stuff we need

-screens

-wood

-wire

-fabric

-something to stuff the fabric with

Screens:

We have looked a bit on Ebay and they sell some pretty cheap screens there so that might be an option, I've also been to the Cash Converters down the road but they're way too expensive! so right now it looks like it's either Ebay or borrowing them....anyone has got a spare screen??

Wood:

Christiana's dad said he might find some wood for us, otherwise I'll ask John Viney (set department) for the timber company's number for the 3rd time this year.... I'll remember to save it this time!

Fabric:

I searched for cheap fabrics and the best option seems to be going to Walthamstow market this saturday, as it seems the best place to find cheap fabric...

After the Presentation

I think the presentation went well.... They seemed to think that the presentation itself was quite good and they asked questions that made us rethink about some details of our project which maybe we should change or at least consider more carefully why we wouldn't change them.

they also suggested we check out we work of Tony Ousler....

next step is to research that artist and start preparing the props!

Panel Presentation

These are the bullet points/notes I wrote to help me make sure not to forget anything when talking in front of the panel

Panel presentation

A clear concise statement of the concept or controlling idea as if you were addressing a commissioner/sponsor

Our project is based on the idea of breaking the concept of personal space

Barriers stop individuals from interacting

taking their time. (People seem to be rushing through life not taking notice of those around them)

giving a chance to the audience to “get to know “ a stranger with whom they are forced to share a public space

How you propose to present the finished project and who it is intended for – i.e. the target audience + media

We have decided that the most appropriate and accessible space for our work is a pub daytime (Yates)

in which we will set up 3 human silhouettes with screens instead of faces:

the screens will show short clips of changing faces,

when one decides to sit next to a silhouette the video will stop on one random subject thanks to sensors, and it will be footage of that person,

if the audience decides to put the connected earphones in, he will be able to ear the person’s thoughts, and altogether having an insight of who they are freed from social boundaries and etiquette.

We intend on using people and their genuine thoughts.

To avoid the pressure the camera has on people we had decided to use the free writing technique to understand the subjects stream of thoughts.

We have decided to use real people and their actual thoughts instead of scripting them. This overall makes our project less constructed and more similar to everyday life. Instead of using actors

a) How you are going to organise the creation of the project –tasks, timescales and individual roles/responsibilities

We didn’t feel it was necessary to set specific roles but that as there are only two of us and we have pretty much the same experience it was best to collaborate on every aspect of the project.

We have already found a location and right now we are in the process of recording and filming our subjects, next step is to build the silhouettes and edit.

LOCATION

We have started looking into possible candidates for our subjects and we will probably use some of Christiana's acquaintances as they are all normal, average people with different backgrounds and living in a standard area in Greater London, plus this saves us from the hassle of having to advertise our project and it also gives us a more varied group from the one we would obtain otherwise, as most of the people who would answer our ads would be involved in arts and media while we aim our piece to everyday people.

However most of the people who have agreed to take part in our project live very far from Harrow (where Yates is) so it would be hard for them to come to be filmed (and it would be a hassle for the pub to have us filming there too).

So we have decided to go to Yates to decide where our shilouhettes will be placed and take pictures of the background so that we can print it off and place it on the wall behind our subjects while filming in a more suitable location.

Here are the three backgrounds:

dialogue solution

So we have excluded the free writing technique and did another test by simply having our person talking freely and just recording the sound and then letting them listen to it and reacting ever so slightly to the sound.

here is a test with sam:

We are quite happy with the outcome of this test as it doesn't sound like he's reading an essay anymore but as he's actually thinking and we are able to hear his thoughts.

Free writing?

We are trying to find the best way to get our people to recount their thoughts, while I was researching I remembered of a technique called free writing, so I looked into it. Wikipedia explains free writing technique as listed(not the most reliable but it's the best to get a rough idea):

"The technique involves continuous writing, usually for a predetermined period of time (often five, ten, or fifteen minutes). The writer writes without regard to spelling, grammar, etc., and makes no corrections. If the writer reaches a point where they can't think of anything to write, they write that they can't think of anything, until they find another line of thought. The writer freely strays off topic, letting thoughts lead where they may. At times, a writer may also do a focused freewrite, letting a chosen topic structure their thoughts. Expanding from this topic, the thoughts may stray to make connections and create more abstract views on the topic. This technique helps a writer explore a particular subject before putting ideas into a more basic context.

