User:Ruben/RWRM/1 - Own Work

What are people given to understand when they read something?

Three projects:

• What is its (50 words)
• How it came to be (50 words)
• Why it was made (50 words)

Days of Water

Adam tries to escape his guilt for the accident that put his girlfriend in a coma. Days of Water is a short film that shifts between his fantasies and reality. Will he come to peace with the past or will the hopelessness of a coma keep him in its grips?

Days of Water is my graduation project of the Utrecht School of the Arts. Collaborating with many others, we shot the film in 6 days. The first idea initially started of when I saw images of Erwin Olaf, in which I felt a strong sense of guilt in the subjects.

This made me realise how guilt can consume us. How it can bottle up inside. It puts us in a cramp, and we find it hard to acknowledge its existence. Which would be the first step to acceptance. In Days of Water I want to show this internal struggle.

The Spectacular Times

The Spectacular Times is an interactive video installation on the digestion of news around the world. Five sliders allow us to control its output: location, range, speed, trendingness and design. By adjusting these parameters, the viewer becomes aware of how location and presentation can influence the interpretation of content.

It is the graduation project of Ward Goes. Who graduated cum laude at the at the Design Academy Eindhoven. Ward conceptualised and designed The Spectacular Times. Together we tried to tackle the technical and practical difficulties of this installation, in order for me to realize his design.

As initiator of the project, Ward was interested in how we perceive and interpret news. Do the visual differences between ie. 'De Telegraaf' and 'De Volkskrant' alter our interpretation of its content. And what does this mean for other cultures. What our news also their news?

Rangi Ya Samwati

Rangi Ya Samawati (The Colour of Blue) is an fifteen minute diptych about two Tanzanians. Douglas is a miner in Mererani near the Kilimanjaro and Rachidi a lobster fisher at the Tanzanian coast. In their harsh environments, depending on nature, how do they look at their future?

We shot this documentary during our stay at the Kilimanjaro Film Institute in Arusha. There we heard about the Mererani mines. At the mines we met Douglas, who told us his story. In Rachidi we found a way to complement his story while contrasting with the dusty environment of the mines.

Listening to Douglas, we were struck by his positive image of the future: hoping that one day he will find the valuable Tanzanite. Whereas we, as bystanders, where much less optimistic of his chances. We wanted to show this strained optimism as shows how many Tanzanians live under such conditions.