exercise 4 (Multi-perspective) and convert it into a plan that describes one of the cities from the book. Certain areas from the city plan are removed using a laser cutter. The removed areas of the city plan become windows through which a selected text from the city can be read. The movement of awareness from text to image and back prompts dynamic dialogue between the formal and written worlds.
Inspired by Italo Calvino’s Invisible Cities, the drawing is a skewed juxtaposition of two parallel street elevations, expressing one imagined version of Calvino’s city Tamara. At the city’s core lies the existence of large billboard signs and symbols expressing permissible and forbidden objects and behaviours. The upper streetside’s ‘windows’ become objects for projecting shadows on the road, rather than an object of transparency in a town lulled to silence, darkness, and prohibition.
Thekla is described by Italo Calvino as a city that is always under construction with a plan that follows the stars. This laser cut piece explores the city’s never-ending development through section and plan of roads made to resemble cranes and construction equipment connecting to railway tracks and architectural tools. The paper underneath some of these cuts has been burned to show why Thekla’s construction is taking so long: “so that its destruction cannot begin”.
Inspired by Italo Calvino’s Invisible Cities, the drawing is a skewed juxtaposition of two parallel street elevations, expressing one imagined version of Calvino’s city Tamara. At the city’s core lies the existence of large billboard signs and symbols expressing permissible and forbidden objects and behaviours. The upper streetside’s ‘windows’ become objects for projecting shadows on the road, rather than an object of transparency in a town lulled to silence, darkness, and prohibition.
Assignment 6
Metamorphosis
After reading Kafka’s book Metamorphosis and applying it to their own work and the students produced a 1 minute video that provides a narrative about their “metamorphoses during the course... Film is best medium to set in motion drawings, models and photographs. Working with the concept of time in movies the students begin to discover and apply techniques that enable them to emphasize the unique properties of their drawings and the models. In particular the compression (fast motion) and expansion (slow motion) of time is used to enhance the narrative impact of their experience in the course.
"Metamorphosis"
Jessica Babe (2017)
This video is a further exploration into a confined space of the architecture school. It focuses on the details that are often overlooked as well as physical senses of touch, sight and hearing that influence the transfiguration of the space.
Untitled
Gordon Landers (2017)
This short film is constructed to reflect on mine and my classmates development or metamorphosis over the first semester of university. I found an interesting parallel with Darwin's finches, where as a class we had developed, but not each in the same way. I took this metaphor a little further and looked at other kinds of birds, drawing from nature documentaries, my own candid recordings of our studio, and images pulled from various school projects, to assemble this video.