Astridvan Nimwegen trimester5 2nd year

Graduation work / progress trim 5

Description

What I did in trim 5:

Workshops / masterclasses

-Sound workshop Larry Sider SOS

-Michael Snow at iffr (screening + artist interview - which I recorded with Leslie)

-Masterclass on 'Time' with Ben Russel iffr --> made me conscious again on the importance of Time within my work!

-Masterclass with Tony Conrad at Sonic Act Festival A'dam (on sound and videowork he made)

-Workshop with Makino in Worm --> making analogue film by hand and convert and edit digital to generate a 3D - effect in layers

My own research last months / currently:

-Refine garagedoor pieces technically

-Researched on sound (see below - 'Research and importance of Sound/Audio')

-Observe and question the work in different contexts - videolounge / filmtheater (hopefully in SMART next month)

-Made a series of Garagedoor-pieces - differs from only one garagedoor video because in the serie it's more about the process of changing in seasons

-Practicing my editing skills in photoshop and premiere

-Shot Polaroids - which made me wonder if I really need this as part of my thesis

-Write about practice and describe outcomes (thesis)

-Reading texts -'Letters to a young Poet' by Rainer Maria Rilke / 'The Everyday' by Stephen Johnstone

-Watching a lot of interviews/documentaries (TJ Clark)/Films

-Applied for a residency in CovePark - Scotland in Januari (but I was rejected):

Dear Astrid

Thank you for your application to Cove Park’s 2013 visual arts residency programme.

I’m afraid your application was not shortlisted for interview this time. We received a large number of applications this year (approximately 280) and can offer just four residencies in this current round. I do appreciate the time applications take and the selection panel would like to thank you for your submission – everyone was very interested in your work.

I am sorry to write with disappointing news, but hope you will keep in touch with Cove Park and please visit if you can this summer.

With best wishes Alexia Holt

Media

Process Garagedoors

Research on difference between 17mm lens and a 20mm lens

'17mm lens'

Still 17mm lens
This is a still from a garagedoor video shot with a 17mm lens, the disadvantage is that the lens gives distortion in the image and needs to lens-correction in the post-production.

'20mm lens'

Still 20mm lens
This is a still from a garagedoor video shot with a 20mm lens, I placed the tripod on a bigger distance to the door so I had more or less the same frame as with the 17mm when the tripod was placed closer to the door, the 20mm lens gives no big distortion and does not need lens-correction in the post-production.

Conclusion:
In my opinion the 17mm videos work better. The viewing angle is bigger and the image looks more surreal in this wider shot. There is more 'distance' between image and viewer because 17mm decrease the landscape-view: it seems further away. Maybe the 17mm works also better because the angle on reality differs quite much from our own purview. (a 20mm as well but the difference isn't that huge as with 17mm)

Video

optional unless the final outcome of the project, or one of its main components, is a video/film/animation.

• allowed containers/codecs combos:
  • WebM (preferred):
    • Video codec: VP8 (3-5 Mbps data rate)
    • Audio codec: Vorbis (-q 6)
  • Ogg:
    • Video codec: Theora (3-5 Mbps data rate)
    • Audio codec: Vorbis (-q 6)
  • MP4:
    • Video Codec: H.264 (3-5 Mbps data rate)
    • Audio Codec: AAC (160kbps or 384kbps if 5.1) or MP3 (-V0 or -b 320)
• resolution: 720p if source >= 720p, native resolution otherwise, progressive.
• FPS: 24, 25, 30.
• Sample rate:
  • 44.1kHz if source is 44.1kHz or 88.2kHz
  • 48 kHz if source is 48kHz or 96kHz
  • 44.1 kHz for everything else.

Research and importance of Sound/Audio

In januari I took part in the School Of Sound workshop with Larry Sider. In this workshop I used self made recordings combined with music and sound grabbed from an online sound-databank to create a soundtrack together with Danny (alumni).

With video offcourse you have medium/close-up/wide shots. I learned that this is actually also the fact with sound. You have sound in the background/distance (environment sound) you have medium sound and close sound (dialogue for example)

For the audio of the 'Garagedoor-pieces' I tried out different recordings. Normally the sound recording device is placed in the shed; hereby the shed functions as a kind of resonance box. The sound is recorded on four channels (2x stereo sound) In one video I placed the recording device outside the shed; close to the door. Another recording was made by placing the device in the field itself.

Outcome: I made one edit in which all audio is placed underneath one video, this was a good exercise for practicing my skills on synching sound and make it lower to avoid the audio-meter in the red area (when sound is too loud) The outcome resulted in too much gain/noise in the sound and I concluded that best is to record in the shed. Now I am busy editing/sync sound underneath every video (as it was shot) to listen to the difference in these 3 soundtracks.

In my screening of the Garagedoor-pieces in the videolounge I asked for 2x stereosound in the space. One is coming from the frontspeakers (stereo) which are placed underneath the projection and one set of stereospeakers is placed in the back of the space. This results in a more spacial sound then if the sound is only coming from the back. I noticed this as well with a try-out screening I did in a small cinema; if the sound is only coming from the backspeakers, or only from the frontspeakers, the sound is not spacial enough.

Here I wanted to upload my three different sound-recordings on the garagedoorpiece so you can hear the difference but it does not work??? (Help?)

Thesis / Graduation seminar

• Astrid draft thesis
• draft 1st chapter thesis Astrid
• Outline thesis Astrid

Exhibition in the Sub Urban Videolounge - Rotterdam

http://www.suburbanvideo.nl/

Documentation exhibition

11.03.2013 -24.03.2013

ASTRID VAN NIMWEGEN : GARAGE DOOR PIECES

Living in the middle of the farming fields, Astrid is strongly connected with and inspired by the landscape and the ever changing weather of the Dutch south-west. At the same time she travels – literally and figuratively. It is as if these oppositions are reflected in her work: passionately connected to video, her work is an ongoing search for balance between minimalism, conceptualism, theatricality, the language of cinema and ritualistic forms of storytelling. Garage Doors as presented in Sub urban video lounge is a studious collection of shots, where the artist´s only decisions seem to be the position of the camera, the moment of the shot and the duration of the opening of the door. By these decisions Astrid gives us the possibility to really see something, the changing of the light, the movement of the clouds, the reflections on the wet concrete floor, a leave blown by the wind... text by: Toine Horvers / Astrid van Nimwegen

non optional

• One page itemised budget estimate