Site-Specific Storytelling: Possession Obsession

Table of Contents

1. Title + Concept

  • Story and Intention / Motive

2. Artist References

  • Tracey Emin & Museum of Broken Relationship
  • Film Aesthetics

3. Execution

  • Location & Space
  • Lighting
  • Props
  • Footage
  • Sound
  • Smell
  1. Concept:

It is a narrative based idea on:

Everything is a passing moment, what can we do to preserve those memories? Why do people obsess over the physical things that link them to a memory, in hopes to possess it?
Preservation of memories, memories of someone you hold dear, hold true to the heart.

Motive of this installation:

To allow people to delve further into the obsessive nature of someone who cannot let go of the past and struggles to hold onto memories that are fleeting.
Memories are fleeting moments, hence we understand the meaning of collecting objects so we can preserve and remember them.

Storyline:

It is a significant development from Naomi and Kai’s assignment 2 where the male lead, Pierre Tan, left her.

Lead actress wants to tell –

  1. The story of how it happened through the objects she obsessively collected from her ex during the relationship and what these objects mean to her.
  2. To tell the story of their 1 month relationship through these objects. The short time frame is used to highlight her obsessive behaviour.

 

A collection of 30 items as mementos to represent each day of the month

 

Photographs of him sleeping Fingerprints Retainers
Sound Recordings Used Scotch Tape Used Underwear
Used toothpaste Toothbrush Dental Floss
Old clothes Shades Dried Contact Lens
Used condom Towel Nails
Protagonist’s diary Wax Comb
A lock of hair Water Bottles Belts
Blanket Shoes Socks
Shaver Post-it notes with msg Ugly portrait of him
Deodorant Forks and Spoon Cup (In the film already)

 

  1. Artist Reference for Concept:

Tracy Emmy, Everyone I Have Ever Slept With (1963-1995)

Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?hl=en-GB&v=15jVnBlt6e0&gl=SG

Emin creates an intimate space through the use of a tent and narrates her personal story through the visuals displayed. Photos, names and letters of the people she had slept with are stuck up on the interior of the tent.

INSPIRATION: We’re using the idea of a limited space to reflect the protagonist’s intimate thoughts and experience. Visuals do not stand alone but coexist with the footage, space and sound to depict the theme of our work, which in this case, the protagonist’s obsession of her ex-lover.

Museum of Broken Relationships, Copenhagen, Denmark

Using objects that the audience can touch and feel and experience for themselves (e.g. reading a diary), it will be able to give clues and insights on the characteristics on the protagonist as well as the person she is obsessed about.

The amount of items as well as the nature of the items could also further accentuate the obsessive behaviour and mindset of the girl.

Artist Reference for Film Aesthetics:

Movie: See You Tomorrow (2016)

There was a scene in the movie where the main character reveals the collection of items he has collected and saved in the boot of his car that were from his relationship with his passed on ex-lover. He was unwilling to let go of the memories tied to this person despite it being many years since his lover passed on.

Amélie (2002)

1:57:20 Towards the end of the movie, we the scene of Amelie and Nino riding on a bike captured in a sepia tone colour. The footage is also fast forward to create a sense of fleeting moment. Short snippets of Amelie’s solo shot are cleverly interweaved as if to remind audience the story is about the Amélie.

  1. Execution
    1. Location
      Dark room: To give an unsettling feel
    2. Lighting
      Red tint: To show desire
      Projection of Footage: Footage will contain glitches to create sudden brightness in the environment. Also, the film that would be played to reveal the meaning of the 30 objects in the course of the relationship. This is used as a visual accompaniment to the installation.
    3. Footage: BLURRY & DREAM-LIKE STATE
      To depict fleeting memories of their one-month relationship. It will be fast forward to create the sense of fleeting moment where details cannot be examined.
    4. Props
      30 objects to narrate the story of their one-month relationship. We will also experiment with mirrors with lipstick messages written all-over it and images of Pierre to depict what lead actress wanted to see everyday
    5. Sound:
      Replaying of sounds, music, recordings.
      Eg. lullabies of the male lead singing for the girl
    6. Smell:
      Musky smell with a tint of cologne: To reinforce her obsessive behaviour of wanting to preserve his smell.
      Diffuser labelled ‘his smell.’

Shrine stored in a storage unit in the basement

Ideas for Room Execution

 

4D Assignment 2

We decided to use the curry murder as our parallel storyline. This is an amalgamation of the genres each of us hope to explore — psycho thriller and familial relationships. Furthermore, a murder scene AND a cooking scene were  potential scenes for us to explore sounds with footage.

Chronologically, the curry cooking happened after the murder. However, we decided to condense both events together to narrate the parallel storyline.

 

The plan initially was to liken the action of cooking to the murder scenes – eg stabbing of victim could be liken to pounding with a mortar. However, there was limitation with props and space and we did away with the idea.

