APD W11

The Project link:  https://youtu.be/JHMgTtoHUdE

Theme: Play & Stillness

Rationale:

Stillness, as a concept, can be associated with many things. It could be attributed to the physical action of remaining still; wherein one stops all movement. It could also be considered in a more non-physical manner, namely in the context of stillness of mind, an absence of mental clutter, negative emotions, and intrusive thoughts. Being in a state of stillness can also be interpreted as a state of complete focus. I spoke about this during my video for the week, where one of the most prominent examples I gave was of balancing rocks. While there is movement in the action, the monotony of the careful actions leads to a still mind.

Over the last few weeks, I have been producing things which are very goal oriented. For the final week, going off what Matt said in class, I wanted to do something a bit different and whimsical, just an experiment to see what the end result would be. I decided to partner up with Oneeb, as I was particularly finding it difficult to come up with something this week, and we decided to explore, through different forms of media, what it would be like if the state of ‘stillness’ was flipped – with objects that are always still depicted in a state of motion, and objects that are in a state of motion depicted in a state of stillness, with a dose of light humour.  

Context: 

Keeping in mind the idea of whimsy, we took inspiration from comic strips from daily newspapers – Garfield, Calvin & Hobbes, Snoopy, and Dennis the Menace to name a few. Often these comics played on humour by giving characters personality traits that would not usually be associated with them; Garfield is a sassy talking cat who constantly messes with both his owner and the dog, Odie. Hobbes is a stuffed toy tiger who acts like an older sibling towards the fun-loving Calvin, and so on. Laughing Matters | Comedy Documentary describes how one way to evoke comedy is to either give the object of the comedic piece unexpected attributes, or to place them in an unexpected position, which is what all these comics do, to an extent. Adding an element of humour to our experiment would add to how “whimsical” and playful it felt.

Methods:

Oneeb and I had a conversation about the different types of media, both written and visual, that the idea could be explored in. We discussed some story ideas and came up with some drafts. Oneeb wrote the two stories and the screenplay. I illustrated one in the form of an old comic strip with old-school cursive writing. For the screenplay, I adapted it into a short video sequence by playing with the idea of theory of loose parts by using household equipment, which are usually always still, but giving them a sense of motion through the story, editing and light illustrations. I also played around with light to accentuate the story.

Screenplay:

(attached with doc as separate pdf)

Video: https://youtu.be/JHMgTtoHUdE

Short Story:

It was a bright, beautiful day in the city. Rocks flew above in flocks, migrating down south towards warmer climates. Buildings swayed gently from side to side in the breeze, and the roads were filled with statues going about their day to day lives. There weren’t any trees around, save for the few towards the centre of the city. These trees were relatively new, and were where all the posh new offices were, full of pompous bankers and CEOs who thought they were better than everyone else around them.

A couple of lamp posts walked towards the decoration shops. Newlyweds, they seemed to be. They giggled as they walked in, seemingly excited to browse the goods. Inside, they were greeted by a coat rack, who seemed to be quite bored – possibly due to the fact that it had been a very slow day at work for him. Upon seeing the couple, he perked up – rushing towards them with excitement.

“Welcome, welcome! How may I help you?” he said, gleefully.

“Oh, hi.” Said one of the lamps. “We were looking for some decorations for our new living area. Could you show us a few things?”

“Of course!” The Coat rack responded, enthusiastically. He took them towards one end of the shop, where a range of things were on display.

“First up, we have the smaller ones” the coat rack started. “This one,” he said, picking up a fuzzy four legged one, with a long protrusion from one end, “is a cat! Great for just placing around your space. Oh, and the best part?”

He drops the cat; it lands on its four legs.

“They always land on their legs, so they won’t break!”

“How nifty!” Both lamp posts say.

Outcome/Reflection:

‘To see another with clarity and objectivity, one must first master stillness.’ – Alberto Villoldo.

One of the main reasons for collaboration was the fact that I was struggling with creating something for the last week. I had to calm down to find a solution and make something for the week. It was ironical that for the week of play and stillness, I was the most restless and stressed out. However, I was inspired by Vian’s submission from the previous week, and Matt’s talk on whimsy, and therefore wanted to try something which was relatively light-hearted. The idea was to play on the property of stillness exhibited by objects and flipping it around in a playful way to create short pieces of media.

While I was not very pleased with the way it started, I enjoyed the process of making the short clip with the objects, as there was a lot of play involved in creating it.