Yana’s first draft ToP

WHAT

For this ToP I would like to focus on three works which were my main focus in the past 6 months.

1. The first one was the video I created for the pre-Eye workshop. This work was centred around a topic I thought would be my area of interest throughout the master’s - how connection can arise between people with conflicting identity politics. I decided to interview a friend of mine who was the inspiration for this interest as her relationship with a colleague of hers was fascinating to me - my friend is queer while her colleague is an open homophobe. This project focused on the narrative of this relationship and tried to deliver the conflict with enough nuance in a very short amount of time. Therefore, the conflict becomes almost like a punch-line; I realised that such an exploration would need a lot more time to let the layers evolve without forcing the main point for shock value.

2. My second project was the one I did for the Eye. It is again an interview-based documentary project, making use of various visual media, such as live action, animation, and screen recordings.

3. Finally, recently I have been working on a dance sequence which was developed in the context of the seminar with Simon Iggs in which we had to interpret the story of Gilgamesh through a video work. I wanted to work with dance for some time, so I found a way to fit this in this assignment and used it as an excuse to pursue my interest. After the seminar was over, I decided to further develop the work, this time without the supporting structure of the narrative and focusing mostly on visual and editing rhythm.

HOW

1. The Pre-Eye video was interview-based and at first was an edit of other films which proved to be too overwhelming; trying to follow a fragmented narrative and visual was too chaotic. Therefore, I decided to focus on one aesthetic from a film project I participated in the year before. In this material, the video focuses on one female character, and I was hoping to achieve identification with this character on multiple levels - as a protagonist, antagonist, listener. This proved to be rather confusing for some viewers, but I don’t know if that’s not part of my intention. But anyways, I think this is not a story that can be told with enough depth in such a short time, so I believe this project needs to be developed further to be effective, and perhaps then my intentions of identification would be clearer.

2. For the Eye, I wanted to focus on a topic that is more rooted in the environment I am currently in as the pre Eye project was about a story in Bulgaria, so I did not have direct access to it. Therefore, I decided to explore a Rotterdam-specific issue - that of explosions. I started doing interviews again, but this time I did not have a clear narrative I wanted to deliver. This project was as much exploration for me as it is for the viewer in the end. Therefore, I did not have a starting point for the narrative or the visual which left me with endless possibilities. At first, I made a montage of footage shot around the city - both talking heads of interviewees and atmospheric shots of the city, and trying to piece valuable quotes. However, the connections between the audio and visual felt too vague and I felt like I could achieve more with CGI (I am also just interested in exploring this medium more and in a playful manner). After talking with David&Barrend, I reached the conclusion that I should focus on simulating/reenacting the explosion and the idea that the medium where violence is most trivialised is video games and how I could utilise that. I then 3D scanned buildings where explosions happened and focused on the comparison between the before&after of these places; sometime the after was imaginary and sometimes the before-simulated. 3. For this project I recorded a dance sequence with the idea that the video would not be a one shot choreography, but that rhythm would come through editing and switch between aesthetics - be it AI vs footage, different cameras and lighting, or using the contrast between the body and environment as a mask. The challenge now for me is how to develop the video without the narrative structure. I am now focusing on a message/graphics, following the songs structure and the meaning behind it to try and tie it together. I labeled some movements as ‘seduction’, some as ‘rejection’, and some as ‘rising action’ to give myself a language to work with.

PAST RELEVANCE

I used animation. I built a mosaic of narrative in an explorative manner like in Balkoni. I focused on the environment as a character as in HC2121.