PROJECTS
This wintersession I focused on pushing ahead with two strands of enquiry within my broader thesis argument. Finishing one project and simultaneously beginning a new area of study had the effect of propelling my thesis argument forward. I was able to reflect on work I had done – and see potential for new places to push this work into. Within the broader thesis subject of adaptations, I came to realize there are three main nodes of interest I have been circling around in my work last semester ;
-Adapting narrative structures (spoken/written/experienced) to visual narrative structures (this is consideration of the structural, the way the thing is built, constructed, sequenced, paced, ordered, and perceived).
-Adapting tonal qualities of narrative structures (spoken/written/experienced) to become visual tonal qualities (this is consideration of intangible aspects of written tone to equally intangible aspects of visual tone.
-Suspense- interest grown out of the above two interest; how can the mise-en-scene or structure be used to communicate original content? How can visual tone work to re-form an original story?
In looking back over past projects, I see that the area of suspense moved to become the umbrella encompassing parts a and b. Suspense has moved into the position of ‘subject matter’ – the suspense as a mechanism that I want to better understand, better implement in different media and different stories. Consideration of structure and tone become means to an end – aspects to consider when constructing visual narrative. My intention this wintersession was therefore to flesh out these ideas and principles by applying them to real projects – real narratives and real materials.
PROJECTS
1) “The Black Dahlia” Book - (see link).
This book is a chance to explore voices of and surrounding this novel - as performers in a new multi-layered narrative. I have started to use the book format to manipulate the sequencing and interaction of different points of view of the same story – trying to create a typographic opera or theatrical performance in the space of the page.
This book is a fascinating challenge to me in that I can really play with a way of re-telling, re-designing and actually re-writing this novel. Through my method of using multiple viewpoints that span the fictional and non-fictional worlds of this murder mystery – a new sense of depth of storytelling might be achievable. This re-combination method also might create a new sort of poetry. At which point will one voice be interrupted by another – and what is the nature of this interruption? The audience is forced to ask: who is telling the story? At one point the apparently primary narrative (the novel) can be subsumed by the words of Ellroy talking about why he writes novels. The juxtaposition of different narrative lines allows readers to experience between odd interstitial space between fictional and non-fictional worlds. They bring the reader in and out of the official viewing frame – the novel before us. Ultimately, this is a chance also to explore how suspense can be created through the gradual build up of story and narrative clues
2) “What We Talk About When We Talk About Love” – (see link).
My main objective in this new project is to explore a different notion of suspense from “The Black Dahlia” project – both in the source material, and in my method for creating a visual language and the way the audience reads and perceives this language. The previous project explored a more typically ‘suspenseful’ narrative – a crime thriller. Visual experiments were about juxtaposing two elements (or more) in a sequence and watching the interaction between the two. Tension was created through friction – and when it built this was expressed by something underlying surfacing (surfacing meaning becoming legible, or overcoming other elements, or its pace building). The tension of this Raymond Carver story is of a different nature; it is built through the audience sensing a subtext beneath a central text. The audience’s growing/sharpening perception of this underlying story/emotional current is what builds suspense, and ultimately resolves the suspense. So in a way this suspense is again about the friction between two narrative lines/perspectives – but the interaction between the two is more subtle and slow-moving.
My intent is to create a visual metaphor that mimics this sense of one story covering/obscuring another, but that underlying story gradually perforating the surface of the main narrative line. This covering and uncovering could be visually manifested, made very physical and tactile, through the use of different media. The main story of this Raymond Carver story will be told via film – a fairly conventional visual re-telling of the action/plot. Written language functions first as the voice-over, defining the narrative line, but gradually becomes the cue to subtext. The way the type ‘behaves’ will begin to perforate the narrative surface and build an undercurrent that generates a suspense of its own.
-Adapting narrative structures (spoken/written/experienced) to visual narrative structures (this is consideration of the structural, the way the thing is built, constructed, sequenced, paced, ordered, and perceived).
-Adapting tonal qualities of narrative structures (spoken/written/experienced) to become visual tonal qualities (this is consideration of intangible aspects of written tone to equally intangible aspects of visual tone.
-Suspense- interest grown out of the above two interest; how can the mise-en-scene or structure be used to communicate original content? How can visual tone work to re-form an original story?
In looking back over past projects, I see that the area of suspense moved to become the umbrella encompassing parts a and b. Suspense has moved into the position of ‘subject matter’ – the suspense as a mechanism that I want to better understand, better implement in different media and different stories. Consideration of structure and tone become means to an end – aspects to consider when constructing visual narrative. My intention this wintersession was therefore to flesh out these ideas and principles by applying them to real projects – real narratives and real materials.
PROJECTS
1) “The Black Dahlia” Book - (see link).
This book is a chance to explore voices of and surrounding this novel - as performers in a new multi-layered narrative. I have started to use the book format to manipulate the sequencing and interaction of different points of view of the same story – trying to create a typographic opera or theatrical performance in the space of the page.
This book is a fascinating challenge to me in that I can really play with a way of re-telling, re-designing and actually re-writing this novel. Through my method of using multiple viewpoints that span the fictional and non-fictional worlds of this murder mystery – a new sense of depth of storytelling might be achievable. This re-combination method also might create a new sort of poetry. At which point will one voice be interrupted by another – and what is the nature of this interruption? The audience is forced to ask: who is telling the story? At one point the apparently primary narrative (the novel) can be subsumed by the words of Ellroy talking about why he writes novels. The juxtaposition of different narrative lines allows readers to experience between odd interstitial space between fictional and non-fictional worlds. They bring the reader in and out of the official viewing frame – the novel before us. Ultimately, this is a chance also to explore how suspense can be created through the gradual build up of story and narrative clues
2) “What We Talk About When We Talk About Love” – (see link).
My main objective in this new project is to explore a different notion of suspense from “The Black Dahlia” project – both in the source material, and in my method for creating a visual language and the way the audience reads and perceives this language. The previous project explored a more typically ‘suspenseful’ narrative – a crime thriller. Visual experiments were about juxtaposing two elements (or more) in a sequence and watching the interaction between the two. Tension was created through friction – and when it built this was expressed by something underlying surfacing (surfacing meaning becoming legible, or overcoming other elements, or its pace building). The tension of this Raymond Carver story is of a different nature; it is built through the audience sensing a subtext beneath a central text. The audience’s growing/sharpening perception of this underlying story/emotional current is what builds suspense, and ultimately resolves the suspense. So in a way this suspense is again about the friction between two narrative lines/perspectives – but the interaction between the two is more subtle and slow-moving.
My intent is to create a visual metaphor that mimics this sense of one story covering/obscuring another, but that underlying story gradually perforating the surface of the main narrative line. This covering and uncovering could be visually manifested, made very physical and tactile, through the use of different media. The main story of this Raymond Carver story will be told via film – a fairly conventional visual re-telling of the action/plot. Written language functions first as the voice-over, defining the narrative line, but gradually becomes the cue to subtext. The way the type ‘behaves’ will begin to perforate the narrative surface and build an undercurrent that generates a suspense of its own.
