This is It

So yeah I am completely done with my project in regards to the sound I decided to finally add in some overtone of music in just a few small portions. I felt it added to getting the dream like or out of ordinary feel to the piece. The projector makes the movie lighter and more like a dream like state so I feel that is working effectively. But I did bump up some saturation for viewing on the projector and helped that lightness to a degree.

The installation I hope will help convey an ominous feeling towards the peace and the moving of the swings will hopefully give tension to the audience. I'm hoping the swings are not continuously on the viewers mind the whole time rather that they are worried about them in the beginning of the film then realize again in the end that they were there.

With the video I tried to get that sense of what is real and what is exactly a truth of what happened. The truth that the hit occurred is the main thing that I want to get through while the sense that everything else is not for sure. I added the references to two as a side thing for my own reference and decided against the showing of a two bc that would change the flow since the whole piece is in first person perspective.

The ending I hope would resolve and not resolve the situation since I left it ambiguous as to whether in the end if the viewer avoided it or not. I asked some people and a dew thought that they avoided the swing and the others thought the swing hit them in the end. I view it more as that it definitely missed them but then the sirens sound ending makes it seem like they were hit or is foreshadowing the future that it will occur.

I view it that you need to see the movie several times to fully understand it but so far so good and I would like to go back into the piece and redo some things and tweaking so a more definitive message gets across bc the different people i showed it to had different readings. Which I enjoy but maybe to hone it in more would be interesting.

Done

Okay so I calmed down and worked diligently all day trying to accomplish what I wanted with the project, double checked to make sure I had all of the supplies, re checked out the projector so I am set for Monday. The authored DVD was easy once I figured out how to find the program on the computer I felt like an idiot.

I will do an update later about the project more but now I am just burning the DVDs and off to other project/essay/test stuff I need to take care of.

I Surrender

Okay so this is just not working like yeah everything is just like no, no, no it doesn't make sense, I don't like that etc. So I give up and will just figure this all out later, I need to get some sleep.

Argh....

So I am working on my project here in the arch lab and it is so frustrating bc now I dont like any of the movie that I have created for some reason and am trying to rearrange everything and have yet to start on authored DVD bc the final movie is more important to finish. The sound I did decide on having the normal natural sound of the environment working on it. So that is some good news.

But something I must just write is okay so I am a TC the people that help if you have problems in the computer lab and the people working at this time saw me come in and they know I am good at photoshop and someone had a question and they asked me to help so I was like sure I will help for a minute. So short story I spent the last 45 minutes helping this kid practically teaching him all the basics of photoshop and it is like que te conyo, i basically did his project and stuff and I am tired and grumpy now and hate what I am doing and argh I was going to double check everything tonight to make sure it worked but now im just like no, plus I still have figure ground, my essay and freaking test to worry about in the next three days. Plus I have to wake up early tomorow to do actual work.

But good news is last part I got a mini monitor cable for my mac to configure for the presentation so hopefully that works.

Progress Update Again

So I have finally accomplished painting the swing sets finally, however I believe that I will need to put another coat on because it keeps rubbing off. I re checked out the projector and I borrowed a friend's computer and played what I had late last night in the area in Norman and without the added filters it seems as a ghostly image. As I stated earlier the picture and the feeling I get with it is vastly different between viewing it on the computer screen and the projection on the brick.

An issue that is coming up is the idea of sound. I was thinking of adding some speakers to the computer to be projected to add the stereo aspect. Instead of coming from the computer or projector itself. That give a better quality in my opinion. I need to test out tomorrow to see exactly how to do that.

A problem I am having is thinking all the things left I would like to do and the difference between the possibility of accomplishing this all in the allocated time. While actually working on and completing other projects. At the moment this project and my essay due on Monday are my first crises that need to be addressed then my final test on Tuesday and I am not even thinking about my two project due on Wednesday that is an eternity away lol.

Anyways back to the project I have the basic idea and order of the video done but really need to decide how to approach the sound in what i want to do is either use the natural sound and do not add much to it, or overlay a song on the entire project but I would have to be very careful in doing that.

