I've been working on a post (for Synesthetic Superscam) on how the MASSMIND (A.I.GAIA) project was not successful. But I can't seem to GIT ER DUN. Oh well - a failure of a failure is a success. This post is about moving on, not looking back, but let's look back for a sec. just to give you context.
Briefly, the project was based on a viral email scheme as connected to a video on YouTube - it was heavily based on my project "RELAY" - the project that drives me crazy. The video gives directions on how to copy a drawing or write about a drawing and send it to your contacts. It has a certain aesthetic... Here's the video.
Here is an example of one of the original texts (the first generation was alway a description):
"This drawing looks like the headless body of a teddy bear with a big black hole in its chest and a daisy inside. A weird living thing. It’s symmetric. The body is a medium-size round circle, (kinda oval up and down actually), with four big legs that stick out of it. Two legs start on the circle where arms would be, stick out, and curve to point up. The two legs on the bottom are the same, but they curve down. They are not thin legs, but chubby round teddy-bear legs. Not long. Short like teddy arms. And there are no real hands or feet. The legs all have medium-sized black circles on them that I think they look like zits or peppercorns. There are 7 on each leg, but they don't start until the second half of each leg. Five are touching the outside line of the legs, in fact bulging out of it. One of these 5 is at the very end of each leg. Two are in the middle of each leg. Then next, inside the circle that looks like a body, there are two more circles, one inside the other. The circles make it look like there is a big hole in the body. The first circle is inside the body by about the width of one of the legs, then there is a very little white bit, then the other circle is inside that. Finally, at the very center is a little flower that looks just like a cartoon daisy. It has six medium-size semi-circle petals around a white circle that looks like the center of a daisy. It has a white stem that goes strait down to the bottom. Behind the flower it is all black, colored in to the edge of hole. Headless body with flower inside it."
Here is an example of a drawing from the project. This one is a 5th-generation copy, so it has "mutated" quite a bit:
I am pleased with this drawing, but the project was a failure because there was not enough participation. I have no one to blame but myself - it was too hard to follow the directions - they were too clunky and time-consuming, and the video is too incomprehesibly weird and long. This project was part of a long compications phase I was going thru, and now I am on a reductionist phase.
At this point I am not looking for help with this project because I have said "case closed." One of the tricks of production is knowing when to move on. But I am looking for advice on my next small project:
A series of videos on YouTube, very short. Each starts with an iconographic drawing (not a stylistic departure for me) which somehow changes into another drawing - a simple animation. There would be only a few icons, but there would be many animations (i.e. for 8 drawings there are 7+6+5+4+3+2+1=28 relationships * 2 directions = 56 animations, capisce?). Then the video would end with a few simple questions - These drawings - What are they called? What happened? What did they do? What does it mean? The comments section of YouTube would be where the interaction happens.
My questions for you are - how can I make this work? Not in terms of technique - the animations in the above video are at about the technical level I am going for - but in terms of procedure. Should I make it POP? How do I get a zillion hits? I am planning to put in a short (5 sec.) header, is that good? Is a simple b&w animation good (I don't dig color)? Or should I put effects on it in AfterEffects, the way I did with MASSMIND? Should there be music? What kind? I was kind of thinking a different tune for each ('cause I love music and it'd be fun/pop, but it doesn't seem to have much to do with the meaning...). Lastly, I think the original icons are going to have something to do with AMERICA (but not too obvious) because YouTube is a political place, and I am starting to become interested in real-world applications of the processes I am using in my art - communication, democracy, cultural symbols, new concepts of the individual. The icon I am starting with is our new favorite symbol:
I'd love to hear from you, pizza-heads!
5 comments:
And, because putting something down calcifies an idea, I quickly see that playing combinatronics with these drawings will only make them stale. In other words, the animation is a good idea, the change is a maybe good idea, but the animating every possible change between the icons is a probably bad idea.
Things I liked about the video that I would like to see stay:
1) Hypnotic circular-ness images (the photo montage segment). Can be quicker / time-compressed if necessary.
2) The professor, Obviously.
The voice is fun, but can be hard to comprehend at points.
I would like to see animations demonstrating mutation / evolution of an example symbol. Maybe you could have different voices reading descriptions of its appearance as it quickly morphs forms, and the descriptions would overlap and crossfade like those cheesy commercials where people are like "Choose our bank because -- cut to asian guy: They help with your -- cut to elderly african american: financial well being, and that's what matters -- cut to teenage white girl: matters most to us", Except in this case the dialogue is like, "It's a cool squiggly -- line. With a red -- Top Hat, reaching out with a -- creepy hand". .You dig?
Maybe it can be a board game? Or board game-esque. This is a cracked out idea. I am sorry.
Well, in terms of these game-based projects, earlier I posted footage from "Glypix by Gwazdor" - which is the half (tenth?) finished video I am doing with my bros. I would say this is "expansionist" (as opposed to minimalist) in concept. MASSMIND (A.I.GAIA), the video posted here, relates to that kind of visual aesthetic. Your ideas (the faux advert for example) fit this project. But I have to STOP doing that project because it is going nowhere, and move on to a new project.
In this post what I would like advice for is this kind of reductionistic, minimal (untitled) concept project with simple animations, etc., that I described toward the bottom of my lengthy and verbose post. Dig? If I didn't explain it well, please let me know and I'll have another go.
Lucidishly,
In response to some of your questions - while I would normally argue for sleek and simple b&w animations - since the animations themselves are going to be short, I would propose doing something technically strong to compensate. I obviously don't have as clear an idea of how it will look as you do, but I would personally want it to look difficult to make. I know that seems shallow and silly, but lately I've been getting into the idea of impressing people by doing things they can't do. Since so many people have acess to these tools, I think it's important to stay ahead of all those jerks.
Currently the people on YouTube that get attention are the ones that can employ a modest amount of editing, effects, etc. Just having those things puts them miles ahead of assholes filming their cats and babies.
That said, I think you really nailed a solid aesthetic with the massmind video.
Music is so critical. While I don't really like what this ad says, I think that funky piano is really effective. What you need is a "funky piano".
lmao!
Kedo, I kind of like the fact that people can just throw things together on their computer, that you don't need mad skills anymore. Not that I am not impressed by skills (toku ni your cool and great music), but if it took a medium level of skill to post shit on U2b then 90% of the videos wouldn't be there, and with internet tv it is the breadth that is impressive, not the depth. I have to say, videos of cats and babies make me laugh and smile, and I love them so much.
I think the aesthetic in MASSMIND is not so much "thrown together" as "a whole truckload of shit thrown together."
That said, which is better; the Wright brothers or NASA?
Thanks for your advice though. I forgot that people often dismiss things by saying "I could do that." Techne is important.
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