Research + Broadband = Progress?

So, this week has mostly been spent in frustration with my broadband connection. I had decided that the first thing to tackle would be getting my head around the technology and so that meant getting my hands on some software (After Effects) and commencing the tutorials once I had it up and running on my mac. There is going to be a phenomenal amount of learning to be done on this so the process (and progress) will be slow, especially initially.

The problem is that my broadband connection was not up to the task of the hefty download of Adobe's Creative Suite 5 Master Collection (rolls off the tongue doesn't it!). Thankfully, eventually, I was able to request a copy of the disks to be posted out to me from AIT, so am hoping to get them in the next couple of days. I've mostly spent the week watching intro tutorials (but admittedly without the software this was of limited use). This all culminated in a insomniac couple of nights spent feeling desperately out of date on my tech skills and a tad overwhelmed by the amount to absorb, strange to think that some research into neuroscience and cognition provided some light relief!

My research into synaesthesia has been more fruitful and it was serendipity at play reading the Sunday Times Magazine, where leading light into Synaesthesia research, VS Ramachdran, had an 8 page article into his work into neroscience (eventhough synaesthesia didn't get a mention!). His name has come up again and again on the subject and I've found a couple of very interesting and helpful articles by him. I also discovered there is on going research into it happening at TCD, so hope to make contact with the group involves when I've a bit more progress made. (http://www.tcd.ie/Neuroscience/multisensory/)

In summary (for those of you still awake through this whine), I've realised the following...

1. I'm not afraid of hard work, and there will be plenty of it

2. I need to polish up on my patience

3. The research stage of any project I tackle is always indepth and seems slow to manifest visual results, but inevitably the final visual piece is all the richer for it.

There's a strong sense of logic in my work and every mark needs to be backed up with meaning.

4. While immersing myself in After Effects and syneasthesia research I need to offset the weightiness with some hap hazard image creation.

Despite how this post reads I'm very enthusiastic, intrigued and optimistic about my chosen subject matter and the creation of the visual piece!

5 + 2 = YELLOW

Statement of Intent

I am coming to REV with a buzz of anticipation… excited, nervous energy, eager, over eager, unsure. Wanting to start, but where to start, casting my net too wide? From the outset of the Masters I have had a project on my shoulder, it’s been there for a while.

I have been intrigued with the phenomena of synaesthesia for a number of years, but only intermittently dip into some articles found on the subject. Synesthesia is an involuntary joining, in which the real information of one sense is accompanied by a perception in another sense. (e.g. seeing a sound). (R. Cytowic, "Synesthesia: A Union of the Senses") Synaesthetic experiences are often driven by symbolic rather than sensory representations, such as letters, numbers and words, being perceived as having particular colours/hues.

It is an intriguing phenomenon because it challenges the assumption that other people's perceptual experiences of the world are the same as our own. I have loved letters for years and the notion that some people perceive those symbols with the added dimension of colour (another love of mine) is remarkable. The experience of colour associations with sound is as fully remarkable.

When I think of using this phenomenon as my jump off point for personal creative work I become flooded. Flooded with possibility, too many avenues and some of them, no doubt, blind. So to move into action…

THESE THINGS I KNOW…

I intend to explore using layering. I intend to produce work physically – using paper, ink, translucency. I intend to produce work on screen – layering with light, utilising non-static modes of communication, interacting with the viewer.

LATE BLOOMER…

I am finally grasping the nettle; for too long I have allowed my lack of technical knowledge impede creative expression in moving type and image. Reluctant to learn for fear of failing, of becoming overwhelmed by the amount to learn. Technophobic - no more. I will embrace my ignorance and use it to usher me into the “mysterious” world of AfterEffects, Flash, IMovie, whatever I need. I’ve signed up and subscribed to Lynda.com and from there can download tutorials, hours and hours of them. Any down time for the next while will be spent with Lynda (and a weekly dose of Greys Anatomy!). I am a late bloomer, but it’s the season for it and the time is ripe!

AS TO WHERE THE WORK WILL HAPPEN...

I have a loft, a loft with an easel and a table and a couch (it has a clothes horse, a broken guitar and bags of ‘used to fit me clothes’ but I’ll turn a blind eye to those for a while). So (what we call in this house) the ‘make-y do-ey’ stuff will happen there. As for the polished world of the Mac, (Lynda and her tutorials, the trial and error of Software learning, and the exploratory steps into moving and layering type and image) the only realistic place for this to happen is at my kitchen table. With the stove to my back and the garden and fields beyond it on the other side of the windowpane. Yes, my need to be always available can break my flow, but on a positive level it refocuses my view with each return. It’s the only way it’ll work for me.

I will just begin. Gathering ephemera, collaging, making marks inspired by the synaesthete experience, photographing it, uploading it, writing about it, and in tandem with this learning the software.

For now, as may be revealed in this writing, I envisage 2 things: firstly, a physical piece of work – of collected imaginings produced in their own right in response to the subject and also produced for the purpose of an on screen existence; and secondly an on screen moving/animated piece that will also be a response to the theme.

SOME INSPIRATION POINTS:

Fabien Barral (layering, collaging ephemera, using word and image):

John Kingerlee (sensory, textural layering; collaging)

Video Mapping – layering with light expressing one sense overlaid on the other (examples here by The Macula and Wild Beaming)

Ambient Motion Graphics (examples here by Tom Muller and Arian Camilleri)

Some audio of synaesthetes’ experience:

http://web.mit.edu/synesthesia/www/Carol1.au http://web.mit.edu/synesthesia/www/Karen3.au