Jujube/methods-session-11

Calendars:Networked_Media_Calendar/Networked_Media_Calendar/10-04-2019_-Event_1

The specific outcome for the RW&RM seminar of 2018-19 will be a 1500 word text which reflects on your own method and situates your work in relation to a broader artistic and cultural context.

What have you been making?

General introduction

How did you do it? (method)

1) what, how and why

2) describe the reading and writing you did and describe how it supported your practice. This may be a discussion of particular texts, or it might be a description of writing and reading methods you adopted and how they helped shape your work. .

Ambacht

In the making process I realised I could only be invested in editing for a certain period of time. Once the trepidation of the new interface (Adobe Premier, in this case) faded, I was able to identify the usefulness of the footage and construct the narrative with the tool. This part was fine. What was difficult was that once I found the structure and had done what I considered "finessing with it," I could not stay with the footage any longer. Or it would frustrate me. I realised later this was a sign that I did not have enough footage to "push" the story to the direction. When I staged the interview I asked questions I thought would elicit a personal response, but in the end it wasn't the answers that mattered. The most interesting material was what happened in between the shots (such as when the couple teased each other).

Seek

The impetus for the project was to use the camera as a device for meditation and synthesize the footage in a video. As I became more interested in the relationship between autobiographical materials and universal emotions through tales, I shifted from this originally generative approach to focus more on storytelling with pre-meditated imageries. I wrote a script before departing Rotterdam, in which I set the main scenes near a lake.

When I arrived in Veléz-Blanco, the local climates suggested something different from the lake scenes. The land was arid. There was no visible body of water. All of us at the residency were encouraged to conserve by keeping shower water in buckets and washing dishes in bins. Coming from an urban environment where water is taken for granted as part of the infrastructure, its sudden scarcity provoked new thoughts:

What is the essence that I want to convey through water? Can I evoke the same message in a drastically different landscape?

To find the answers, I developed a routine. Each morning I left the dwelling and walked down into the barranco, a type of ravine formed by erosion (both by rainfall and agro-pastoral modification common in this region). I observed the weather, geology, flora and fauna with my video equipments: a DSLR camera, two lenses, a field recorder, a pair of headphones and a tripod. The barranco inspired new development of the script and became the central imagery of the video.

Collaborations took place both within the project and across dinner tables. For the video, I collaborated with two volunteers I met at the residency, Lucy Wade and Francesco Ferrari. I recruited Lucy as the voice of the video and Francesco as the musician. For one of the communal dinners — which our hosts generously provided every night — I planned a Mexican menu and cooked with two London-based Korean artists who stayed at the residency concurrently. Our friendship continues beyond JOYA.

Relation to previous practice

Identify developing practices and theoretical approaches over the last year. This can be very practical: new working methods, new skills &c; describe what such new skills afford.

What do you want to make next?

How does your proposed future research connect to previous projects you have done? Here you can use the descriptions you made during the Methods seminar or make new descriptions.

Why do you want to make it?

In an earlier methods class, I was asked if filmmaking would be something I wanted to continue pursuing. My answer to that is: yes, and with increasing craft.

Immediately after the project I started the project for the EYE research lab, the result of which was a 3-minute-and-a-half short film. I did more preparations in terms of camera work for that movie and was able to produce images of better quality (in order to convey the message through aesthetics). This short film was based on a script and a filming process responsive to the residency site. I was able to do many takes of the same subject/scene and experiment with different combinations. There was more repetition in the process, unlike the documentary.

How can I produce with a sureness towards the camera and ease with subject, in documentary settings or not? Practice (holding the camera, tripod, talking with the subject) seems to be a constant.

Relation to a larger context

Meaning practices or ideas that go beyond the scope of your personal work. Write briefly about other projects or theoretical material which share an affinity with your work. At this juncture, it's simply about showing an awareness of a broader context, which you will later build upon as your research progresses.

References

A list of references (Remember that dictionaries, encyclopedias and wikipedia are not references to be listed. These are starting points which should lead to more substantial texts and practices.) As with your previous essays, the references need to be formatted according to the Harvard method.)

Feel free to include any visual material to substantiate, illustrate or elucidate your ToM. For example use images to reference your work or that of others.

Back to RW&RM Seminar:

http://pzwiki.wdka.nl/mediadesign/Calendars:Networked_Media_Calendar/Networked_Media_Calendar/10-04-2019_-Event_1