My ideas going forward are:
To buy a mushroom growing kit and explore cultivating my own mushrooms and documenting this.
Create a timelapse video of the mushrooms growing - then explore through editing techniques how I can make the mushroom human (i.e. like it is breathing through reversing/fast forwarding the video clip)
Explore and document mushroom textures, breaking them, crushing them etc comparing them to human skin.
Record sounds of eating the mushrooms.
Experiment capturing different clips of mushrooms and then editing them into a surreal video telling a surreal narrative about mushrooms (reflect on this as I go along to see what the video is telling the audience and see if i can relate it back to the contexts I have been researching so far). Experiment with mood, senses, texture, making a multi-sensory video installation.
If time, see how I could bring in the grown mushrooms into the exhibition itself as props or participatory objects for the audience to touch whilst watching the film.
1. Mushrooms ordered - Blue/grey Oyster mushrooms because I am intrigued by the colour and I think Oyster mushrooms are really pretty. They are also known to eat plastic! Which I thought was super cool. The idea of mushrooms and how important they are to the eco system is something I'd like to explore in my practice.
Unfortunately I received the mushrooms in the post a little late, therefore I don't think they will be grown in time for the exhibition, however I will see how they get on and update as I go.
Insert Mushroom pics here
Having come away from the mushroom idea due to not being able to develop any ideas further, I have decided to go further explore ideas around the park itself through photography and moving image. I will explore how editing imagery of the park can inspire some ideas for the exhibition. I like to work intuitively and get inspired through the process and the environment.
I visited the park again and got some good footage and images. This time is was in the afternoon just before the sun went down around 3.30pm. The park was quite busy and it was a Sunday afternoon. There were lots of children playing in the playground and lots of dog walkers and this seems to be a regular occurrence. On one of my visits to the park I saw adults drinking and a community officer asking them to leave as they were being quite anti-social. This made me feel uneasy in the park which was a shame.
A squirrel eating...
I also got a video of the same squirrel...
The Autumnal Leaves - These were inspiring due to the colours and mosaic pattern they made on the floor. With some editing in photoshop, I could make this image into a cool texture.
Root Systems - These root systems reminded me of wires and technology - Natures technology
Autumnal Trees - The colours, shades and silhouettes of the trees are beautiful. I'd like to use the second image as a background for an image, layering them on top of each other somehow to make them more 3D.
This tree I found to be quite scary looking. With the roots growing up and the spikey-ness to the bare branches.
I love the heart shape that this tree makes with its branches, it represents a sense of community and love within the Park.
Focusing on the bark on the tree with the leaves/background blurred. Usually we look at a tree in its entirety, but here I wanted to focus on the bark. The bark is the skin of the tree, it's tough and wrinkled and shows the tree's age, wear and tear over the year. Each tree is unique in texture, quite like a human's fingerprint. Each tree has its own fingerprint, its bark. I like this idea. In the 4th image there is also sign of life living on the tree.
Again looking at the bark/skin of the trees and this time also focusing on the inside of the tree where it has been cut down. You can see the age of the tree from the circles in the trunk.
I love this little montage of images. The ivy growing up the tree, and the life living within the ivy, hidden away out of sight. Something that goes unnoticed when visiting a park is the life inside and the varied species and habitats. It is a home to so many and we are just visitors, yet we think it belongs to us.
Here, the more human side to the park. The graffiti shows a sign of someone, an identity, an artwork that belongs to someone. Captured in that moment of expressing themselves and left there for everyone to see. Id like to combine all the images from within the park to explore how they relate, contrast, juxtapose next to one another. What questions do they raise in being layered on top of one another.
Here we find the mushrooms, the Sulphur Tufts that were once alive and feeding off the decaying stump of a tree, now decaying themselves. The great mass of them has turned to brown mush. They are going back into the soil to regenerate, reproduce and decompose.
I loved these berries. They really stood out to me on the walk around the park. Such a brightly coloured red.
Having looked through all the images, I chose a couple that stood out to me. Having researched an artist called Seana Gavin, who uses collage as a medium to create and transform dreamlike environments. What stood out to me most and inspired me was how she gave the mushrooms faces which in turn gave them personalities. I wanted to create my own interpretation of this using the images from the park.
This image of the berries was created using a Wacom tablet on Photoshop. It was the first time I had used the Wacom for editing. This works well due to the faces used to give the berries personalities.
This image has been created using images of different faces, cutting out the eyes and mouths and collating them through photoshop onto the log ends. This is a fun way to bring the logs to life. I chose shocked expressions for the logs to portray an element of shock that the trees themselves had been cut down. This has a contextual element of environmental issues with tree felling. Although I feel that the trees in this park have been cut down due to something being wrong with them, much like at St Catherine’s Hill where I visited last year. I think this is due to creating a more varied habitat for wildlife. Still, I don’t agree with chopping down trees because we need them and they are living things just as much as we are!
