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Research Development & Positioning EGRD6001 Eduard Piel © 2012
Research Developm
ent & Positioning EG
RD6001
Eduard Piel © 2012
IntroductionThe work is presented in its chronological order of progression during this semester.
Some pages include hyperlinks to moving image online (vimeo) or sound recordings (soundcloud), please press the image where a “video bar” is present accordingly to preview them.
Final Major Project Proposal
A driven fascination towards research into the subconscious has led me to the exploration of imagination, fantasy and the source of great ideas particularly in creative individuals. On the night of February 17, 1869, Russian aristocrat and academic Dmitri Mendeleyev went to bed with the frustration of solving the hierarchy of the basic elements of the universe that combine all manner of forms that make up physical matter. Mendeleyev dreamed of a “table where all elements where listed in order of their atomic weight and their properties listed in regular intervals”. The Periodic Table, which underlies modern chemistry, owes credit to the human subconscious, for that our conscious decisions are driven by knowledge that often limit us in experimentation and the discovering of new ideas. As Albert Einstein puts it in his 1931 book On Cosmic Religion “Imagination is more important than knowledge. For knowledge is limited to all we now know and understand, while imagination embraces the entire world, and all there ever will be to know and understand.”
The dissemination of information is growing increasingly faster with the digital age, where the human has the ability to
experience and learn more than ever before. These facts are the basis for my reasoning to explore all tools available as a graphic designer, and however, not necessarily become an expert in them, but have at least basic understanding of how to use them. Because a project is as much about the idea as it is about the process and if you don’t know how to use your tools you can’t implement your ideas.
The subconscious, a term in psychology, which is unique to living beings cannot be reproduced or recorded in any format as far as the technology has progressed. I want to explore how human emotions and the recording of digital information (moving image, in particular) can visualise and express the experience of the subconscious. As the digital culture progresses, five, ten years down the line, the designer with the skill to use technology becomes more employable and that’s why I think it’s vital that digital technology is the medium that explores my subject of interest.
As far as working collaboratively is concerned, we have tried out three different models where Luke Edom, Tom Varney and myself worked independently on a subject of our interest, worked independently on a subject jointly discussed and worked together on one
project all together. The testing models have revealed that we show passion for different areas but share an interest in discussing ideas. This discussion of ideas has brought us together as a collaborative and in turn produced a manifesto for a joint project (shown at the end of this portfolio). Due to the nature of our individual time management it has proven hard to organise a project where we all work together at the same time. On this basis, we will keep holding regular discussions, recorded on camera, where we exchange ideas that will evolve into the narratives for our projects. Using our individual knowledge and skill, we will also help each other out where possible, and clearly state where this help has been implemented. The work we produce will be embodied on a joint platform that presents itself as a publication and also has online presence which will maximise the potential of reaching its target audience.
Eduard Piel
Presentation: Who Am I?It’s incredibly hard to pinpoint or categorise the work that I do simply because of the nature of it being driven by trying out new things all the time. A lot of inspiration comes from spontaneous and unplanned things that I say or think. As an example, I dreamt up what it might be like to park cars by their colours, which turned into me directing car drivers one day, who participated in this mass scale project. The results were fantastic, almost like some sort of dream or twisted reality. This was when I realised that I fantasise a lot and make out those fantasies into reality.
Showreel 2011/12This short video compilation shows off work from the last two years and portrays who I am and the range of work I produce.
This is my dream: to make work independently from commissions and then sell the rights to art directors or advertisers.” - Daniel Eatock
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Not that I necessarily agree with Eatock’s point of view, but I admire his passion for the work that he produces. Probably the most exciting running project that he holds is the “Thank you picture” where anyone can send in a picture of an interesting observation and the best ones get chosen to go up on his website along with his work. The status of the artist gives him power to give these, what at first might seem meaningless photographs - value.
Using the web as a source of communication with his viewers, he essentially invites people from anywhere across the world to collaborate on a subject that he explores. This is revolutionary. He’s not the first person to do this of course, but the idea of being part of a network of people that share the same interest all across the world gets me really excited. Could collaboration in art be so much more?
When Victoria Beckham was a teenager, she had the ambition of not just being better than her mates or even become a famous singer, but be as famous as Persil Automatic. Comparing yourself to a brand? That’s an interesting concept.
OLD GOLFERS don’t win (it’s not an absolute, it’s a general rule).Why?The older golfer can hit the ball as far as the young one.He chips and puts equally well.And will probably have a better knowledge of the course.So Why does he take extra stroke that denies him victory?Expreience.He knows the downside, what happens if it goes wrong, which makes him more cautious.The younger player is either ignorant or reckless to caution.That is his edge.It is the same with all of us.Knowledge makes us play safe.The secret is to stay childish.
