For my conference project I attempted to develop a system out of my Blackspace project. Unfortunately, I don’t think I was successful. Beyond the lingering presence of what I felt was only a semi-system in the original, a system of meaning-making for the viewer, there was not much in particular that I could grab onto as of a “systems aesthetic” in this piece. However, I am very satisfied with what I accomplished visually. I also think that there are some strong directions laid out for me to move in and many potentials for systems development given due time.
My first attempt to develop the project was in experimenting with text layout. I looped text in columns or large arrays overlaying the video. I actually did like the sort of graphic quality produced in these large arrays. Words became less legible and more like patterns, though still clearly within the realm of text. I also liked the way the dancers’ bodies were distorted seen through the text. However I wanted there to be some legibility over the course of the piece. Essentially I wanted to explore how the meaning of singular words could color an image, could almost subliminally undertone a viewer’s experience of image and also, importantly, of movement.
Later in the process I decided to experiment with pixels. I wanted pixel data from the video to be read by the text and for the text to respond to particular pixels in the image. My vision was for the video to be read through the shifting colors of a text array, broken up by the form of the words, but the words also acting as windows onto the movement. As the video was of two dancers, two moving bodies (my parents), I wanted to produce literal bodies of text. I succeeded in getting text to dynamically read pixel-color data, yet only at one fixed point, so I could not produce an array of text for the whole video to bee seen through as I had hoped. I think I could get there with more time, though. Hopefully in the future I can continue with this idea.
Ultimately I decided to use transparency as a technically simpler method of producing the aforementioned effect. I created a dense, low-alpha noise-field of text on top of the video, which itself had a low alpha value, making each frame ghost atop the last. The text then provided a sort of cell-structure for the faintness of the low-alpha video to “hang onto.” As new words were randomly grabbed from the text array, this cell-structure shifted, producing slightly different visual qualities. I found this visual effect quite beautiful and therefor wanted to linger on the colors and forms produced. To achieve this, I decided to slow the video down quite a lot, to .02 of its normal speed. Also, to maintain that slight legibility of text, I made a sort of margin of opaque text on the left-hand side of the screen, displaying what word the dancer’s bodies were being “seen-through” at any given moment.
Overall I’m quite satisfied with the piece, but I think there is still room to play with the relationship of legible to illegible text. I also want to work the pixel-color reading function of my previous sketches with this one in order to create an even more complex play of color, form, movement, and language. I’m excited about where this project could go. In general, though, I’m excited about using language more often in my digital projects, because writing is a real love of mine.