I recorded sounds around the park on my next visit on the 17th November. I then made a soundtrack. Here it is:
Here are also some more images I took around the park itself on this visit.
After another visit to the park I began to take footage and images and start to develop it into a narrative and video along to the soundtrack I had made on the previous visit. Here are some images I took and the video I made and this is a draft of what I will use for the final exhibition. I plan to show it on either a projector or a screen inside the Pavillion.
Amie Dodgson, 'Alexandra Park', 2021, Moving Image & Sound, video, 03:22
Reflections on the frames
Opening shot: Park entrance with the sound of birds singing.
Introduction to the park.
Tunnel vision.
Quiet and peaceful.
Heading into another dimension.
Repetition.
Moving shot going downwards with the whooshing sound of the zipwire.
The sound could be a skateboard or something industrial.
How does this change the way we view trees and the bark of trees?
The cuts happening at the same time as the sounds make it feel industrial.
The mix of industrial sounds and nature bring a clashing of nature vs humans.
A view of the park from behind a bush could imbue a sense of hiding, watching, exploring.
A panning shot in a curved motion.
What does this motion remind me of? Looking up in the tree canopy as a child, a sense of wonder and exploration. An experience had by the viewer. The viewer experience 1st person someone elses experience of the park.
The camera is the head and the head is spinning.
The video becomes an exploration.
Introducing with nature shots feels like its a video about nature.
The grass blowing in the wind - What does this say?
Movement in the grass, movement in the body.
Another panning show, this time moving the other way. More exploration in 1st person viewing.
This time a different area. Again, moving in time with the sounds and changing frame on the clicking of industrial sounds. But are they industrial?
There are a lot of frames in one video? Is this moving too fast to take in the meaning of the video? Or is this a flashback?
What does the bench represent? A bench can mean sitting, waiting, collaborating, eating, memory. Are these all memories?
Brought into Autumn now. The leaves are bright orange. Burnt almost. What does this mean? Again the panning down moves with the industrial sound. Could it be a skateboard? Does it represent play? How does the sound coupled with the abstract imagery of leaves create meaning? The effect of human infrastructure on nature.
A quick brief shot of a discard bottle of vodka? What does this represent? Alcoholic? Day drinking? What story does it tell? Kids drinking after school? Does this represent memory? Lost memory? Symbolising lost memory or lost youth? Parks are used for all kinds of things. This is just one of them. Someone goes to a park to become lost in ones own thoughts. To escape.
This shot of the bark mirrored and parting in the middle looks like running water. What does this type of shot represent? Its repeated but doubled, so this could be viewing the world differently? opening up to seeing it differently? It moves quite quickly to go with the timing of the zipwire. Could it be made longer? Or does the fact that its a fast showing image represent how time moves fast?
Again a repeated image, but doubled and turned upside down layered over the original. What does this say? seeing the world upside down? The world is upside down? I could explore this more in the video and do another few shots like this and explore what its saying and representing.
This shot moves from its original form to this, like its burning out and losing its colour a vibrancy. Like the world is in black and white. But then it doesn't last for long moving straight into the next frame, giving the viewer no time to contemplate why.
Using the same editing technique to bring in the next frame creates a glimpse of the black and white negative world view again, but this time going back into the original form of this repeated panoramic shot with added sun flare. Light amongst the trees. A child looking up at the canopy twirling round and being in awe of its surroundings.
Using another repeated and mirrored shot creates another way of viewing the world and the already seen. The mirror image creates another view and picture altogether.I love how it creates animals like I can see a lion's face this time where the images join each other on the left.
I feel like maybe these images need to play for longer to give the audience time to look for these things themselves.
Another repeated panoramic shot of the tree canopy. Reminded the viewer of the child's view or the awe and wonder experienced by the experience of the 1st person view. Maybe this is bringing the viewer into the world of viewing the park in a different way to how they would usually view it. Reminding them to take more notice when they're next in nature.
There is a Sci-Fi feel to this framce due to the wall edges meeting in the middle and creating an alien looking creature. The more I view this video, the more I feel like this could be a child's experience of the park due to children being able to see things adults usually can't. Viewing it from a child perspective.
Since my last visit to the park we have found out that we can no longer use the Pavillion in Alexandra Park, therefore this means no power for AV, no way to use video. Also no storage space for the other sculptures. After much discussion and a visit to another park, Slades Farm. as a group we took a vote and planned to move the exhibition to Slades Farm. slightly frustrating as all my footage for the video is taken at Alexandra Park. However it could be any park really so it is quite transferable to the new space.
Here are some images I collected at the new park.
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