Freewriting is often done on a daily basis as a part of the writer's daily routine. Also, students in many writing courses are assigned to do such daily writing exercises".

Christiana and I tried to write our thoughts following this technique and the written part was quite successful, the thoughts are random and with gaps but certain parts feel very realistic and free, here's a segment of what I wrote:

However we have decided not to go with this technique because when we have tried to record ourselves reading what we wrote we noticed that it loses its natural aspect and it just sounds as if we were reading from a book.

Choices

Today's tutorial has left us thinking wether we want to use real people or actors.

Actors would be good because we could control the outcome better and we could script the dialogue in order to obtain a more engaging piece. However it would mean that our piece would be more constructed in the core and it could be very distant from reality.

Real people would give the piece a sense of authenticity and possibly a more unique feel.

On the other hand it would be harder to control and it would be more difficult to get our people not to be influenced by the camera.

Right now it seem that either way there is something to gain and something to loose so we need to decide what we want to sacrifice.

After another meeting we have decided to opt for real people, as we are going to present our work in a real location, it would be contradictory to present a very constructed video, and even though it will still be a bit constructed (as they are going to be "thinking on demand") it is not a black and white situation: we can have it a little bit construct rather than completely.

The next task is to find the best way to get our people's thoughts to be as little influenced by the camera as possible.

Influences: SUSAN HILLER

Christiana and I, went to see the Susan Hiller exhibition to look for inspiration (as suggested to us in the last tutorial).

The whole exhibition was fantastic and extremely interesting but what is important for our project is that we found two artworks that could inspire us to improve our project.

The two works were:

Monument

Monument 1980–1 marks a continuation of Hiller’s interest in lost or forgotten identities. The work was prompted by her discovery of a neglected Victorian monument to civilian heroes in a little-known park in the City of London. The artist photographed and enlarged the park’s memorial plaques and arranged a selection corresponding to each year of her own life. She situated a park bench in front of the photographs, inviting viewers to become an element in the work while listening to its soundtrack.

The use of sound in the work was an innovative development at the time. On the soundtrack the artist suggests there is an unacknowledged uncanny aspect to sound recording, which allows the dead to speak to us.

Monument 1980–1
41 photographs, park bench with audio component

Witness

Each speaker in the installation Witness 2000 transmits a voice telling a story. A wide variety of languages represent testimonies from all over the world. The witnesses describe the experience of an encounter with UFOs or creatures from other spheres. A range of similarities emerges in the descriptions and in the type of language used to describe the experience. An inexplicable vision that might in previous centuries have been described as a religious experience is articulated here in the language of science fiction. Whether imagined, real or hallucinatory, the testimonies demonstrate an essential need for belief in the possibility of a further dimension, in something beyond the rational.

Witness 2000
Approximately 400 speakers, 10 audio tracks, each with multiple recordings; wires, lights

Courtesy the artist
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I find that Monument shares our will of allowing the audience to know someone's identity, where Susan Hiller has decided to focus on long-forgotten Victorian everyday heroes we have decided to use absolutely normal people that are still alive but would inevitably be forgotten in time. As in Monument, our audience will be invited to share a very intimate moment with our characters but instead of being guided through the experience by the artist, they will be left free to make what they want out of the piece.

Observing this artwork has helped us to be braver and to accept the consequences of using real people and realistic thoughts, and to realize that if the audience finds listening to our "sample people" boring that will not be considered as a failure because what is relevant is that they have still taken their time to get involved with our silouhettes, we are not trying to entertain people but to make them reflect about a seemingly insignificant everyday reality which affects us more than we realize.

Witness has had an impact on the way we have decided to present our piece: the beauty of Hiller's artwork is its simplicity and linearity and personally I found it very elegant, this has made me wonder wether we should achieve a simpler and/or more elegant look for our silouhettes, however we haven't had any ideas on how to improve them so far.

STATEMENT OF INTENT

Below is our first statement of intent:

Christiana Neouphytou and Ariella Abolaffio.

