Maps and journeys - Gallery installation

This week we have been working on getting our gallery pieces ready and installed into the gallery. 

We decided to project my video into the far corner of the gallery as it made it seem more distant and far away like the afterlife is. As it was just a projection there wasn't much for me to do installing wise, so i have been working on making the loop better. 

I have made the video longer, got rid of the one man walking towards the screen and added several other figures fading in and out to make it more interesting. I had to get rid of the sound of people talking as there was no way to make it loop, so i decided too add more layers of binaural beets to keep it interesting. 

See finished video here - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=glhSrQj59cI&feature=youtu.be

Maps and journeys- How the idea could progress (Gallery plans)

I think the video is ok for now and we need to work a lot more on the presentation style and we can think about fine tuning the video/ sound later

We have 2 mains ways we want to display it.

Stick with box idea or go with the bean bag idea i mentioned in a previous post, because of this we have decided to do 2 lots of planning for the gallery.

Box display

• Resorces needed: Macbook(15inch) + charger, table, plug socket, head phones. 
• scale drawing :  Table can be any size but must fit box 27cm hight, 38 cm wide and 27 cm depth 
• drawing of display 

The box would look good in a gallery how ever as it is so small it could get lost in the big room making it easy to miss, but when people do find it make it all the more interesting to them.

hannahs drawing above on the floor plan is obviously not to scale (to be honest I'm not sure what measurements the drawing is) but we would want to place it either on a table or build a plinth for it to sit on.  We thought that a table and chair could work, or maybe even without a chair as you can just peer in the top and put the headphones on.

Bean bag display 

All though we havent done any tests on it at the moment and will then need a lot more work to complete it i feel this is my personal preferred method of displaying it.  This way of displaying it will also not give the same feeling we initially intend but will be alot more relaxingThere are two ways this could go

1. have two bean bags lied in the middle of the room with a projector in the middle and a laptop to play the sounds the viewer would then have to lie down and relax to full experience the piece as we would project it on to the ceiling 

• Resources needed: Bean bag, projector, headphones, laptop  + charger + plug socket
• scale drawing 

2. we could create a small room in the corner of the gallery that people can crawl into and lie down in which we would project the video on the top of the room, how ever we could put speakers int he corners of the room to make it feel like the sound and presence was all around them creating a room would also limited the amount of light pollution spread around the room 

• Resources needed: Bean bag, projector, speakers, laptop  + charger + plug socket, wood to build room, a wall we could drill into 
• scale drawing 

• 
  

Maps and journeys - The final presentation ( for assessment ) + evaluations

Video and sound  - http://youtu.be/yk8rehnpwpc

Once the video had been combined with the audio it took some of my worries about that it was to plain and simple. I feel the audio was different than we originally intended, i didnt have much to do in the making of the sound other than reasrch and idea generation so i can only give my opinion on it. I think the sound works well with the piece its not as calming as we originally intended but it is very interesting and fits well with the piece. The over all sound gives me a trippy but calm kind of surreal feeling  like i feel relaxed but as if something is quite right at the same time which i think is an interesting sound to pull off.  I like the voices that have been added, i feel they could be a tiny bit more subtle but over all they give me a hospitally kind of feeling which i think hints to wards a near death experience. When combined with the video i feel like i am lied down in a hospital bed and theres convisations going on around me and i want to esscape but becuase of a the low humming i am to realaxed to leave the cloud effect makes me feel very peacefull and at home but the man walking towards me makes me question who he is but combined with all the other things dosent scare me. The over all feeling i get is i am in limbo stuck between 2 plains, which is what a near death experience has said to be like.


I feel me and hannah sound have communicated better to combine the two aspects becuase of complications which i  will discus in the section bellow it was hard for me to create a video that interesting and kept to the inital concept  as i didn't see any sound being made or any plans on it until the end of the project. I initially wanted to have the shilloetes fade in and out like you can see in the back ground of the video  but at random intervals which each one had its own personality and meaning, but because i couldn't piece them together with the sound so that they moved in some kind of rhythem together  i had to simplify the idea to just one shilloete walking to wards you and fading out so just the back layer looped.

The looping system on the sound also didnt work as hannah just created one piece of audio which i then faded in and out when i paired the two together.