Instead, I distinguish the 2 storyline via visuals -murder scenes are darker while the cooking scenes are brighter. The murder scenes are darker while the cooking scenes are brighter.This was referenced from The Dark Room (2010) by Eric Z. Yang

While both storylines have very similar visuals -largely photographs – red lighting in the dark room and florescent lighting in a modern lab helps viewers to differentiate the 2 different context.

After editing the main storyline, I decided to add in an opening sequence as an introduction. (I got the idea from this video but it got removed D:) I used the similar opening sequence from Momento where the visuals were all reversed. I want to show that the bowl of curry is the main focus of the video and the making of the curry was uncanny.

From the pervious lecture, I have learnt the effect of digetic and non-digetic sound (bg music) in films. This was something fresh for me because being musically-challenged, I had never paid close attention to sound in films besides some really good soundtracks.

Here is our final video:

[Project 2.1]: Part II

This process post is in chronological order. It is a continuation of [Project 2.1]: Part I.

Final zine here.

On my first trip, I was pathetically scribbling my observations and data on a palm-sized post-it. While it was handy, my handwriting was scribbly and data collected was disorganised.

On my second trip, I printed an A3 map and marked out a 1km radius from Bedok MRT. I folded it into a handy size and now I’ve got google map in one hand that allows me to annotate with pencil conveniently.
I’m intending to collect some residence response and may use hardcopy and online survey forms soon.

During this consultation, I realised my project was heading for a dead end. Firstly, the data I had collected were largely isolated. This makes an infographic almost impossible as I will not be able to make meaningful relationships between the data collected. Secondly, the idea of surveillance would not work out as I have no access to data about the surveillance and crime rates in Bedok over the past 50 years.

The conclusion of the group consultation was to work on the buildings of Bedok. This was a concluded based on the timeline of development in Bedok I had put together. However, I was reluctant to work on this idea as I felt the idea was very generic and could easily be obtained with a quick google search.

Thankfully, Joy shared with me an interesting fact that Bedok residents have a strong sense of belonging to their respective areas (ie Bedok North and Bedok South). Riding on this idea, Liyana suggested I could do a ‘game battle’ concept between North and South Bedok and compare them to decide which is better. This idea couldn’t get any better and become my driving theme of the project.

In a last ditch effort to obtained primary data, I once again head to Bedok. I decided to do a door-to-door survey in order to collect residents’ satisfaction of the neighbourhood as an indicator to compare the two areas. I also sent out an e-survey to collect as many data as possible. Here are the questions:

I can’t post the responses of the survey as a promise keep it confidential but the analysis of the data collected are reflected on the infographics.

#1 The Map

Part of my graphics were designed before the idea was finalised as I thought the visuals of a map is vital for a site-specific infographic. I had reference different kind of map on pinterest and decided to use a bird’s eye view of Bedok as it gives a good overview of the place. It allows me to use geometric shapes to reflect the structural visuals I had observed of Bedok.

#2 The Header

To me, the title of my infographic would be effective in conveying the ‘game’ theme I had in mind. Hence I reference various game titles and realise a lot of it often used organic fonts (if there’s such a term) and warp text to show its fun. Such design, however, does not go well with my geometric theme. Hence, I decided to reference geometric fonts and work my way up to design a suitable game-inspired-header.

My final title design was largely inspired by these title and fonts.

 

When put together, it shows:

  • Duality: Depicting north and south Bedok
  • Clean & Geometrical: My impression of Bedok
  • A game-on-attitude: Through the use of capital letters

#3 The Indicators  

Indicator 1

My first design is straightforward in distinguishing the two opposing area of Bedok through colours and placement. It is, however, a cliché method in showing comparison between different categories and it does not visually gel the different elements of my infographics together. Hence, I decided to push it further and experiment with other ways to design my indicators (afterall it’s called infoGRAPHICS for a reason). The following are some of the designs I had experimented and why they do or don’t work.

Indicator 5 – Final

My final design:

After 2 agonising weeks, I think it had paid off. I’m not fully satisfied with my work because I felt that certain important aspect of my infographics (ie colours and layout) has not been fully developed. However, I am delighted with my learning process in this project. Firstly, I think I had learnt my lesson well from my first reflections and put in more effort for my presentation this time round. Secondly, this project was unlike the previous ones which content were largely intrinsic and ‘produced’ by us. This project, however, puts our investigative skills to test. Being satistically-challenged, it was a tedious process planning –> gathering –> sorting –> analysing of data before turning them into visuals. I started off with no knowledge of Bedok (I stay in north-west) but over time, I start to love the place more and more with each trip I made. Bedok is a place that have stood the test of time with many stories to tell. This project had also put me out of my comfort zone as I did a door-to-door survey in a last ditch effort to collect primary data. Initially, the idea of doing a door-to-door survey was intimidating because I was afraid of rejections or angry residents. However, I abide to my own no-knocking-on-closed-door rule and things went pretty well! Most residents are more than willing to take the survey actually! Senior residents are also very willing to share about the place. I also enjoyed the process of turning these data into engaging visuals. In all, this project was enjoyable and I am really keen to start on the zine project 🙂