Different Direction

Well... I was planning to update the blog more often, but hey...

After my 2 previous posts a couple of things happened. We (JM and I) talked and then talked some more. 2 of our talks was together with Laura Csonko, a Digital Video Design student. At first we stilled kinda focused on the Waag building. We talked about the building, it's history and it's potentials for an interactive installation. She came up with the idea of projecting cracks in the wall of the building combining a more organic feel (refering to the Chirurgs Guild) and a more bricks-and-stones feel (refering to the building itself - and of course the Masonry Guild). These cracks then react to the proximity of users and let them show them the 'insides' of the Waag. With this the 'insides' reflects more upon the historical inspired narratives then the actual concrete structure. For me the concept was quite appealing on a visual level.

But as we continued to discuss the physical (sensory equipment and most of all projectory equipment) and the conceptual limitation, we slowly opened a door to other possibilties for our project and eventually closed the Waag door.
By also whatching a trailer of the EasyWeb group in France together, we figured out that projecting on a building wasn't really technically and financially in our reach, and possibly not that interesting for us. Even though it looks pretty awesome and amazing, our focus would probably shift more to the domain of technical visual and less on the conceptual narrative.
So at that point we sort of concluded together that an indoor installation not associated to the Waag, would give us more freedom to focus on the narratives/conceptual parts instead of just the form (which is what's done more often and misses the depth we so desperately seek for).
Afterwards JM and I went back to the drawing board and tried to map our desires we have for this project. I will post this mindmap asap (or JM will).

Then we had a group meeting with other DMD students and one of our teachers (Jaap Gerretsen). Jaap had some very good questions and pointers for us.
First of all he pointed out that us choosing the autonomous path, has certain consequences. So we should reflect upon ourselves and ask ourselves if we are designing or if we place ourselves in a pure autonomous art paradigm. Furthermore we have to find to which we relate ourselves, being it literature, cinema or different forms of art.
And do we want to tell just a story? Or do we want to reflect on ourselves? Or maybe reflect on a more social/societal scale?

For now we are just trying do some fieldresearch in the field of media-arts. This Thursday we visited Amsterdam in the hope to find some interesting/inspiring art. To keep it short: we did not!
But this weekend we will head for Germany to go and visit das Zentrum für Kunst und Medientechnologie. And we did found out that it is actually open when we plan to visit it! So that's great news, ey? And right now to have an exhibition about Media and Religion, which is one of our fields of interest in this project.

Maybe I should talk some more about our current heading for this project, because we had a second talk with Laura.
During our mindmapping we also coined the subject of religion as one of interests. When we started talking with Laura, saying her that we now definitely closed the Waag door, we said we wanted to go into a more autonomous direction with our project and that religion might be one of the subjects we wish to touch. She then started to talk some more about the video installation she had in her mind for her own. Her concept, whe she already titled 'Searching for God', evolved the concept of meaning of life (zingeving in Dutch) and how that meaning (or the quest for it) diminishes as one is becoming more and more dissociated from the world around him. In reaction to this JM talked about his dissociative state in which he is hold lately. I reacted on that with my feelings of parting live. Laura recognized this as well (both things) and we started talking about our personal feelings and emotion. Among these feelings and emotions where dissociation, suicidal thoughts, thoughts of automutilation, the all overwhelming emotional pain and suffering. It was a weird conversation, but liberating as well. As now we had a feeling in which direction we want to go with our project. And now Laura is interested in joining is permanently.
This weekend in Germany, we will try to talk some more and Laura has to decide if she really want to join us, and how we together will continue.

Next post will probably be after our roadtrip.