Supplies

Okay so I just got back from a long hard day of shopping. I believe I have all of my supplies minus the connectors.

So on Monday I need to bring the:
Swings, need to prime them and paint them black.
Projector
Extension chord
Computer
VGA cable

Those are the main things I believe and am going to try and borrow a friend's computer and if I can not borrow that my backup plan is bringing well i still will bring my own computer. Then check out a converter in the architecture lab and then use Ms. Victoria's mini monitor cable. And if that doesn't work I will borrow a classmates computer and I have requested that two different people bring their laptops in case someone forgets. The only problem with this whole scenario is the fact that the resolutions on each computer are different and I want to set it to match up perfectly and this projector I have does not have an instruction manual and online it has told me that the projector out preforms in different resolutions and i am not sure which resolution it is output now.

Status

So I have been moving things around and changing the various movies and clips and am getting frustrated because it feels like everything is just going the wrong way. In that every time I move something it is just not seeming coherent. I am realizing that I keep on focusing too much on the small stuff and that I am really not getting anything done on the film as a whole. The color additive I am not sure about it and it seems out of place.

I am worried about getting the message across and it seems like the movie is shifting towards a different meaning and I can not put my finger on it. Portions of it a dizzy and sickening to look at however when I demo it on the projector it looks much better in the sense that, that dizziness is not present as much.

I wish I owned final cut pro on my computer and was able to edit this in process on sight location. But unfortunately I have not the equipment or software to do so.

I think I should just maybe let everything just fall as it will onto my time line and just work from there. To act in a fluxus fashion and just go from there maybe that can help my problem in what order to have things and how it cuts into different directions.

Remember

"Remember" is the tentative title for my final project exploring the idea of ritual in transfiguration of time. I have my footage set apart in their own clips for editing and am in the process of creating a few photoshop images to overlay with the movie.

Additionally I plan on adding a music score to the piece as well, I am thinking of a childish yet stern and emotional sounding music to accompany the piece. However, my interpretation of music is different than other people as we all relate different to it. Sound I view is more powerful in setting the mood and feeling of the audience rather than the content. Therefore, I need to be extremely careful about the way in which I use sound.

I have found my location for the showing of my movie. Again I am going last in presenting it to the class on the respective day that is mine to show. So I will try to take that into consideration, that people would have just went through a bunch of others and will probably be much more tired than say in the beginning.

The overlaying of colors and blurring I feel will be a powerful and useful tool for me to use to help get the point across.

I fully expect to want to change more things after the critique and I know full that there will be various interpretations since this is a very abstact and conceptual piece while aesthetically using realistic forms.

Memory Shooting of Footage

So on Saturday I shot my footage. First of all I did not realize the shooting would take basically the whole day. Several issues arose that the park visited did not have sand however the memory isn't known exactly what type of park so that really isn't an issue. The fact that I don't have a car and was dependent on someone that had car trouble was an issue since it took longer than expected. Finally another problem was it was cloudy by the time we got there and it was all like that for the whole shoot, at least it was consistently shady.

So I white balanced the video camera manually and I saw a slight difference and I had to change the exposure but am not sure how it turned out footage wise. This is because my cable connection of the firewire is a different end output than the computers would accept. So I am really hoping that someone will bring a wire that would work with my camera. Or I just need to put my mini dv tape in someonelse's camera and connect it.

Ritual Idea to Present to Class

So today in class I will present my basic idea about memory and that is what I decided to work on for my ritual. The process and actual ritual is what I will be showing visually and audio interconnected and distinct.

I will ask the class whether I should work with one memory or multiple memories. Then which memory to include, however I'm pretty much dead set on the swing memory bc I don't actually recall the memory but it's a placed memory from stories I heard from my mom. So that adds an interesting dimension.

The video I am thinking of would be first person perspective so this hopefully gives a more interment feel to the piece and works the idea more of memory that it happened to you and you cant view well, I cant view my memories from a third person perspective unless I try hard to.