(Arden, P., Whatever you think: think the opposite)
Presentation: Subject & ContextThe aim of this presentation was to “put on a show” as Paul Arden’s book “It’s not how good you are...” quotes. As an experiment I tried to get my view across in a shocking and entertaining way by explaining knowledge and imagination using a cow and a carrot. My argument stated that knowledge is always backed up by facts, is right and often rooted in the past; in contrast imagination is the offspring of something new and quite often wrong and illogical but a move forwards. Therefore as a creative, it is incredibly important not to rely on knowledge too much, be wrong and illogical to develop new ideas and progress forward.
Mike and Ally weren’t convinced that “wrong” and “right” were suitable to the meaning I was trying to convey, but the nature of the presentation appeared to have made a good impression. Doing wrong can often lead to being right - maybe its about that process of imagination which allows you to go off track and create something new.
Putting “active” into the researchThe weekend of Halloween. Luke Edom, Tom Varney and myself borrow two cameras, two tripods, sound recorders and spare lenses with the intention of testing out the equipment in London by documenting this yearly event.
We arrive at a party where we begin to enjoy ourselves and soon end up meeting more people than doing any equipment testing. The entire night becomes documented onto a small hand-held voice recorder. The party is held by local artists, designers and professionals. Throughout the night we make friends with a motion-graphics designer, the Sun graphic designer, a freelance web-designer, a Spanish music artist, a coffee guru form Oregon, two rappers and coincidentally some fashion students from UCA.
Since going there, we have been invited to come back again. Although we have failed miserably to fulfil our initial intentions, and dragged five thousand pounds worth of equipment to Hackney Wick, we made connections with people who are already in the industry earning money from their creativity. Making to events like these and meeting people in person is by far more important and worthwhile for potential future work than any other method.
Presentation: Action Research10:04am Just had this dream that my friend and me were on a long journey somewhere. We are going for some reason from London to Birmingham, by foot. We walk through abandoned building sites and council estates, it’s nighttime and nobody is around. A street we walk through has a big white caravan parked in the middle of it. There is a group of punks with bright coloured mohawks crowding outside. We try avoiding them, but they make friends with us and invite us over into their caravan. We step inside. For some reason we have prepared presents for them in advance. The first present we give to them is a print-making press. The second present is a large birdcage filled with bubble wrap, it’s been adapted to lock two people’s heads inside, and allow them to have some sort of face fight. After a short while me and my friend decide to leave, but the punks reject our decision with anger. They order us to do their bins. In panic I go through all the cupboard doors, but fail to find the rubbish bin. One of the punks tells us that he in fact remembers that it’s already been done. He offers to give us a present in exchange for our kindness. He gives us a brown leather wallet filled with cash, a passport and hundreds of expired train tickets. We reject the offer and insist on leaving. As soon as we step outside I wake up.
Every creative individual whatsoever owes all that is greatest in his life to fantasy.”
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Every good idea and all creative work are the offspring of the imagination, and have their source in what one is pleased to call infantile fantasy. Not the artist alone, but every creative individual whatsoever owes all that is greatest in his life to fantasy. The dynamic principle of fantasy is play, a characteristic also of the child, and as such it appears inconsistent with the principle of serious work. But without this playing with fantasy no creative work has ever yet come to birth. The debt we owe to the play of imagination is incalculable.
(Carl Jung, 1921, Psychological Types: Collected Works, vol.8, par.93)
CSS/ HTML/ JavascriptWebsite coding has been a bit of a grey area for me, so the chance to redesign my blog in CSS and build two websites from scratch was the perfect time to learn it. Understanding CSS and HTML will help later on to build a platform for displaying our FMP work. Click the links below to jump to the websites.