Another reason why the project didnt go the way we planned was time and work pressure. I created quite rigorous schedules and testing plans so my time management was great but when you are using software you have limited knowlage on how to work whilst  trying to do an essay / an avid exam /  orginise and build a studio and film another complicated video learning a whole new set of after effects techniques becomes a lot more harder than i originally planned  as well as build boxes as well in the time frame we had was very tight and stressful which caused me to loose a lot of faith in myself ( to the point i made myself ill )  and the project  purely from over whelming stress. I feel if  we was being assessed on who the project on how in looks when it is finally finished and in the gallery it would be a lot more professional and alot more polished off.

Over all i found the who process very challenging and a pain most of the time, how ever the outcome we have made so far is not too bad, it defiantly could have gone better

Working with hannah

I enjoyed working with someone who is also quite imaginative and willing to experiment with unusual things, i think it was also very helpful that she enjoys making sound more than visuals because this is my weakest point so she could take  ideas and improve them.  How ever because of personal reasons at times working together was quite hard as hannah wasn't able to come into lessons or show me work she had done a lot of the time meaning i just had to trust that she was creating something good and focus on my task to create the video. I feel that i cared  more about this project and because of that i started to loose faith in it towards the end which is evident in the final outcome as the video wasnt as good as it could be and the presentation style was not as good as i had planned. When we were both motivated and excited about the project at the beginning though i feel we had some fun working together.


 Box evaluation

All though we were very set on the box idea from the start  and think the concept behind it is quite strong, i feel it didn't turn out as well as we hoped and have come along so better presention ideas along the way.  When made out of wood the boxs looks quite unique and intriguing like we planned, how ever too look inside it isnt very comfortable so couldnt be watched for too long. I also feel that when you look inside rather being amzed or relaxed your just like oh is this it, how ever that might just be becuase i have been staring at this video for so many weeks now ! I also feel that we sound have done prototypes in other forms of presentation rather than focusing on this trying to make it work when it clearly wasn't. As for asment we were told we could just do prototypes for display  we decided to bring the card board version in as this was the one that gave the best result.

I strongly feel when we display it in the gallery we should go with the bean bag design i mentioned before as it will be a lot more relaxing to watch.

Website and business card evaluation. 

I feel both of these were a good addition to our project even though they were quite last minute as they allow us to give the viewer more information on the piece with out directly spoon feeding it to them.  The website at them moment seems very black and white and bland, but this can be easily changed over time. If we do more projects together we could add them in, when we eventually decided on our finial outcome we can create a promotional video and post it on there making it about more rich in content but for now it serves its purpose of providing the viewer information. It was also definatly best to go with the more simpilar business card to promote our website we  decided to give out a few at assment thursday and see which people prefer for us to use in the gallery.

Please be aware at asesment we shall only be printing the business cards onto paper as when we tried to print onto card it jammed my printer and broke it meaning we had to use the library so could only print on paper. When it comes to the gallery we will get the cards printed from a profesional shop to make sure they look the best they can.

Maps and journeys- Video Eveluation

http://youtu.be/ZWz1e1INKu4

I have very mixed feeling about the over all out come of the video. I feel because it is very simplistic video that made it actually more challenging than i thought it would be as there wasnt any were to hide the mistakes. This also made me doubt the visuals several times thought the making of process as i kept thinking i have done so much reasrch and put alot of  time into this why dose it look so plain, is it too plain dose it need more, if i put to much in will i ruin it. Meaning i ending up doing several different tests and outcomes to come up with the final one.

Over all i think the video is ok, i still feel like there isn't much too it how ever all the elements that have included link back to the research i have done so are in there for a purpose and done correctly. for example the figure walks out as if they are in a tunnel as that is what research said people experienced.

I feel i made the background of the video a little to bight of a pink and should have made it more white to give a more calming bright light effect, how ever i feel the texture i gave to it baised on my research into eye hallucinations gave it quite a calming feeling which is what we were going for. I feel the sudden flashes of bright white lights that occasionally happended were quite nice and i should have added a couple more of them but slowly faded in instead just to give the video a bit more depth.

