View project in motion at Dynamic Pages Video
Project Statement
This diptych of paper mechanisms is a nonobjective representation of the instrumental of “She” by Harry Styles. My main goal of my piece was to make my mechanism, a paper iris shutter, convey the feeling of the music, not only visual, but in function as well. The iris shutter first obstructs the viewer from experiencing the mechanism behind, but open opening it fades into the background of the viewers focus. This is representative of the bass and drums of the instrumental; throughout the music they make way for the focal melody. The pieces interact with each other’s space, to further show the close relationship between them, and how one would not be the same without the other; the bass would be repetitive and bland, while alone the melody would be shallow. To demonstrate the contrasting but complimentary feelings of the instrumental, newspaper is a shared material, to show the connection between the two lines of music. The paper iris shutter can be unpredictable, functioning smoothly at one moment and sticking the next. The material influenced its usability as well, shifting from paper to Bristol to cardstock, including the newspaper to emphasize our concept. This led to many iterations and prototypes of the design, to create a dependable iris shutter that can open and shut as the music swells, tying the visual and auditory experiences together more cohesively.
Process
View detailed process at Dynamic Pages: Process
Reflection
Working with paper in this way was invigorating, but hard. I met the challenges of functionality happily and am proud to have a working paper iris shutter. Rather than pasting the newspaper onto the blades, in the future I believe the iris shutter would function more consistently if I were to print newspaper print out on stable cardstock or Bristol. This would help me avoid the layers getting caught on one another and preventing the iris shutter from opening or closing. Our piece as a whole worked as intended and conveyed the music of our choice well. Changing the color palette may leave room for expanding our concept, but this palette communicated our ideas well. Nonobjective representation in this way was difficult, but exploring different methods of showing what I saw in my mind was very fascinating. I have never considered representing sounds in a nonobjective way, so this project did force me to think of things from a new, more abstract perspective. Paper mechanisms as a whole are definitely a concept I will return to in the future, due to their versatility and interactive features. They add a new element to a design and narrative, and the new set of options is exciting.