Bethany Wood's Online Sketchbook
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Transcript of Bethany Wood's Online Sketchbook
My Online Sketchbook By Bethany Wood
Homework for January 13 A photo of significance:
Questions on the Image
Why This Image? Because it is a postcard that i got when visiting the place i was born: Cambridge,
England. After moving to Canada when i was 9, I still have a strong connection to where I am from. That is why I chose this image because I strongly identify with it.
Is it specific or a metaphor? This is specific to my identity, but can also be a general representation of me as a
person because it is not simply a photo of myself it is a general image. What mood does it convey?
The mood evokes wanderlust, as people who collect postcards often have a yearning to travel the world and see new places. For me at least, the mood is adventurous and
excited to explore another culture Who is the audience for the story?
The audience would be anyone who has a general interest in me or my origins. I would enjoy telling this story at a dinner party or after meeting someone for the first time.
How do we enter the story? The person enters the story through a state of voyeurism, as they are living vicariously through another person and their experiences. The person being told this story would have to have a talent for imagining a place as i describe it as the photo only gives a
small fragment of the story.
Snapshot Story January 13 Concept Brief An autobiographical story behind a postcard from Cambridge, England. I explain My families move to England last year, and the culture shock that came from experiencing to very different places. I express how I feel about the situation and why this is important to my family, and it turn, why this postcard is important to me as a person. I have appreciation for both countries because of this.
Script: In order to keep this as genuine as possible a formal script has not been written, instead I kept the honesty of my story by telling it as it came to my mind. I explained my heritage, followed by a comparison between Canada and England, and I finished with why I am lucky to have been in both countries. To have a script would have made the execution of the storytelling less dynamic.
Video Narrative January 20
Concept Brief: To exaggerate the boring and repetitive action of making food every day. The end result is the only real excitement in the cooking process. This is to be a long winded video that inspires the viewer to desperately want something exciting to happen during the cooking process. When the food is finally ready after several minutes of mundane chatter and activity, and the food is about to be presented the character drops the food and it cuts to credits. All with a background song to juxtapose the mood.This video will be captured entirely in one shot with no cuts or breaks. Story Board:
Script: Once again, the script for this video is entirely improvised to maintain the boring and mundane breakfast chatter. The script is not supposed to take up any special place in this video, as it has to be as boring as possible. If there were a proper script for this, then the entire video would become about the dialogue, as that would be the
most entertaining part. The choice to not make a formal script and keep it improvised was a good choice for this video.
Imaginary Landscape January 27
Concept Brief for “A Natural Airport”
A few weeks ago I was by myself , and travelling home after my Christmas
vacation in England. Much to my displeasure, the flights were cancelled and
overbooked by the time i reached my connecting flight in Chicago, meaning i had to wait
18 hours overnight until the next possible flight out of there. All of this really opened my
eyes to how unpleasant airports are: there's the constant chatter of crowds, the wide
variety of announcements for flights, and the distant noises of aircrafts leaving and
landing. This clinical and industrial environment can make for quite a headache, so for
my project I am to offer a manipulation of that. Nature has always been a place where
people can retreat, and clear their mind. Therefore, my soundscape has combined both
environmental sounds of an airport and a nature hike the cement walls and tile floors
are taken away and replaced with crunching leaves and birds chirping. This is entirely
imaginary, yet somewhat hopeful: for I am sure that no person would object to such an
environment while travelling.
This environment has a realist approach to it while still retaining the bizarre
“impossible” element. The most important characteristics represented here are the class
between industrial noises and nature, and how they have bonded together into a bizarre
yet believable experience. The editing I have used is quite basic, with layering my own
crunching footsteps upon borrowed sounds from the internet: such as birds and airport
announcements. The basic sound combinations work well with this fake environment
because it takes away its falseness and gives it a lifelike quality. The aim of this
soundscape is to give the listener a vision of what they are hearing: the airport floor is a
forest floor, and instead of a glass and brick terminal the person can see birds in the
trees and is surrounded by a boreal forest. It is important to retain a realistic approach
here, as it is constructing an unfamiliar familiarity.
Constrained Writing February 3 Poem #1 Constrained writing with two syllable words only: “Today and Tomorrow” Window Outside Watching Woman Walking Beagle Daily Study Working Fingers Holding Pencil Happy Dinner Making Pasta Noodles Peppers Cozy Evening Sitting Netflix Sweater Sleeping Morning Sunshine Early Window Outside Watching Poem #2 Constrained writing using only the letter F: “Bird learning to Fly” Feathers Frequent Flyer Forever Flapping Farther Faster Faster Floating Fizzing Foaming Feather Flapping Faster Flaming Flocking Funny Furrowed Flattening Fluttering Falling Frozen Frosting Fuming Forceful Falling Fearing Forsaken Foregone Functionless Fallen
Poem #3 Constrained Writing using two letter nouns arranged in specific Alphabetical Order: “Pleasantville” Aa Ae Ag Ai Ar Aw Ay Ba Da De Ed Ef Eh Em En Er Et Ex Fa Fe Gi Hm Ho Id Jo Ka Ki Lo Mi Mm Mu Na Ne Nu Od Oe Oi Om Op Os Oy Pe Pi Qi Re Sh Se Ta Ti Ut Wo Xi Xu Ya Za Poem #4 Constrained writing using almost entirely names of colours and fruit: “Slim Pickings” We came for Yellow Melon Lemon and Purple Apple Peaches Orange Grapefruit Tangerine with Red DesertFig Grape Honeydew Honeysuckle Huckleberry and Pink Pineapple Pecan Pears Salmon Sea Grape with Watermelon White Thimbleberry but no Black Breadnut Bush Tomato with Canary Melon and Cluster Fig Cape Gooseberries and Blue Dragon Fruit
Guava Juniper Berry and Lardizabala Today we feast.
