Artist Lecture Review 1

Janet Koplos started her lecture with a long series of videos. Each video started with a still shot of a wooden sculpture then someone comes into the frame and kicks it down. Each sculpture was handmade by the artist then destroyed by the artist making the pieces temporary and non imperial. The artist said if everyone's art lasted forever their would be no room to live. She spoke about how a lot of art is not impressive because of the skill it took to produce it, but instead impressive because of the long process and time it took to make it. One artist's process was collecting large amounts of pollen and displaying it many different ways. One can only imagine how long it takes to collect that much pollen, so it is the artist's time involved that gives the art value. These long processes invoke a meditative or dreamlike mindstate to the artist making the art more instinctual. Overall, it was a strong but long lecture.

3 ideas

1. Make many small objects come out of the same, but bigger object.

2. Make a confined person create their dream or goals in a drawing or miniature, then they shrink down and escape through their imaginary way out.

3. A person is creating their own miniature empire, creating small countries and imagining conquering them. After he gets ingulfed in his imagination, reality fades and he is in his miniature, covered in blood, surrounded by dead bodies, eventually he is killed by his own invention.

Social Mask

Social Mask from Wesley Catlett on Vimeo.

Assignment Write Up

The final shooting of this project went quite well. I think the much more gradual process of applying the make up and shooting turned out a lot more aesthetically pleasing and also makes it more like a video than an image sequence. I did not use traditional 3 point lighting because I liked the shadows casted on the face, it seemed to make the cake icing more intense. Overall, the final version of this stop motion is much stronger and hopefully gets across my concept of the social mask.

Video 01 (better quality)

Growing Backwards from Wesley Catlett on Vimeo.

Frame By Frame Ideas

1. Pixillation mixed with aspects of the Stereoscope. I will use either the same person or two different people, one being the inner conscience and the other the outer. The two images will have the same background but the two people or personas will be layered on top of one another, creating one figure to represent the duality of human nature. The figure will slide toward and away from the camera in a circular motion using pixillation. The figure will be sliding instead of moving itself, as a symbol that humans have little control of their conscience. The circular motion will represent the idea that this power battle of consciences is a constant cycle.

2. Stop motion of face with pieces of a mask slowly covering the features of the face. Also could be a female with makeup slowly caking onto her face. Once the face is completely covered the mask changes back and forth to several other masks which eventually hide the ears, eyes, mouth and finally the shape of face completely. By the end it will be completely indistinguishable that there is even a face in the mask. This would be a metaphor for the way peoples' roles in society change them to the point that they lose their own essence as a person becoming merely a construct of society.

3. Phenakistoscope of two figures fighting to control the other. These figures will be revolving on the outside edge rotating around a serpent eating itself surrounded by masks and money signs. The design of the Phenakistoscope lends itself easily to concepts of cycles and repetition

Video 01