For my third advisor meeting, I met with Jeremy Speed Schwartz and present to him my overall design concept and asset creation thus far. He likes the idea of nature taking over abandoned machinery. The notion that machines stand for mankind’s creation from and desire to control nature. His first negative comment was that the helicopter has the look that it’s crashed, it can no longer move and we can obvious see why. Whereas the tank and the train, although I’m going for the look of abandonment still look like they can be mobile with a little bit of effort and elbow grease. Jeremy recommends that I come up with another piece of machinery that fits similar contexts. I asked if doing a diptych would be better at this stage of the game and he said that “you should consider what else could fit the confines of your scope. Drawing it will not be a huge deal at this stage of the game. But doing a triptych would offer a stronger message both visually and non-verbally.”
His next concern was that I still have no mock up of the overall layout. With the end approaching in the coming weeks, it would be a shame if I have nothing to show when I put so much time and effort in your asset creation, claimed Jeremy. To this concern, a mock is on the list of priorities along with shooting time lapse and drawing the vines over the machines. I began to ask Jeremy what his thoughts were on whether or not I should color the machine drawings. My idea was to use solid colors and gradients to create depth and simplify the process. He thought that it would flatten the image more than it already is. His recommendation is to leave the drawings completely white but only use one line type and size throughout the entire thing. It will offer a contrast to the vibrant and saturated colors I have. My concern is that they will look unfinished and out of the ordinary. Jeremy thinks that the flatness would be a unique element and is worth exploring.
During our conversation, Jeremy had some interesting and thought to provoke comments as he usually does. One of the most notable comments was one that I had no answer for at that moment in time. It was, “what is this project’s target audience and should it be exhibited after the installation here in Alfred. Does my project have the intent to reach out to other people?” He also was concerned with my message and what I was trying to say about my imagery. “you have guns and flowers, peace and war, this reminisces about what they were saying in the 60’s and how can you make this different from that.”
He also brought up my plans on how I want to set up the gallery installation. I replied with my intentions were to use 3 different television monitors and mount them to the walls. This will allow me to have all three images displaying at the same time. But I’m limited on my resources and I now am using the large projector in the gallery space. Then I will play each image one after another, as they are displayed large scale on the wall. He had two recommendations to offer me. The first was taking the projector and masking the image to the wall. Where I would have three frames posted on the wall and each image would appear at the same time through the projection. The second was to get three canvases and hang them from the ceiling. Then take three projectors and rear project them in the gallery space. But there are downsides to both he claimed. The first one I would end up losing resolution quality in my image as I will be putting all three on one composition and scaling them down to fit the frames on the wall. While leaving the background around the three images all black to display nothing anywhere else on the wall. The downside to number two is that neither of us has tried to rear project through painters canvas before and if it works it could offer and unique texture. But I will also need to hang the canvas or screen after having to craft them and will need to obtain three projectors and three computers as well. Man, it sure would be sweet to have three raspberry pies.
Overall, Jeremy had some very interesting and insightful comments and all recommendations he gave will be strongly considered. He thinks that overall I’ll have a strong and powerful piece if can push to finish it. There was a lot of information to consider in the last phase of the projects and I’m glad he gave me some great feedback.
Timothy Morgan 