EXPERIENCE GENERATOR
Throughout the semester, two main concepts were discussed at length.
The first was the idea of home as an experience generator. Through documenting homes, making notes about experiences, memories, thoughts, feelings, and routines that take place in the house, a better understanding of how we live, and what makes a house a 'home', emerged.
Also explored, was the notion of the home as an immersive environment. Through the use of photographs and videos, the goal was to create a work which caused viewers to feel immersed, or 'within' one's home.
These two concepts, along with a personal experience of being an international student abroad, has shaped this semesters work.
BRIEF 1:HOME AS AN EXPERIENCE GENERATOR
"HOME IS WHERE YOU CAN MAKE A GOOD CUP OF TEA"
This exercise was to bring into consciousness the simple activities we do everyday, without really thinking about what we are doing. Answering questions such as "which tea do you choose? or What cup do you use?" brings more awareness into the activity, and more awareness into answering questions about home and how we live.
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[making tea 'at home'] [Yarra House student dormitory, Melbourne, Vic] [July 2011] |
In the dormitory, tea must be made using an industrial water heater, cheap mug, and communal kitchen. These don't, however, provide the feeling of being 'at home.'
There are no memories, stories, or sentiments associated with making a cup of tea there.
The dorm room was thus, not a home.
REAL AND UNREAL
The purpose of the video was to portray the feeling of comfort and ease felt upon moving out of a dorm room. Thus representing the move from 'house' to 'home'.
The purpose of the video was to portray the feeling of comfort and ease felt upon moving out of a dorm room. Thus representing the move from 'house' to 'home'.
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[video still: dorm] [Yarra House student dormitory, Melbourne, Vic] [July 2011] |
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[video still: home] [620 Canning Street, Carlton, Melbourne, Vic] [August, 2011] |
[video segment: making a house a home]
This exercise was to focus on the use of light and sound to create an immersive environment within the home. The following were the results of experimentation of sound and light, both within the model and real space.
Lighting Experimentation
Photographic experimentation took place in the model, using various materials, ranging from torches, colored paper, reflective materials, and various other objects in an effort to examine the resulting change in lighting.
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| [lighting changes in night setting] |
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| [lighting changes in day setting] |
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| [experimental lighting changes] |
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| [experimental objects] |
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[New model of new space: what to focus on?] [consider photographs/filming, most comfortable space, where spend most time] |
Sound Experimentation
Experimentation with making own noises as well as using computer generated ones, to allow for a large range of sounds.
[immersive environment sound experimentation]
[620 Canning St, Carlton, Melbourne, Vic]
Experimenting with sound and light to create lighting states in both a day and night setting, as well as imaginary settings, was a means to learn new skills and techniques to carry on into subsequent projects, and eventually inform all future work.
Brief 3: Final Home Analysis
After completing brief 1 and brief 2, an interest in the ways others live and travel, and how they find ways to make a home for themselves, even so far from home, developed.
Inspirations:
Mark Dion:
"The artist’s spectacular and often fantastical curiosity cabinets, modeled on Wunderkabinetts of the 16th Century, exalt atypical orderings of objects and specimens."
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[Exhibition Poster: Bartram's Garden on Mark Dion's Travels of William Bartram- Reconsidered.] |
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[tropical collectors lithograph] [Mark Dion] |
Candy Jernigan:
“In 1980, as I set out on my first trip to Europe, I decided to make a book that would contain any and all physical proof that I had been there: ticket stubs, postcards, restaurant receipts, airplane and bus and railroad ephemera. On successive trips, these collections grew to include food smears, hotel keys, found litter, local news, pop tops, rocks, weather notations, leaves, bags of dirt--anything that would add information about a moment or a place, so that the viewer could make a new picture from the remnants. Objects emerged for me as ‘icons’ for particular cities and these objects became the material for EVIDENCE.”- Candy Jernigan
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| [Rome: from Evidence: The art of Candy Jernigan. Laurie Dolphin. Chronicle Books. 1999.] |
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| [Evidence: The art of Candy Jernigan. Laurie Dolphin. Chronicle Books. 1999.] |
"The Fog of War:"
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| [American documentary film about the life of former U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert S. McNamara] |
[clip: The Fog of War]
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[Some questions asked during the interview process: What defines a 'home' to you? What do you miss most about home? What is the difference between a house and home? Is there an object you keep with you, or travel with, to remind you of home?] |
FINAL PROJECT:
This video brings together the thoughts and experiences throughout the semester, and explores the concepts of travel and home, and how they relate.
The goal of this project was to take personal experiences, and compare them to others in similar situations.
Final Thoughts...
Through the interview process, it was learned that most people, no matter how far from home, or how long they have been away from home, find ways to remind them of where they came from.
The objects the travellers keep as memories of home often become treasured possessions, to the point where they eventually become too valued to take travelling. Thus, the cycle continues, of bringing around objects that have become reminders of other things, of other objects, or of home itself.
To further explore these objects themselves is of interest. Whether through collecting, documenting, and categorizing (in similar fashion as Mark Dion or Candy Jernigan), or by creating a universal object that can become a representation of home for all travellers.
Final Thoughts...
Through the interview process, it was learned that most people, no matter how far from home, or how long they have been away from home, find ways to remind them of where they came from.
The objects the travellers keep as memories of home often become treasured possessions, to the point where they eventually become too valued to take travelling. Thus, the cycle continues, of bringing around objects that have become reminders of other things, of other objects, or of home itself.
To further explore these objects themselves is of interest. Whether through collecting, documenting, and categorizing (in similar fashion as Mark Dion or Candy Jernigan), or by creating a universal object that can become a representation of home for all travellers.
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