Working title: Ghosts

Our project is based on the idea of breaking the concept of personal space that often devolves into barriers stopping individuals from interacting, giving a chance to the audience to “get to know “ a stranger with whom they are forced to share a public space (like a pub, cinema, bus stop or road) and taking their time to morph another forgettable face into an individual.

We plan to accomplish this by creating an installation that converges film and new media into a form of interactive experience mixed with a familiar environment ; that will allow the audience to explore a common issue –such as the interaction with strangers in one situation that has been experienced by most people- and giving the audience the possibility to change said situation through the use of art and media, this will allow them to be free of the social limitations that would be present outside the art installation.

Human silhouettes (which we will create) with screens as faces, will be placed in a public space; displayed on the screens will be a loop of always-changing faces that will be forgotten as soon as they are seen, but the participant will be encouraged to sit next to the silhouette, by doing so (thanks to a sensor) the video will stop on a specific subject and this will allow the participant to connect to the person and even get a peak into their intimate thoughts (through headphones).

This is meant to remindthe audience that by taking time out of our lives to acknowledge others, the social barrier that often force us into our solitude will be weakened.

E. Degas “Absinthe drinker”

This impressionist masterpiece summarizes perfectly the issue that we are going to deal with: how people in public spaces can be so close and yet so distant, with seemingly insurmountable barriers between them.

The main influences on our work so far are Degas’ painting (as explained above). Bill Viola in the way he portrays people’s feelings and emotions, with a seemingly simple and minimalistic style and yet incredibly powerful and direct.

first pitching

In the first pitching session we had a chance to look at everyone's ideas and I saw that Christiana's idea explored the same areas as mine.

She wanted to have a chair in front of a projection, on the projection there would be a woman and as time went by you could learn more information about the woman but if you moved or get distracted you would miss informations, although the outlook of our ideas were quite different they shared the same idea of making people take their time in order to get to know someone else, without the obstacle of social norms.

Therefore we decided to work together.

She liked my idea of having screens on silhouettes rather than a projector so we decided to keep that element and develop our ideas from there.

Below is my Poster and two details:

First Idea

Once again I found myself on a bus thinking about people's fear of interacting. This time I noticed that I often find myself observing people and wondering about their lives, however no matter how long I look at someone, soon after they leave the bus I will forget their faces an then their existence.

On a rare occasion a few weeks ago a woman started talking to me at the bus stop about the latest political news and we had kept chatting until she left; I can still remember her features.

This made me think how hard it is to fix a face in our mind when we don't have anything else to remember it by; when we sit in a public space we are surrounded by people that move and change without us even noticing, everyone is a stranger, everyone is a ghost but when we do interact with someone we are able to attach a personality to the otherwise quickly-fading face, transforming a ghost into a human being.

The previous thoughts have helped me come up with an idea for my project.

I would like to set up an installation on a bus, in which some seats would be occupied by silhouettes with screens instead of heads; on the screens there would be faces of people constantly changing and impossible to fix in one's memory, but when one would sit next to a screen, a pressure pad would make the video stop on one person and give access to its thoughts through headphones.

first reflections to inspire ideas

The first idea for my project is analyzing how people are often forced to share public spaces but do not interact in it, because they are too aware of personal space.

Having lived in Italy, Finland and England I have been able to observe that personal space is more of an issue in nordic countries, and there is a big behavioral difference between the 3 countries: In Italy people are not scared of breaching each other's personal space, mainly in small towns and in the southern part of the country, while in England people are more reserved and try avoiding interaction, in Finland this phenomena reaches the maximum level, a space in which is easier to observe these differences is a bus.

In Italy a bus will be loud with people chatting and exchanging opinions as old friends, even if they don't know each other's name.

In England people rarely interact and the bus is usual quite quiet except for the usual bunch of noisy teenagers in the back seats.

In Finland the bus will be silent except for the quiet bunch of teenagers in the back seats and the occasional Swedish visors, the fear of disturbing others will often bring people to stand rather than sitting next to a stranger.

What is considered to be a freedom (personal space) can become a prison as it stops us from something natural as communicating, I believe that not being able to interact brings people to isolation which pushes people to rely more and more on media which makes us even more scared of interacting with real people.