piel.gdnm.org
html, body {background-color:grey;}.wrapper{margin:0 auto;width:520px;}@font-face {font-family: blockquote;src: url(http://dl.dropbox.com/u/11981156/block.ttf);}cite {margin-left:-120px;}p {font-size:small; margin-left:-60px; margin-right:50px;}li {margin-left:100px; margin-top:4px; font-size:90%;}a {font-size:80%; line-height:100%;}time {background-color:grey; color:white; font-weight:bold; text-align:right;}blockquote {font-size:270%; font-family:”avenir”; font-style:italic; background-color:#ff8400;}#comments p{margin-left:20px;}#comments {margin-left:-100px;}#respond {margin-left:150px; margin-right:-150px;}.wrapper article {background-color:#FFFFFF;}.wrapper aside header {background-color: #FFFFFF;}.wrapper header.site-header {margin-left:-170px; width:800px; height:260px;}.wrapper header.site-header.no-image{}.wrapper section{width:100%}
<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC “-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN” “http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd”><html xmlns=”http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml”><head><meta http-equiv=”Content-Type” content=”text/html; charset=UTF-8” /><title>Eduard Piel</title><style type=”text/css”><!--body { background-color:white; height: 100%; overflow-x: auto}#navigation {position:fixed; top:214px; left:30px;}*html #navigation {position:absolute;}table {margin-left:220px;}--></style><script type=”text/javascript” src=”wrapper.js”></script> </head>
<body> <div id=’navigation’><img src=”images/eduardpiel©myself.png” width=”203” height=”525” /></div><table width=”100%” cellpadding=”4” cellspacing=”0”> <tr> <td style=”vertical-align:bottom;”><a href=”javascript:;” onmousedown=”slidedown(‘book’);slideup(‘book’);”><img src=”images/eduardpiel(c)book.png”/></a></td> <td></td>/td> <td></td></table><table> <tr> <td><div id=”book” style=”display:none; overflow:hidden; width:500px; height:500px;”> </div> </td></table></body></html>
eduardpiel.com soniatid.tumblr.com
<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC “-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN” “http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd”><html xmlns=”http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml”><head><meta http-equiv=”Content-Type” content=”text/html; charset=UTF-8” /><title>Eduard Piel</title><style type=”text/css”><!--body { background-color:white; height: 100%; overflow-x: auto}#navigation {position:fixed; top:214px; left:30px;}*html #navigation {position:absolute;}table {margin-left:220px;}--></style><script type=”text/javascript” src=”wrapper.js”></script> </head>
<body> <div id=’navigation’><img src=”images/eduardpiel©myself.png” width=”203” height=”525” /></div><table width=”100%” cellpadding=”4” cellspacing=”0”> <tr> <td style=”vertical-align:bottom;”><a href=”javascript:;” onmousedown=”slidedown(‘book’);slideup(‘book’);”><img src=”images/eduardpiel(c)book.png”/></a></td> <td></td>/td> <td></td></table><table> <tr> <td><div id=”book” style=”display:none; overflow:hidden; width:500px; height:500px;”> </div> </td></table></body></html>
<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC “-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01//EN”><html><style type=”text/css”>body {text-align:center;}#wrapper { margin: 0 auto; width: 100%; text-align:center;}table {margin:0 auto; align:center;}p {font-size:70%; margin-left:20px;}a {color:black; text-decoration:none; font-size: 100%; padding-right:10px;}a:hover { color:grey;} body {font-family:”Lucida Sans Unicode”, “Lucida Grande”, sans-serif}</style><script type=”text/javascript” src=”http://eduardpiel.com/wrapper.js”></script> <title>Sonia Turcotte</title>
<body><div id=”wrapper”><header><a href=”http://soniatid.tumblr.com/”><img src=”http://img571.imageshack.us/img571/1526/soniabloggifhtml.gif”><img></a></header>
<table > <tr> <td> <div id=”about” style=”display:none; overflow:hidden; width:620px; height:228px;”> <img src=”http://img14.imageshack.us/img14/5902/abouttext.jpg”></img> </td> </tr> </div></table></html>
Learning the tools of the tradeAt this point we were loosely working as a group but working towards a moving image piece, whether that was together or independently. We dissected the moving image into it’s core values of image, sound and light and explored the equipment we had access to and how we could test it. When merging video footage and stop-frame photographic animation from the same camera, although shot from the same stable position the images different not only in resolution but also in colour exposure. This is true to both a Canon 5D Mark II and Canon 60D. The solution to this has been to record a second long clip for every photographic animation. With this footage we were able to layer, mask and merge different sections of a room in Adobe AfterEffects that creates an illusion of movement happening at the same time although they have been recorded separately. Using green screening, motion tracking and keyframe positioning and scaling to merge several pieces of footage into one space. These tools allow us to create unusual, dream like scenarios, which are impossible to experience in the real life.
Experimental ProjectionsPart of learning the tools that are available to me, I wondered if digital feedback would work with a projector. This is where a projector displays the image that the camera is filming, and the camera is filming the projection, resulting in an image within an image stretching to infinity with a minor delay in refresh rate. It worked! So the next experiment was to make it portable by attaching the camera with tape to the projector and stuffing an extension lead in my pocket as I walk around the house. This produced live images of what I was filming back onto itself. Bright colours and what looks like an acid trip - a dream like effect perhaps. This technique didn’t fit the final film, however I can see how this can be improved on a larger scale, possibly outdoors.
Test 1 Test 2
Nothing will stop you being creative so effectively as the fear of making a mistake. What if the very essence of playfulness is an openness to anything that may happen. The feeling that whatever happens – it’s ok. So you cannot be playful if you’re frightened that moving in some direction will be wrong. You are either free to play – or you’re not. As Allan Watts puts it: “You can’t be spontaneous within reason”. You have to risk saying things that are silly and illogical and wrong, and the best way to get the confidence to do that is to know that while you’re being creative nothing is wrong. There is no such thing as a mistake and any drivel may lead to a breakthrough.