The shilloettes didnt look how i originally thought they would look as i was planning them to be solid black figures but i think they work better the way they do now as they arent so in your face. I feel i should have been a bit more carful when editing them in as the walking speed of the main man  walks at little to fast as he fades in at the start and at some point speeds down to slow that you can bearly tell he is moving. This isnt  massive inconvenience to the project but would have looked a little bit more perfect if i had paid it a little more time. It was very hard when eiditing them as there were so many layers and effects the play back speed was very slow and hard to notice things like that untill it was fully rendered.

I feel the over all look of the piece seemed quite computer generated and if i were to make it again, i would may be more experimental with the filming process its self rather than the editing . I could have created the back ground by filming clouds and warping them to make them into a circualr shape this might have given it a little more of a natural feel. I could have also experimented with the way the person walked and actually got them to walk to me from a bright light giving a more realistic effect.

Maps and journeys - Making of the shaddows

One of the hardest things i found when making the shadows was finding a location to film them in, i tried in several different places,

• A long white corridor, all though this seemed like a good idea finding just a plain white corridor that was long enough was near enough imposible so when it came to editing the footage i had to roterscope around the person which looked untidy and wasn't useful in my project 
• a green screen room, this was better as it ment i didnt have to cut around the person how ever i couldn't get a room long enough to make the walking look realistic so the shadows ended up walking to fast off the screen 
• a black room, this was my final option and the best one as i was able to find a room long enough that was full black and when i inverted and change the colour in after effects it gave the desired effect i was looking for 

I couldnt decided on a style i liked for the shadows either so i tested several different versions

To pick one that would work the best i show all of the videos to several different people and got their oppinions, here is some of the response i got

• The overly blured one is creapy and i cant tell it is ment to be a person 
• The darker coloured figurs seem too intrusive and agressive 
• the solid grey one looks like a cyber man 
• the back ground reminds me of clouds which is relaxing , fuigre made oout of the same texture but lighter would look trippy 
• i like the one that you can tell is a person but it very faint 

in the end i went for 

as  they found him the lest intrusive and didnt question his presence


I then tested several, several different walking styles , how many i should put in at a time and wither to fade them in and out.

In the end i decided to go with one figure slowly walking from the back light and out past the camera whcih took up 2 miniutes of video, but then behind him and occisally fuigure would started walking in from the back ground but fizzle out into the light.

see video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZWz1e1INKu4&feature=youtu.be

To get this effect on the shadow i had to use made effects in after effects which hevily impacted on the rendering time at one point it was saying it would take 3 hours to render. To cut this down slightly i split all the layers up into separte compositions then pre rendered them and assembled them back into one composition cutting the time down to about 20 miniutes.

here is a screen shot of the different effects i used  and the key framing process i took to make the figures fade in and out

Maps and journeys - discription of the piece

I wanted to keep it short and simple as a viewer wouldn't want to read pages of information

here is what we came up with

In this instalation we aimed to create a imersive experience that was both relaxing and intriguing. By wearing headphones and peering into the box  it will allow to to be come fully invoved with the peice by not being able to see any thing else. 

The idea for this project was intially baised on the concept of near death experiences. Through out the reaserch process people who have experienced some kind of after life discribed it to be a calming envoroment that involved bright but not bliding lights, silhouettes of strangers and  faint voices. 

By using binoral beats and selective colours we hoped to create a work of art that could fully relax the veiwer whilst simulating this concept. 

We have decided to put this information on to a website about the piece then hand out business cards when displaying the piece with a link to the website on, this way people can casually find out more information if they want to. We wanted to use a website rather than a blog post as we felt this was more professional looking than my sporadic blog posts. 

Maps and journeys - Making the box

The box was one of our biggest challenge and something we still aren't very sure on.
We did several testes when making the box on different materials such as wood card and plastic.

We decided that wood was the best option to  go down as it was sturdy, looked seamless and over all just gave a better quality to the project.

 How ever as we are still un sure of what we think about this presentation style we have decided that for the assessment  we are going to make it out of card board and get peoples opinions on it before going ahead with making the full wooden box for the gallery.  Another reason for this is during assment we will be using my laptop for display but in the gallery we will have to rent one from stores, this means if we were to build one out of wood it may not fit the new laptop and we would have to make one all over again, so making one out of cardboard for the purpose of assessment seemed the all round cheeper/ time efficient way to do it but still gives off the same aesthetic .

