This project allowed us to show how we portray our own thought process behind how we visualize music, time, and movement while collaborating with a peer.
Research
As an introduction to this collaborative project, we got to know our partners a bit better by sharing some casual and fun facts about ourselves. We also watched a few stop motions which introduced the music element of this assignment. In conjunction to both of those things, we read an article called “No, you’re not entitled to your opinion” which sparked great conversation about when and where your personal opinions should be interjected into the discussion. As someone who likes to take a lot of control, this article was very insightful. We also had the opportunity to visit the special collections exhibit at Thompson Library which showcased a variety of pop up books and paper mechanisms. This was the most influential research to the process in my opinion because seeing the mechanisms in action helped to visualize what we could do with our own music selection.
Exercises
Mini Sound Mechanism
As a precursor to the main project, and a way to familiarize ourselves with paper mechanisms, we chose a word that had some relation to sound and had to represent it with 2 different actions. We chose the word “vibration”. It was intriguing to us because it has a motion element to it as well as the sound. The two of us interpreted it in different ways with both color scheme and the two actions but they still clearly represent vibration. I chose to work with yellows because it is so heavily associated with energy which reminds me of vibration.
Music Selection
A large part of this project revolves around how a clip of music makes you feel internally and externally in relation to movement and time. We both brought a few selections all with different vibes and heavily analyzed them. When choosing which would be used for our final, we took into consideration which we could clearly visualize a detailed narrative. For us, it was an instrumental portion of “She” by Harry Styles. We knew it was the right choice because we were both extremely passionate and excited about developing ideas for portraying our concept.
Clarifying Concept Statements
We came up with our concept statement separately and then compared and contrasted ideas to come up with one cumulative statement that we both agreed on and felt like we could accomplish. After coming up with a full concept that was about 200 words, we were instructed to dwindle it down to 5o then 25, etc. until we left it at 5 words. It was a great way to hone in on how exactly we would portray our narrative and how we could explain it in an effective and concise way. It also helped to realize what we could leave out and wasn’t helpful in describing the concept.
Concept Statement
In order to convey the dynamic relationship contained within the instrumental of the song “She” by Harry Styles, we created a diptych of paper mechanisms. The base material is colored card stock, inspired by a square color harmony template. 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 underlying bass line is familiar and comfortable, but bustling and constant, while the melody is new and intriguing. When listening to the piece, the imagery of a busy street next to a New York café fronts in our minds, with both the sounds of the nearby cars as well as the representation of a mysterious subject entering the scene, drawing in our attention. By creating a circular movement with the first paper mechanism, we demonstrate the continuity of the supporting instrumentals. To represent the melody, bright colors and direct, stable shapes are revealed when the background noise “fades away.” The front piece of the diptych opens up to reveal the second piece behind, which protrudes through the open shutter to represent the vibrant personality of the 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.
Iterations
Since we decided to go with a paper mechanism instead of the stop motion, we knew we wanted one half of the diptych to represent the guitar solo and the other to be the bustling background noise, so we began with some sketches. The main element we needed to work out was how we were to going to position the two individual pieces in relation to each other. Once we fully developed our concept, we decided we wanted to place the two pieces parallel to each other with one behind the other. This would allow the back one to be revealed since we used an iris paper mechanism that opens and closes. For my half of the diptych, I thought it would be easiest to create Adobe Illustrator files because the vector drawings allowed me to easily laser cut the thin and intricate lines I needed to portray the craziness of the music.
Prototypes
Since I had the sliding mechanism as my half of the diptych, I tried out several ways of masking the unsettling sound made by the paper passing through. I tried vellum, masking tape, and clear tape, and ultimately the clear tape looked the best aesthetically and prevented the sound that was taking away from the presentation. I ended up using the same simple pull tab technique but used a round rod to add a spinning element.
Final
View final presentation here (no audio)
The instrumental meant to go along with our project: “She” by Harry Styles
I am very pleased with the final result. I think we had a really unique concept with the back piece being revealed after the front opens. If we had a chance to reevaluate our design, I would have added more to fill the negative space on the front piece. I would like to see more blend between every piece instead of looking at individual shapes. I also would’ve cleaned up my craft. I used a glue that stained a lot because I had such thin pieces of cardstock and I switched to a cleaner one a bit too late. Overall the execution could have been improved but the relation to the music comes through with the utilization of each paper mechanism.
View the final project at Dynamic Pages: Final