(John Cleese, A lecture on Creativity, online: YouTube)
You have to risk saying things that are silly and illogical and wrong, and the best way to get the confidence to do that is to know that while you’re being creative nothing is wrong.”
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Manifesto“People are just like cameras but with opinions and emotions. The camera will show everything as it is but without the human senses.”
Thanks to Luke Edom and the chance that he had the camera rolling, we recorded what became the manifesto of our project - camera culture. In this 16 minute video we discuss how important the camera is in today’s culture and the power we have given it to document events, disseminate information and capture the truth. But does the camera recording differ from the real human experience? And because the camera is limited by progression in technology, does it mean the human experience is the true representation?
StoryboardingThe lights are off; all you can hear is the front door opening. Footsteps going up the stairs. The light turns on and the character comes in.He briefly looks at himself in the mirror and then looks away. Once he looks back, his reflection is no longer there. Startled, he picks up his VHS camera to records the moment. The camera zooms in through the mirror to reveal his own reflection hiding from his real self. The man with the camera comes in to the room to find his belongings animating around the walls. He sets the camera on a tripod to record himself and goes to interact with the clothes on the walls. Moving the t-shirts apart reveals a window to a playground. He puts on a coat and goes outside.
We underestimated how complex the camera positioning and later postproduction would turn out so it was incredibly useful we drew up a storyboard. I took photos of the actual room we planned on filming in and then traced them over in pen using layout paper. Scanned in the drawings and digitally painted them in Photoshop.
Title SequenceI was reluctant to use pre-sets and ready-made typefaces in Adobe PremierPro for the title sequence. However the typography needed to stay clean-cut, so Letraset seemed a good choice. We have chosen the name “Absent-minded” so I transferred those letters on to black paper. By pure accident I scanned the same Letraset sheet twice, one on a black background and one on white. I noticed that the rubbing out in pencil looked more interesting than the letters themselves. I used the corresponding rub outs to the letters and overlaid them in a Photoshop as an animation. The contrast between the clean cut and grunge typography acts as a metaphor for the camera recorded versus human experience where one is pure information and the other a complex representation.
SoundAll the sounds for the video “Absent-minded” have been recorded separately in post-production with a Marantz Audio Recorded in mono with a directional mic. I had to record myself for most of the sounds after the filming, rather than the actor himself. This poses an interesting question to how close is this a representation of reality. Tom Varney later edited the sounds in Logic Pro 9.0 for the final edit.
Making it happenRelying on our storyboard and previous experiments we managed to film everything smoothly and efficiently.
“Absent-minded”This experimental film short represents a metaphor for what the camera culture is today. In effort to record our lives, the emotions that shape the individual experience become lost within the camera footage. The subconscious is playing tricks on what we perceive, and the camera which we rely on daily to document, fails to capture the moment.
Bibliography (In order they appear on the left)
Jung, C.G., 1997. Jung on active imagination: key readings. London: Routledge.
Haineault, D. R., 1993. Unconsious for sale. Minneapolis: University of Minesota Press.
Jung, C. G., 1989. Psychological types. Routledge.
Lacan, J., 2007. The seminar of Jacques Lacan. New York; London: W.W.Norton.
Lindström, M., 2008. Buyology: truth and lies about why we buy. New York: Doubleday.
Easthope, A., 1999. The unconsious. Routledge.
Arden, P., 2003. It’s not how good you are, it’s how good you want to be. London: Phaidon.
Arden, P., 2006. Whatever you think: think the opposite. London: Penguin.
Eatock, D., 2008. Imprint. New York: Princeton Architectural.
Edwards, D., Jacobs, M., 2004. Conscious and Unconsious. London: Open University Press.
Platania, J., 1997. Jung for beginners. London: Writers and Readers.
Osborne, R., 1993. Freud for beginners. New York: Writers and Readers Publishing.
Hall, C. S., Norby V. J., 1972. The individual and his dreams. New York: New American Library.
Milo, O. F., 1986. How to get your point across in 30 seconds or less. London: Corgi.
Waking life. 2001 [DVD] USA: Fox Searchlight.
The science of sleep. 2007 [DVD] France: Warner Home Video.
Pipes, A., 2011. How to design websites. London: Laurence King.
EvaluationThe development has been unusually unpredicatable and experimental. Although I’m not used to working towards something I don’t understand a clear outcome to, working in a group helped me find the ability to let process produce outcome rather than the other way round. If it wasn’t for playfulness, confidence that whatever it is we are doing can’t be wrong as long as we are being creative and the constant sharing and discussion of ideas what I am presenting to you wouldn’t be anywhere close in content as what it is now. These aspects of collaborative work are to be embraced and carried forward for the best potential of a future success.
Graphic Design YR3University for the Creative ArtsEduard Piel
2012
