Intimacy

Intimacy is an installation by Ana Michkovic, Mike Alger and me. It all started from this Brainstorming session during PG02 that led to us to develop an idea to infuse fashion, moving images and interactive digital media into a mixed media collaborative installation for our project topic, Intimacy After a fairly long brainstorming session we decided to make an installation with a 3D printed model of a couple sitting on a couch within a box and display a video through projection mapping. The video would involve a underlying story based on instances from our ( group member’s ) lives. We thought this would be an intimate touch to the story. Although this idea did not come easily and was developed after a lot of brainstorming sessions and inspiration search. Here are some of the video’s below that led to the development of this idea.

http://http://vimeo.com/75799962 http://http://vimeo.com/8892601 http://http://vimeo.com/13736739 http://http://vimeo.com/23697235 http://http://vimeo.com/1280739 http://http://vimeo.com/55282422

For the story, we all told each other intimate life instances, turn by turn, for example things like where all everyone has lived, something tragic that must have happened, the best and worst moments, some funny and embarrassing ones, secrets and instances that changed our lives or affected us deeply. This let to some amazing data collected from everyone in the group So this was all the ideas that eventually led to development of this idea.

We started off by scanning a couple on a couch using the E-Sense 3D scanner

The initial print took over 28 hours to build, but the result wasn’t as expected.

but the second time was a success after making a few changes to the model. This one took over more than 26 hours to get completed.

We then built a box and painted the model and the box using a can of matt white spray paint

We did a lot of research on projection mapping as well. Below are the listed videos and links that are a part of our research.

http://videomapping.tumblr.com/

http://http://www.instructables.com/id/PROJECTION-BOMBING/step6/ALT-SET-UP-MORE-LUMENS-MORE-POWER/

http://www.projectionartworks.com/ http://http://vimeo.com/81932059 http://http://www.stylenoir.co.uk/lara-stone-split-photography-for-w-magazine/

Summary of the story:

We start off with the couple watching a movie and getting cozy. Ambient sounds of mumbling and giggling start to be heard as the walls of the houses begin to fall off and the scene is shifted to the clouds and a dreamy feel where we see the globe and then a fast paced zoom in to different locations selected from our individual stories as a group. So places like Utah, Las Vegas, Mumbai, Kolkata, Serbia, China etc. While the stories are being expressed visually, we would keep coming back to the house as soon as one of them giggles or breaks the conversation to keep it as humanly realistic as possible. This would ideally be how we showcase the story while keep coming back to the room as the conversation breaks or somebody giggles, laughs or displays emotions. We would keep travelling from the room to different instances form our lives such a camping, riding a motorbike, petting a dog to really intense scenes such as war, being kicked out and homeless and being operated for a heart surgery. The setting of the room may also change as per the story that is being depicted. There will triggers such as a phone call, crashing sounds, black outs etc. which will help the viewer to engage into the story and relate to what is happening. So these triggers will be placed strategically throughout the videos and make the story more compelling. Based on this, we collected different videos from the internet based on locations mentioned by each of us and connected to our own intimate stories. Below are some of the videos we collected.

http://http://vimeo.com/9772020 http://http://www.kurir-info.rs/godisnjica-9-marta-1991-godine-clanak-146080

As soon as we collected a bank of videos, we started searching for ambient sounds and effects for triggers to incorporate in the project. We used the conversation from the movie Before Sunrise as the background conversation for the installation as it is one of the most intimate conversations in movies.

The sound was mixed in Adobe Audition, a software I personally feel is very easy to use for any audio and mixing work.

All the transitions and the visuals were made using After Effects by Mike Alger.

And all the interior spaces within the walls of the box projected as the house were made using 3D Max by Ana Mickovic

The carpet projection and the designs were selected by Ana after a brief research on the locations and research about the fashion trends based on those locations. She made several mood boards and then came up with the patterns herself.

With all this in place, we made the alignment adjustments and displayed the installation piece on the 19th of November 2014 in Ravensbourne University. The video for the same is in post production stage and will be uploaded shortly and below are some of the photos taken during the final day of the presentation.