When we think of art, a piece that showcases beauty and perfection comes to mind; a flawless master piece that shows no mistake. Art is creation, but it can also be made with destruction, and that is what we set out to do for this mini-project.
My group decided to create a video showing the process of destruction of a block of styrofoam through means like cutting, stabbing, dissolving, and crushing. While the process was mainly physical, we also played around with the shakiness of the camera shots and added certain filters to further emphasis the chaos that can be destruction.
With every new method of disfiguring done to the styrofoam, the intensity of destruction increases. There was really no wrong way to do it; we were converting a smooth block of styrofoam into a state of imperfection, full of holes, scratches, and dents. There was a point where by the camera was too close to the block that it got hit, causing shakiness in the shot. Normally, this imperfection would mean the shot would have to be retaken or edited out. However, in this case, we chose to embrace this accident, incorporating it into the video.
The results of this accident actually brings out the unpredictability and chaoticness that is destruction. Accepting and embracing this error helps to capture the raw visualisation of destruction. As described by Menkman, R. (2009) in Glitch Studies Manifesto, ” the beautiful creation of a glitch is uncanny and sublime; the artist tries to catch something that is the result of an uncertain balance, a shifting, un-catchable, unrealized utopia connected to randomness and idyllic disintegrations.”
In addition to carrying out various methods of destruction and keeping all the mistakes made during the process, we also added a few filters and effects while editing the video. In Randall Packer’s, Conversation with Jon Cates (2014), Jon mentioned that, “they might be imperfect and noisy, and that might be what attracts us or me to those systems,” to which I agree with, thus leading to the decisions to make edits to our video. For the first few shots, a filter was added to make the footage look blotchy. As the video progresses, we changed to a negative filter, making everything look dark and distorted. The unnatural colours add a sense of surrealism and fear to the work, as viewing destruction would make one feel. Some of the footage was also done in time-lapse, speeding up the process of deterioration of the styrofoam. This sped up process allows us to take better notice that something is indeed happening, building the intensity of chaos and destruction.
Overall, I’ve learned that that art is not just about creating something perfect, but also about embracing noise and mistakes made. The world we live in is riddled with imperfection, and we tend to cover them up, but as artists, creating something with these raw imprefections can leave us in awe and captivate the attention of others, just as any other artwork.