Ritual Thoughts 2

So last night I went to my sister's birthday dinner and went home in general for her birthday and Easter. This made me think about how we mark special or distinct occasions by doing something out of the ordinary and I was figuring maybe in my score project final that maybe I can incorporate an ordinary event and use something abrupt distinct and different from the set event to point towards something important and that I could possibly use this visually or in the sound or combine both.

Then again at church there was a ton of rituals going on but I feel as if I should not use that as a source of inspiration since it feels over used in my opinion. But something that is interesting to me is the aspect of the taking pictures of the day.

Not the medium of recording events but the idea of memory and how it is that we try to remember things and how that is done. The process and ritual of remembering is probably something that I will try to explore on this final assignment but I still need to determine and think of ways to show this visually, soundly or both in a combination.

Rituals

So a ritual can be many different things. I think immediately about church and the various rituals that go on in that context that in essence every sacrament is a ritual that needs to be preformed for a reason relating some significance to people. That, that significance is often lost on people from the outside a third viewer that does not fully understand what is going on. Indeed even some times the significance is lost on the very participants themselves at times.

The question of why some people even pursue certain ritual especially when they do know understand the significance or reason why they are doing it, is something that interests me. especially when you think about it in religious terms that if someone performs and act without understanding the reasoning or what something means, does that make their actions invalid. Yet something drives the people to do these actions and is not the attempt worth something in of itself. That even though some things have ignorance in them the attempt is it not valid?

Also the ideas that I was thinking about were the way in which we instill beliefs and ideas to our children to our ideas and beliefs. To explore that but I don't wish to show that in a negative light because I feel as if people show that indoctrinating children to be like their parents is such a bad thing when in reality i view it as a positive because just look at their parents they somehow made it through live and it is the culture and traditions of them that allowed for such progress on numerous levels in this country.

then again all traditions are in some sense of the word a ritual. Traditions and rituals you can make up very easily and that is something interesting right now in my opinion.

I feel as if there are just too many ideas that I could work with at this point that I should think of more ideas and then start narrowing them down to just a couple to ask for an opinion on for Monday's class.

Contrusted Sound Space Final Thoughts

So I presented on Monday night it was interesting, a few things came up. We had to switch to a different area so my idea of dividing the class into four groups didnt work because the location did not really permit it to be done. Essentially I was trying to use the walls as echos but it didnt work in the new space and sort of worked in the old but it is what it is.

Additionally it didnt really seem like anyone really got what I was trying to say with the piece. I feel that parts were right one and others not so much. The placement of speakers needed to be further apart for people to get two distinct sounds.

I wanted the idea of difference and similarity to come across, however I didnt take into consideration that people dont listen as hard to music as I normally do that I focus on different things a lot, or it could be that I have heard the peice so many times that it sounds different to me and i get completely different things out of it.

But i digress the piece was inherently right after to me felt as a failure but looking back I feel I got the reaction I could have expected from it. You never learn if you always get it right and I feel that is something that is happening time in and time out for this class, but time to continue and start thinking about the next project. Ryan out.

Constructed Sound Space 4

So I am still working on this trying to put final touches on the piece and audacity has the audacity to continuously crash on me argh. I think this is due to the fact that I have so many different files on one audacity project, so I will just export it all as a single wav file and hopefully that will solve the problem. It has happened five times in the past hour of me working on this.

I decided to add more voices and be relatively flux-us in my approach of the placement of the overlapping sounds and have decided to allow them to "fall" as they will with only changing some if it is extremely dis-connective in my opinion. I am choosing this approach since adding the random element helps to high light my point and I feel the process should reflect this and besides I felt the random placement sounded more genuine and original in its sounding than the placement that I have at this stage.

Additionally I would like to point out that this is taking a hell of a lot longer than I anticipated to complete. Sound is such a time investment. To point out I have yet to carve my linoleum for my figure ground printing class. Hopefully I can finish this all.