As well as testing the type of material we also  tested the size and type of eye holes we should use.

here is an example of the 3 best holes we created

The small round eye hole was our inital test, it was about 2 mm in diameter but still aloud the viewer to see most of the screen, how ever it was not comfortable or easy to look into at all as the viewer had to look through one eye and smush their face against the box. I bigger circle was also no use as it was still uncomfortable to place your head in that position.

the second whole we tasted was a thin rectangle, this was better as it aloud the viewer to use both eyes how ever it was still uncomfortable to hold your head in that position.

the third who was quite a large whole but was positioned at the top section of the box, this meant the viewer could easily see the image and rest there face comfortable on the top of the box. This was the preferred option we went with in the end.

Maps and journeys - Distribution

As our project is an installation biased project it would be best displayed in a gallery. I thought i would do some research into the process of getting work into galleries.

There ar 2 main types of galleries co own and individually owned

if individually owned

1. To show artwork in this type of gallery, the artist would approach the owner with a portfolio representative of their artwork or with a few samples of originals of their work. The owner would evaluate the work and decide whether or not to carry the artist’s work
2. The artist would then provide the gallery with work ready to hang or be displayed. In some cases, the owner lets the artist choose what work they want to display in the gallery. However in most cases, the gallery owner would choose the works for the gallery.
3. At times, galleries will buy the artwork outright at a wholesale rate from the artist and sell it at a retail rate in the gallery. Most often, however, the gallery will represent an artist on a consignment or commission basis. In these cases, the artist receives a portion of the price of the artwork when the work sells and the gallery receives the rest.
4. The gallery owner is responsible for the overhead of the gallery, including the salaries of the sales clerks and other costs of running the business

if co owned 

1. Wall space is shared by the artists in the cooperative.
2. Expenses are shared by the artists in the cooperative. There is usually a monthly fee to cover the operational costs and a commission goes to the gallery kitty when an artist sells a piece of artwork.
3. When an artist joins a cooperative gallery, there is often an initial fee for joining.
4. At times, cooperative galleries take in consignment pieces and have shows for artists who do not belong to the cooperative. They usually charge for these services and provide these opportunities to help defray the costs of operating the gallery.
5. The member artists share the duties of being on duty at the gallery. They act as gallery guide and sales clerk when it is their day to be on duty. Usually, each artist works a certain number of hours per month.

Museums are often considered galleries, but do not operate in the same manner. They are not a retail business like a gallery. They are in the business of showing artwork rather than selling it. They are usually run by a board of directors or some such advisory board with employees often consisting of a curator and several docents who tell visitors of the museum about the art work. Often museums have offer educational programs that are not available in galleries. Galleries usually hang traveling exhibits rather than representing local artists.  source 

Maps and journeys - Other ways to display it

A few weeks ago the man who runs the gallery where our projects will be shown came into our class and spoke to us about our pieces. He suggest we think about using the space of the gallery more maybe projecting things high up  onto the roof rather than build a box, this lead me to start thinking about other way we could possible display it. The two favourite ways i liked were : 

• Have some bean bags or beds on the floor to create something comfortable  for the viewer to lie on. we would then project the video up on to the ceiling  and have the sound coming for under the bean bags. This all though it would not give the same experience  we wanted to create , it would still be something relaxing which evolved the person into the piece and was fun for the viewer to enjoy. 
• the second way was biased off of an installation i saw at a festival in Budapest called the luminarium. This was an inflated series of chambers with bright lights and  relaxing sounds that you could walk round in or sit down and loose all sense of time in. See video for more. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_FrthXvg1W4  I was thinking it would be interesting if we could build a little pod like this and project the video/sound around the viewer to create an relaxing environment. 

Maps and journeys - Business cards

When presenting our piece we wanted to suggest that the piece was about near death experiences with out saying it. We was originally thinking of displaying it like it was a shrine / memorial to some one by placing flowers and candles everywhere, how ever we though this would look to tacky and over the top so we decided to go with something simple and create a business card to put next to the box.

We wanted to go with a funereal directors business card or design them to look like a plaque saying 'in memory of'  with a link to a blog post that explains the box. This way it would subtle say the piece is about death but also provided them more information if they need it.