Video Poem February 24
“Pleasantville” Concept Brief
For this assignment I had experimented with a variety of constrainments in my poems. Not being a natural poet this allowed me to explore which approach appealed to me the greatest. The result was absurdist poetry, in which the meaning for me is only one of the many meanings that a person may conclude. The poem that stood out as the most absurd of meaning was my third poem: Pleasantville. I named it this because it reminded me of a fake language that would be used in an orderly and makebelieve society. However, when I was thinking of ideas the meaning of it changed for me, these one syllable words reminded me of the first sounds a baby makes, an uplifting sound, something simple and relaxing. From this point I decided to use photos of an animal, in this case, my feline friend. Animals don’t use language, which made sense for this poem because it is more of a mental language rather than a verbal one. As I followed this cats actions the poem’s language matched the absurd rolling and tossing that this cat would display. To further this soothing animal aesthetic paired with gentle and short wording of the poetry, the colour blue seemed like an appropriate colour. Blue is the colour of water and sky, both places of mystery and refuge. Blue seemed to match the versatility of meaning for my poem and video. Rather than filming this cat all at once and pasting the poetry over top, I found it more interesting to use film stills that I collected over the week, as they have the same stagnant rhythm as the words of the poem. Lastly, to tie this video in together, the presence of music helped ease this video along. This is a copyrightfree song used for meditation and relaxation, it is from a website that offers free music for the average person aiming to improve their focus. I thought that this music was both calming and energizing. As my poem and video aesthetic have the aim of calming and soothing with this babylike nonsensical language, the use of such fluid music was important to tie it all together. As this was my first time doing poetry I hope that I achieved as least half of what I was aiming for. I hope that this video is calming and comforting to the viewer, and I hope that the poem itself is versatile to fit any number of meanings.
Interactive Artist Map March 3
Concept Brief:
For this assignment I planned on making a “map” of the United States, but it would go beyond the convention of a regular map within each state there would have been the word and stereotype that Canadians and the rest of Western culture think of when they think of that state. For example for Florida there would have been handcuffs to represent the corrupt police force that plagues the sunshine state, Montana would have had a lasso to represent the alleged “cowboys”, and Virginia would have had a picture of Pocahontas as Virginia was colonized by the British, and a named after the Queen. This would have continued all over the map 51 stereotypes for the 51 states though I might have left out Alaska, as it is not geographically concise with the rest of America.
Furthermore, the states that have the highest populations would have lit up, because those states are the ones that attract the most attention, and are more so “on the map” compared to the rest of America. When we think of America, we think of California, New York, Washington, Texas, Michigan, Georgia, and Kentucky, so I would have definitely lit those states up. Though this may have seemed like a conventional map it would have been far from it, as the map is being used to convey the abstract idea that America is split up into small countries just as Europe is. Each state can be a stand alone culture as much as it belongs to a greater whole.
The map would have also been painted and drawn, as this is a medium I am familiar with, and it would achieve the best results. About 5 lights would have been used for the 5 most “important” states.
Manifesto Assignment March 10
No concept Brief Required
StoryBoard:
Interactive 3D Object March 24
Sketches and Planning: Light up Sun With LED light sensor inside, Lights up when it is Pushed, as the switch is located inside as well.
Open Project Proposal
For the open project I am planning on using video in conjunction with an object. I
have always been interested in abstraction, and the allowance of video for this
assignment opened various possibilities with light and colour. I was especially inspired
by the concept of a video being projected onto an object and interacting with it in some
way to achieve an artistic purpose.
Since my idea is based around abstraction, i was thinking of using a fan to move
a piece of fabric (that i have artistically manipulated) in which a video i have made is
projected upon. I feel as though this project should be large scale, and I intend to use
an extensive amount of colour and vibrancy along with copyright free music to enhance
the mood of the overall piece.
The fan I use will be hidden from sight, i do not intend the fan itself to be an
integral part of the work, but more so the movement it creates between my fabric based
object and the video projected upon it. I want this project to be as successful as
possible, so maintaining the simplicity in my materials will allow me to have a
presentation free from disturbances.
My inspirations for this assignment were heavily based off of collage video, which
can be found on sites such as vimeo. The artist will compile a series of artistic shots
together and exhibit them just as a collage would be. These are heavily fragmented
works, and require accompanying sounds to give the video’s cohesion. For this video I
was planning on using my own sounds, something similar to the soundscapes we made
earlier in the year.
Overall i hope this assignment will help me incorporate the things that i enjoyed
the most about this class over the course of the semester. I will use the skills that i
acquired with audacity with the soundscape, along with my video making, collage
making, and abstract interactive movement. I intend the finished product to be both
aesthetically pleasing and something original that I have made entirely on my own.
Open Project Images for Video
Just a few images I have been working with for the Open Project: The video i am using on my interactive object is located in the OWL dropbox!!