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Assignment 2 - 08.02.2023
Ideation for the Portrait Assignment
Title: Untitled
By Elif Ergin and Mary Mark
Subject: people who are trapped in buildings that collapsed during the Turkish earthquake sequence.
Context: on February 6, 2023 two major earthquakes struck Southern Turkey 9 hours apart, followed by thousands of aftershocks. These earthquakes caused extreme and widespread damage across tens of cities, with more than 5,000 deaths (and unfortunately counting), over 16,000 injuries and many more people trapped under the ruins waiting for the rescuers who may never come. Millions of people have been affected and hundreds of thousands left without shelter, unable to go home in the freezing temperatures. The situation is still rapidly evolving with the entire nation uniting during these critical first days following the disaster.
Concept: this work is a portrait of the people who are disappearing (as we speak), trapped under the rubble of the collapsed buildings.
Setting + composition: the portrait will comprise of a clock and a video projection on top. The clock will represent the first critical 3 days that the search and rescue crews and volunteers have to rescue people alive, after which the survival rates drop drastically. The video will start with the chaos that follows an event like this. The visual elements will feature satellite imagery before/after the event (https://euspaceimaging.filecamp.com/s/o/wktNWKq9NyZ4zuut), drone footage showing the damage, audio from the footage of collapsing cities and twitter videos, and finally the twitter feed in the first 3 days with the hashtags #hatay, #deprem, #ahbap, #depremOldu. Over time, the audio will fade out, and the clock and video will slow down to a complete stop. Then Elif will walk up to the clock and rip the clock arm off representing the insignificance of time after a certain point. Even though time keeps passing by, the lives that are lost are frozen in time and the clock doesn’t matter anymore.
Fabrication: The clock will be made from cardboard and spray painted black, and the clock arm will be rotated by a DC motor. A button will trigger the video and motor using an arduino and TouchDesigner. The clock arm will be removable and its material is TBD. The motor will eventually slow down and ultimately stop.
Assignment 1 - 01.02.2023
Rescued Chandeliers
Light defines how we see everything and if one can learn to manipulate it, they can evoke powerful emotions and reactions. But how easy is it to control and work with light when it is such an intangible medium?
This assignment was my experiment in working with light for the first time. It was also a design challenge as I had less than a day to create the sculpture.
I started thinking about how different light can show the many sides of an object - we commonly see this in photography and paintings. But how can different objects be used to show the different sides on light?
I decided to answer this question by using a flashlight and objects that I found on the junk shelf, to see the different sensations and emotions light would evoke in combination with these objects. I settled on four objects that people have abandoned:
I attached each of the object to the end of a flashlight creating a sort of ‘chandelier’. Then I hang it in a dark, human-sized box and spun it to observe the resulting movement and feeling.
1. Transparent plastic lid with reflective stripes
I was very excited for this item, but it ended up resulting in a more underwhelming pattern than I expected. While the spinning chandelier itself was very beautiful, the patterns did not show up as clearly. I mostly saw a stripe pattern, which was made by the change in thickness of the plastic cover rather than the reflective stripes. The light felt like objects zooming by as you look out of the car window; not the disco party I was expecting.
https://youtube.com/shorts/cJu9M3lPQgU?feature=share
https://youtube.com/shorts/cJu9M3lPQgU?feature=share
2. Plastic foam cube
This chandelier created a pleasant diffused light, but did not have much movement or dynamic patterns. It was pleasant to look at and drew you into the light like a fly, but the interaction was very limited.
https://youtube.com/shorts/BXkHMc2Q-LA
3. The butter churn
The butter churn-like object was made out of small wood slats and mad an interesting geometrical pattern on the ground when the chandelier spun. Due to the material and the way the light penetrated the object it had an antique, Russian Banya (sauna) feel to it.
https://studio.youtube.com/video/ijN4WxEeyJM/edit
4. The Presence
The last object was a beautiful mask with protruding colorful pieces of wood -- it was really a treasure find on the junk shelf. It immediately gave the light sculpture a personality, as if there was an ominous presence with you. It also created very dynamic light shadows as the mask spun.
This light sculpture had two different feelings depending on how you observed it, at eye-level or from below. The first, eye-level, felt like an intimate conversation with the Presence, while observation from below gave an overpowering, commanding vibe.
Further Ideation
