After deciding that I wanted to focus my major project on the idea of privilege, something that was sparked after viewing Dunkirk over the summer, I decided to see if there were any interesting in my family's history. Once I had spoken to a few relatives I discovered that my great grandfather was very heavily involved in the second world war, although I knew I didn't want this project to be specifically focused on conflicts or military I thought that this would be a perfect place to start looking for more in depth inspiration.
Amongst countless medals and artifacts from his time serving in Scotland and Africa, I found this valentines day letter that my great grandfather had send to my great grandmother whilst he was stationed in Africa, there was also a reply that she had written him asking him to bring a banana home from his travels as their son had never seen one.
Finding both this card and the reply really struck me as I couldn't quite get my head around the idea that I was sat talking to my granddad with an iPhone in my pocket that is capable of ordering 100 bananas in a matter of seconds and he spent a period of his childhood having never seen a banana. This hit me as a perfect vessel for the idea of privilege that I'm hoping to depict in this project, as it opens a massive fissure between our generations and highlights just how different our lives were.
A notion that I'm really keen to adapt from this artifact of their life together is this idea of effort, or more importantly difficulty, as we live in a world where its not uncommon for valentines day messages to exist on screens it seems like nothing short of a miracle that a couple went to this much effort to communicate on this day of romance whilst living in completely different countries, during a world war. I'm currently looking at ways in which I can illustrate this theme of effort or struggle through more subtle ways that suggests this topic if the audience looks deeper but can still exist as an entertaining piece of film without this extra step.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nsg1y2ZrPfA
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dCCXq9QB-dQ
In the above videos I feel as though the idea of what it is to struggle or suffer is beautifully depicted, illustrating the theme itself but not blatantly depicting the source material, something I'm hoping to achieve in my work for this project, in whatever form that takes.
I love the idea of progression in this idea! in terms of an animation style, it would be interesting to see what you could do with the idea of an "Against all odds" theme, as depicted in the 'alt-J Hunger Of The Pine' video. Showing the struggles of how times changed is something you could really play with, and the fact this took place around the time of WWII is something else you could play with from a creative standpoint.
ReplyDeleteThis example of progression may be a bit over the top for what I think you would be going for,but I think even escalation in music and contrast in an animation is something you could have a lot of fun with.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AjXr9Nj5ZbI
You also having a thing for music and sound you could really have a good amount of fun with it, have the whole thing slowly escalate, climax, then come to a peaceful outing to show how much easier this has become.
:)
I'm really interested in showing this idea in a more obscure visual style, so the themes of military and war in general stand as more of a starting point to draw inspiration, its good to see that the idea of "struggle" is something that seems like a good area to create work in from someone else! thanks Tom :)
ReplyDeleteHey Lewis - just checking in with you after today's chat - I hope that somewhere amongst all of that hand-waving, something clicked a bit! Just some additional follow-ups:
ReplyDeletehttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salon_des_Refusés
some related words : 'misshapes' 'mistranslation' etc (i.e. Maya 'mistranslates' your artistic impulses'
I thought of a possible name for your project: 'Lewis Hates Maya'
As suggested, maybe look at installation artists for some 'boldness' in terms of envisioning your Maya output in this 'de-centred' sense:
http://mat2.materialicious.com/images/points-of-contention-by-jonathan-latiano-o.jpg
https://i.pinimg.com/originals/5f/56/80/5f56808851353f1fe834a94e5cb8a4d7.jpg
http://www.antonygormley.com/uploads/images/595cf41a2040c.jpg
http://www.antonygormley.com/uploads/images/579b210e3469d.jpg
https://www.domusweb.it/content/dam/domusweb/en/news/2012/05/02/antony-gormley-vessel/rbig/big_381598_5549_0159.jpg
Hi Phil, something definitely clicked and I'm really looking forward to creating work for this project now!
ReplyDeleteI love the name!