Most funereal business cards  we looked at contained pictures of doves, angles or crosses so we used this as inspiration to come up with ours.

the designs we have come up with so far are

these are just begining of ideas so they arent very good at the moment, but we are thinking to keep the designs as simple and clean as possible like this one , we are going to work on more designs before we are assessed on the piece and then bring a few of our favourites to put next to it and get peoples opinions on the best one to use in the gallery

maps and journeys - visual test 3

Once i had looked at closed eye hallucinations i decided to apply 4 of them to to light effects to try an make them look more interesting. 

Here is the outcome how how this test went - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s0uliDimBgk&list=UU5jDPcouWeP__dvr7O9Q4EQ

Here is the process i took to make it - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xeHIfEh2a50&feature=youtu.be

I think this video looks more interesting how ever it looks very computer generated and could do with some smoothing out to make it look more natural and relaxing. Once i have done this i am going to work on the shadows to see if it all works together.  

Maps and journeys - Visuals Test 2

I wanted to create a tunnel effect to make it feel like the viewer was walking down towards the light.

Here is how my initial test turned out - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g9Prv49di_A&list=UU5jDPcouWeP__dvr7O9Q4EQ

Here is how i made it -  http://youtu.be/W8hRYeINh0I


I think the tunnel was a good idea but didn't really work well with the lights as it didn't give off the same kind of calming effect we were looking for. I think we should focus mainly on the lights and the silhouettes and if we feels something is missing at the end find another way to incorporate the tunnel feeling into it.

Maps and journeys - What we need to build it

Resources we need to get out

• a laptop + charger 

Resources to make the box 

• wood 
• a saw 
• nails 
• a hammer 
• paint 
• a drill 
• camera eye cups 
• hot glue gun + glue 
• florist foam 
• flowers 
• table 
• business card tray 
• card 
• electric candles 

Maps and journeys - Explantion

The presentation style we have decided to go with is building a box around a laptop screen so the viewer can peer into it. We decided to go with this because

• It will be easier to carry to uni / store and display  than building a room 
• We want the viewer to see nothing but the images not even them selves and the only way we could do that is by directing it straight to their eyes and black out everything else around them. 
• The box itself could be a representation of death. As most people when they are invited to be involved with random unknown objects, they are scared to go near them or interact with them of fear of what might happen or not knowing what is going on, this is similar to death itself as most people are scared of what is going to happen next. 

We have also decided we aren't going to name the piece or give any details about it in the gallery, this will also create the added suspense of shall i look into it what is it  but will also allow people to think about the piece and want to talk to each other about it more than if we put  all the information about it right next to it. 

we may how ever write a blog post about it online and leave a link next to the box so if people really want to know more about it they can. 

Maps and journeys - Display Style

Originally we was planning on just painting the box white and mounting it on the wall using brackets how ever it was suggest that it was a bit too boring and we should find a way to subtly incorporate the after life into it some how.

I have been looking at memorials and church services that people have at funerals for inspiration on how we could display it.

the main things that have come up during this research are

• tombstones 
• flowers 
• candles
• photographs of the person 
• the phrase 'in memory of' 

one of the main ways we are thinking of presenting it now is to  present it as if it was like a shrine or a memorial to a person.

we are planning to sit the box on a table ( or shelf ) and have a display of flowers around the base of it. We would then scatter some petals of the rest of the table along side some candles as well as have a small stack of business cards that kind of look like a plaque that you would have  the words in memory of on the front and a link to a post describing the piece on the back.  We would not come in and replace the flowers we would just leave them to die like most shrines do .

here is a rough drawing of what it would look like

Maps and journeys - Bill viola Research

After meeting with rosie she sugested i look at bill viola work.

Bill is a contemporary video artist from america, whose artistic expression depends upon electronic, sound, and image technology in New Media.   The piece of work i found most useful towards this projects is called tiny deaths. 

Tiny Deaths was made in 1993. Barely visible figures are perceived in the darkened space until crescendos of light and sound bring moments of drama. The three projections envelop the viewer in the intense experience of the appearance and sudden disappearance of these presences. ‘The struggle we are witnessing today is not between conflicting moral beliefs’, Viola observed in 1992. ‘It is between our inner and our outer lives, and our bodies are the area where this belief is being played out.’ His works of the 1990s consistently show the body as the site for physical transformations – often through immersion in light or water – that embody these profound concerns with transformation and mortality. 


