THOUGHTFULNESS VS PLAYFULNESS IN ART

Brief given on 26/02/21, finished on 14/04/21. This was the second History & Context brief we were given that year, being 90% of the total grading of the module

We were told to:

Create a hot bananas episode that will share your knowledge of a creative and cultural topic so that we can enjoy being educated and entertained about histories and contexts.
1.You will produce a film/video (50%)-Minimum length is 5 minutes, Maximum 10 minutes-MP4 format OR as a link if uploaded onto YouTube/Vimeo-you can incorporate props, different angles, animation, etc. –make it multimedia / interactive if you wish!

2. You will write an intellectual blog postthat explains your thinking process and decision making regarding the creation of your film/video. (20%)-Recommended length is 1500-1800 words-This should be multimedia, so embed your final video, and any relevant images or content references
3. You will also submit a well documented research portfolioas a PDF (20%)-This is a combination of any sketches, drawings, ideas, mind maps, plans, references –basically the complete evidence of studies and preparation regarding the production of your chosen ‘Hot Bananas’ episode.

This came at very bad timing, we were still working on the Fashion Marketing brief (https://namenotfound0.wordpress.com/2021/03/04/fashion-marketing-project/), being told that it would be a “hot bananas” episode, which is a segment of our H&C lectures where teachers talk about an interesting topic and share it with the class. Now this was all good, I thought of talking about Sun Ra, one of my favourite musicians and an extremely interesting person, but two weeks later the brief changed.

We were close to submitting the Fashion Marketing project when we were told that the Hot Banas would be an “unboxing” video, which was an internet trend where people would buy an item and take it out of the box. I hated the idea since I already had a plan for the other brief, we were also told that it had to be a bit “deeper” than what we previously thought; we couldn’t talk about a subject that had been explored before. So I just had to adapt to the new brief

IDEATION

I had a couple of topics I thought could be interesting to talk about: ‘The case of experimentation and emotion in extreme art’, ‘Distillation vs reconstruction in art creation’ and ‘Thoughtfulness vs playfulness in art’. After a while of consideration, I decided to talk about thoughtfulness and playfulness.

But I didn’t want to talk only about this, a purely intellectual video essay talking about a philosophical concept can become dry very quickly; so I decided to introduce the story of Sun Ra and some personal stories to add variety and dynamism.

I was inspired by the “Barely Human” podcast, “Solar Sands” and “Lie Likes Music” videos to create this.

https://www.barelyhuman.info/2020/03/ep-8-life-makes-me-nervous-i-like.html

I was developing this project while making the Curation one (https://namenotfound0.wordpress.com/2021/04/12/curation-brief/), which took too much time to make (much more than I predicted) and meant that I had less physical and mental time to create this one.

If this were not the case, I would have chosen to make a short film/story to explain this, but because of a lack of time I chose to take the video in a more ‘video essay’ direction, while incorporating elements that might make it more fun to watch.

CONCEPTS

I had to explore each concept in itself (thoughtfulness and playfulness). Definition, examples, how it’s viewed in the artworld and its connotations.

I also had to see how the two of them oppose each other and how they can link; mixing the two of them together to create something greater and richer.

I also wanted to show a real-life example of what could happen when thoughtfulness and playfulness can be mixed. I had a lot of trouble with this since googling ‘practical examples of thoughtfulness and playfulness in art creation’ is not very productive, but I realized that Sun Ra was the perfect example of this.

NOTES & SKETCHES

BOXES

The main aspect of the project with which I was struggling with was the unboxing, I had now clue on how to integrate a box in all of this and even less on what to take out of it. I ended up thinking that since I would have to show a lot of media to get my point across, I would have to make a box for each concept (thoughtfulness, playfulness and thought + play respectively) and fill them with printed images to accompany my talking points.

I researched how to create paper boxes, finding this video:

and figuring out how to make them so I could print graphics on the cover, using trigonnometry. I ended up with these three designs:

I printed the definition of each concept on the sides, chosing the two first ones i could find in the Oxford Dictionary.

• For the box in thoughtfulness I used a portion of the cover art of Nicholas Jaar’s “Telas”. I liked its resemblance to a circuit or a blueprint for an ancient spaceship.

• For playfulness I used Matisse’s “Figure #6”, I liked its abstract quality and obviously the connotations that Matisse has with play.

• For the Thought + Play box I decided to use Conway’s game of life. A computer game designed by the mathematitian John Horton Conway in 1970 where the player draws in a pixelated shape and thank to a simple mathematical algorithm the “Cells” breed new ones or die; creating the illusion of life.

I inserted a pixelated form of a shape that I usually find myself drawing and screenshotted its evolution, choosing the still that I liked best.

Feel free to paint the first shape here (https://playgameoflife.com/), hit play and observe its evolution.

Then I painted both shapes with primary colors in a black background, using the original one for the sides and its evolution for the cover.

I thought using this game for the design of thes box was especially fitting, seeing as it’s a mathematical (consequentially rational and thoughtful) game. Also i personally love the game and saw its aesthetic potential.

VIDEO

Since a lot of the time I had for making this project was taken by the exhibition brief, I had to go simple. I chose to include very few elements that worked and made them bounce off of each other to avoid boring the audience. I chose to include:

1. Clips of me unboxing each box, taking my time to show each picture
2. A guitar improvisation to give some background music
3. A time-lapse of me drawing a segment of the video
4. Audiovisual resources
5. A small introduction of riverside footage

I decided to just record my voice since it makes me uncomfortable to record my face, using footage of me playing guitar or unboxing instead.

I wrote the script in a burst of inspiration and aimed to have a balance between storytelling and exploration of philosophical concepts; using Sun Ra for the intro and the outro.

Research-wise, Sun Ra might be one of the hardest people to get a grasp on, as I explained in the video, and I’m very thankful that I already knew about who he was and what he did so that I didn’t have to spend excessive amounts of time in research. However, I did watch his film “Space is the Place”, a couple of documentaries and listend to about eight more records. For the other resources and examples, I drew from what I already knew and had researched (for example,last year I made a full project on Paul Klee, or once I had a two month period where I was obsessed with Velázquez). The knowledge I gained from many H&C lectures proved to be decisive in this stage. I tried to use very varied resources, old and new, to drive my point across. I also saw this opportunity to share some of the art that I liked and had impacted me, like Digable Planets or John Coltrane.

For the drawing I imrpovised an ‘updated’ version of the circuit I made as a kid, reimagining how it would look like if I made it now.

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I edited the video in two days and didn’t find it too difficult since I hadn’t used that many resources, just the right amount. I also had to add a lot of silence and pauses to give the audience a chance to breathe and process information. This was the final outcome:

CONCLUSION

I’m very happy with the results of this project, I believe simplifying it has worked. It has rythm, cohesion and overall makes sense. I got the chance to express how I felt about a topic that I had been thinking about for a long time while leaving it up for interpretation; not imposing my ideas but giving them to the viewer as a possible option.

Looking back I would have started seriously working on the project sooner, since the changing of the prief de-motivated me for a week or so. I also would have liked to record my face and make it more aesthetically pleasing, but I believe it works either way.

It has been strange making a project that constitutes 90% of the final grade, and it scares me that, although i’m very happy with the outcome; it’s not impressive enough for a 90% work. But I rest assured that I did the best I could with what I had, fulfilled the brief and expressed everything I wanted to say; so I can’t ask for more.

Thank you for reading.