Transitional Spaces, Marginal Zones and the Places In Between

Well here it is, my finished video. The sound was put together by my partner Matt (Website). We worked together to get something that we both thought worked well; he's a very patient guy! I think the sound and visuals now flow and create a smooth visual and aural narrative. I'm very happy with the final outcome!
Here is a video documenting the final installation as I set it up for my degree show:

I worked really hard on trying to get the flow through the room right for the audience, my aim was to make it as inviting as possible. The video is projected onto some projection sheet which is draped onto the wall. I decided with the help of my friends that draping the sheet worked better than building a frame and stretching the material over that. I think the grotty sheet and the way it's hung help to complement the overall feel in the video, it almost looks like I could have found the sheet in one of the locations I've filmed. I think this ties the spaces together nicely. The bench has the speakers for the video in it, this means it vibrates with the bass frequencies. I think the whole installation works well in that you can see it, hear and feel it. Initial feedback seems very good so far. I hope my grade reflects this!
I have a few projects already in mind, but at the moment I'm concentrating on moving to London, finding a job and applying for exhibitions. I've also got the Free Range show at the Old Truman Brewery from the 5th until the 10th of July.
I'm also trying to update my Flickr with my event and wedding photography. Busy times ahead!

Colour Schemes for Final Video

I've now made my final selections for the shots I'll use in my final video. I wanted to run a few comparisons of different colour schemes to get the right look for the video. I'm looking at the original colours, cross processed, black and white and a two tone gradient map colour scheme. Here's a short video I made, just to view the images side by side:

The original colours are quite flat and boring, I feel they lack a certain visual punch to create a more interesting image. I love the cross processed shots; the contrast is increased and the colours have been enhanced to look sharper and more saturated. The black and white images have good contrast, but I feel that some of the details within the imagery are lost because they need colour to pick them out. This is the same problem I have with the gradient map images. Ultimately I feel the black and white and gradient map visuals are too unrealistic, they cause the viewer to question what they are seeing because it seems unreal, whereas I would rather an audience recognise the images and place themselves mentally in the scenes. For this reason I have chosen to use the cross processed technique to colour my shots for the final video. I will attempt to arrange them so that there is a good visual flow between shots as there will be no narrative. Sound is also something I will start to experiment with now, although there will be no real way to document the process on this blog. So far my ideas are to have an ambient instrumental soundtrack that is as subtle as the visuals. I'm hoping they will compliment and work together seamlessly.

Different Spaces

So recently I've been exploring different types of spaces and placing them alongside each other to observe how they interact and come together.
Some of these spaces are things I've explored before; Dead space; Living space, but I've been thinking about other types of spaces alongside these lately; Real space (natural, outdoor scenery) and Marginal space (areas that are as yet undefined, in the middle of their transition from one type of place to another.
Anyway I've been exploring these spaces individually so far and I'm now starting to review the footage to see what works and what doesn't. I've already started to feel some of the types of spaces I've been investigating are dead ends and kind of boring to be honest!
Here are some short summaries so far:
Dead Space:

Living space:

Real space:

Marginal space:

Time Window

The below video is a proof of concept I've been thinking of where I'm trying to bring two different times together, instead of many spaces. I like the idea of setting this up outside and using the projection screen as a sort of window. For instance I would go to a location during the day and return at twilight and project the earlier image into the landscape.
In my initial proof of concept I tried to make sure the screen and the video would line back up into the scene with the use of the ever magical gaffer tape to mark object places, I think I managed this quite well, but it seems that the lens curvature from my camera will be an issue until I can figure out at what focal length the image becomes flat again.
Here is the proof of concept video I made anyway:



The scenes that didn't line up become really obvious when there is a strong visual reference, for example the door in the hallway. I do like the way people step through each window, I think that could be quite interesting.
As much as I like this idea I'm a bit wary of doing something with time, the subject has been explored so thoroughly I'm not sure how I could add a new perspective. I have begun to think more about how to present my videos in a more interesting way. Soon I may show the results of projecting through things like dry ice and fog and haze, exciting times!

This Place Meant

The following video is the culmination of my recent ideas of displacing a living room set up into the outside setting. I'm not really sure if I meant it to be as apocalyptic as it turned out, but I like the sort of lonely quality it has. I projected this video into my studio space as part of our final assessment for Semester A



This week I'm moving on to start producing plans and maybe even building a projection screen that I can take outside. I'm also looking into generators that can run a projector.

Update

So it's been a long time again between posts mainly due to the stressful dissertation period in December and obviously Christmas and new year, but now I'm crashing straight back in to prepare for my upcoming assessment next week.
My ideas have developed and changed a lot since my last posts. I started to think about the types of spaces present in my work and come up with ways to name these and work with them. In relation to previous work I've been referring to the set up of an armchair and a TV as created space, for obvious reasons, the video being projected I have been calling Recorded space, (this is all on top of exploring the relationship between Living space and Dead space). From this I started to think about more spaces I could bring into the work, or even bring the work to and so I came to the idea of exploring my work as an installation out in the open air (Real space).
At the moment I'm drawing heavily from the film The Wall, where one scene shows a man seemingly watching a TV outside and also looking into the artist Rune Guneriussen, whose photographs show inanimate objects outside in the environment, i.e. lamps and chairs.
These inspired me to create the following set of images:

I love the way the light comes out from the portable TV in these images and the surreal look of an actual living room set up outside in the middle of a field. I like the idea of displacing space like this.

Hospital Videos

Well when I said I'll post footage shortly clearly I was lying, oops!
I've got another static video which I recorded of a window at the site which I think gives off that air that you see from films like 28 days later, whenever I watch it I expect to see something out the window...

The other footage I collected at the site was recording my journey into each building as I went in for the first time, so all of them are pretty loose and quick mainly because I was trying to keep in front of my fellow explorers so they weren't in shot! I've picked out 2 I like for projection.


Next time I go back I'm going to try and get some more detail in the shots, so move slower basically!