You can see tiny deaths at 2 mins 22 of this video http://youtu.be/TuD4JVFXXq8?t=2m22s

In our video i planned to have barely visible figures walking towards the viewer, they would be like dark black shilloettes of people that i was originally intending to create in after effects. After looking at bills piece i quite like the way he filmed people but over exposed them making them slowly fade into white, representing their deaths. I am thinking now to do something similar to this but make invert the colours so they are black.

Maps and journeys - stereoscopy research

Whilst trying to find a way to make the visuals more interesting  i was thinking since we are using binaural sound make there such a thing i binaural vision. I was thinking of maybe splitting the screen / box into 2 sections a left and a right eye and altering the image slightly so when it over lapped in the brain it looked kind of trippy and fun.

Whilst researching  if this was a thing i came across stereoscopy.

This is is a technique for creating or enhancing the illusion of depth in an image by means ofstereopsis for binocular vision. Most stereoscopic methods present two offset images separately to the left and right eye of the viewer. These two-dimensional images are then combined in the brain to give the perception of 3D depth. Human vision, including the perception of depth, is a complex process which only begins with the acquisition of visual information taken in through the eyes; much processing ensues within the brain, as it strives to make intelligent and meaningful sense of the raw information provided.There are also primarily two effects of stereoscopy that are unnatural for the human vision: first, the mismatch between convergence and accommodation, caused by the difference between an object's perceived position in front of or behind the display or screen and the real origin of that light and second, possible crosstalk between the eyes, caused by imperfect image separation by some methods.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AN34QUEayzQ - this video explains better what stereoscopy is 
examples of steroscopy art is 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G9W0kWW1wPM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zBa-bCxsZDk


All though i think this is interesting and could give some unique effects i think i will be too complicated to do in the time we have left whilst combining the effect of eye hallucinations into them  so i am just going to focus on making the visuals look as perfect as they can be and use this technique of binocular vision another time.  

maps and journeys - Closed eye hallucination

After doing my initial testing of the video, i though it looked to bland /rubbish and wasn't really giving the effect i wanted it too. 

I was trying to think of a way to make it a bit more exciting whilst giving off a calming effect. 
I started thinking about the effects and patterns that your eye makes when you close them really tight as they are quite relaxing and bright lights. 

The term for the things you see when you close your eyes is closed eye hallucination.  They are closely related to phosphene ( a phenomenon characterized by the experience of seeing light without light actually entering the eye.) 

They are 5 main types of close eye hallucinations 

1. visual noise - this is like seeing static on a televison. its mainly grain or small flashing lights that form no real shape or pattern. 

2.light / dark flashes - people can experience intense flashes of black/whites that can span the entire visual field, but seem to be fleeting in nature

3.Patterns, motion, and color -  the complex motion of these patterns can become directly visible without any great effort.  The patterns themselves might resemble fractals (  a natural phenomenon or a mathematical set that exhibits a repeating pattern that displays at every scale) 

4.objects and things - noise seems to calm down and fade away, leaving behind an intense flat ordered blackness. The visual field becomes a sort of active space. A side component of this is the ability to feel motion when the eyes are closed 

5.Overriding physical perception - The internal closed eye perceptions and think-it/feel-it perceptions become stronger than physical perceptions, and completely override and replace open-eye physical perceptions . this type of hallucination is harder to achieve as you would need to be in a sensory deprivation tank to create them. 

i think i am going to try and incorporate types 1-4 in the video  as the will be the easiest and most realistic to create. 

Maps and journeys - how we made it loop

This was one of the simple things to work out how to do was to make the project loop. We want to make it loop so that the viewer can come and go at any point and not feel like they have missed something. As we are using a macbook to display our project on we can use the quick time movie player that is installed on them which has a feature to loop the video for as long was we want.

The only thing we have to do with the video/sound  is to make sure the last few  frames/sounds is the same as the first so they blend into each other easily.

maps and journeys - Colours and calming

So i have been doing some reaserch into colours and calming effects to see if pink was the right route to go down

All though most websites say that blue is the most relaxing colour, pastle pinks also provide peacefulness so i am going to stick with the pinks