To view the original basic version without the added voices etc. of the song please visit:

http://www.ryanrudock.com/Basic.mp3

Constructed Sound Space 3

So I am listening to the song I created and this is getting more and more interesting. I am having trouble deciding whether to have more chaos included in the piece or have it more serene. I feel like parts of it are like the second loop and the first loop from the previous sound projects, however the second the longer intervals is the one most prominent in this piece. So I am not sure whether to add more voices or leave it simplified.

The concept I don't think will be affected with either change since the idea of the piece is to have various interpretations and reading from what you get from something depending on yourself.

I finally figured out the speaker placement and audience placements. Essentially I will divide everyone into seven groups and place the speakers facing the hallway opposed to each other. Hopefully everyone gets different parts of the compilation and together as a group they will together experience the full range of the compilation.

On a side note it has been fun experimenting with the stereo and I might have gotten carried away with the stereo aspect but that is part of this process so I feel I am working at an appropriate level.

Constructed Sound Space 2

So I am still here in Norman staring at the space trying to get ideas and playing around with some of the different options in the audacity program. So far I get an eerie vibe from the hallway I get a dark view of it even though the lights are fairly bright. I decided on focusing on the hallway aspect more than the elevator.

I basically have chosen several songs that I own that are fairly new to me and have some personal significance and am arranging them together interweaving different elements from each. The problem right now is that they don't sound cohesive and am in the process of attempting to make it sound like it all goes together.

I brought my desktop speakers here to try out the sound however the plug is way to far away from where the elevator is so I will just play it figuring out how to place them in the hall the best I can with what I have on me.

Constructed Sound Space 1

So I am here sitting in the space where the sound is suppose to take place for Monday's class. I noticed the plug is really far from the source so I hope the extension cord being brought is long enough.

I'm still not sure exactly what I want to do with this project so I decided to come here and see what the space is telling me to do. The space selected for our group is not one in which i would have chosen so this makes me frustrated and yet happy because it forces me to do something I normally would not have done.

I am thinking of having the two speakers far from each other but am not sure how long each speaker's cord would be. Additionally I am thinking of what concept I should have, I settled towards the idea that each person's experience and relationship and interpretation should be different depending upon various circumstances so I am thinking about moving people around during the piece to highlight that.

Stockhausen Reading

I find this essay interesting in the sense of that he explains things around us that occur all the time and brings them to the forefront of our thought and helps us to realize these things for helping us to design a score for this project. The moments idea I focused on the idea and see the benefit of the division of a moment by quickly or slowly for something. In the project about sound we are composing now I believe I will incorporate both a slow progression and abrupt ones. So I will work to have a heterophonic portions in the sound.

Also just to point out I had to tilt my head to read the articles until I figured out how to flip each page. A lot of the process and technical references to music I did not understand that well and had to look up several references to just find out they mean different things relating to music.

Student Presentations #4

Anthony:
Errol Morris
The Little Grey Man, talking about spying and dressing up in a dance. Former CIA operation officer disguises. Not sure how this relates to art. So this then in in an interview format. Dull surroundings. Camera angles vary. Use where the equipment is shown. Absences of information about when certain events and time occur. Sources of information primarily from the one person. Quirky and odd. I will probably have to watch and look at this piece closer to understand fully what is going on.

Kelsey:
Pierre Hugh
No Moment, music with a scene of tv and bed shown, seems like a hotel room maybe. TV turns on. Lights up on the grounds. Music continues to play and then softens. Nothing happens ever. Humor involved. The sound and the music clashed a lot. Was interesting. Lights slowly dim to show time. The music acts as a distraction from the room and what is going on in it.

Student Presentations #3

Katie:
Pipilotti Rist
Ever is Over All
Woman walking and smashing car windows as a nature and or flower scene is going along on the right side as a diaatribe. A police woman just passes along staring and waving at woman that breaks the windows. Woman is smiling and in a blue dress. Losts of symbolism used on disbelief on the idea. Destroys the windows with a flower called the flower poker. Very feminine in dressing. Uses a sense of play in the video. Saturation of the color and contrast of the colors. Have to embrace feminitity to a degree and to say something new.


Ryan:
Martha Rosler
Semiotics of the Kitchen
This was my presentation.