I write as a way to extract conscious awareness from my unconscious animated gestures.
Some insights emerged yesterday after conversations with with my supervisor, and with writer friend Carmel Bird.
Like writing, conversations can help bring unconscious meanings to the surface.
Yesterday’s conversations helped illuminate how I am IN my animations as the dancing figure, the Pedestrian.
I improvise within the limitations of my skeletal form, and the limitations set by the animation software, Flash.
I improvise to find fresh ways to connect with global warming.
I animate scientific data and dance within it as the Pedestrian.
The writing (part of the Literature Review):
Attempts to connect us subjectively with objective realities of our changing environment can be seen in the 350 animation, and in Christine McMillan’s Grass Seeds.
The 350 animation, on the 350 web page, simply connects human actions with global warming. Its symbols, gestures and numbers clearly convey the message that 530 parts of C02 per million in our atmosphere is the upper limit for a safe climate for humans.
Streaming on-line from the 350 project website, its purpose is to quickly and clearly broadcast a message: to stir people to actively involve themselves in the International Day of Climate Action, on 24 October 2009.
The 350 committee agreed that animation was the best way to describe the impact of human action on global warming:
What’s the best way to introduce the world to 350? With over 4000 languages spoken around the world, it’s probably not with a bunch of words. We did our best to boil down the science of global warming and vision of the 350 movement in 90 seconds. Check it out.
Whilst I agree that the 350 animation clearly shows the equation between global warming and our burning of fossil fuels, it falls short of touching us emotionally. Although it may communicate well to some people in its cool objectivity. for others it will not reach the heart. We see simply see the facts of our impact on our selves. We do not feel them.
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Conversation with Carmel Bird (13 May 2009):
She:
Metaphor is a powerful force in human behaviour and meaning.
For example, why Christianity has such a strong hold on our imaginations is because the cross is central in our human physical structure.
The symbol of the cross superimposed over the human heart reverberates into our psyche.
It was a brilliant gesture of Christ to get up on the cross. It was like driving a stake through all our hearts.
Why the Pedestrian form works well to connect with how we feel is because its cross structure is so clearly revealed.
Me:
You once wrote, after watching the film, ‘Beware of Pedestrians’, “It’s like animated nerve endings. Very sparse, very powerful.'” (Beware of Pedestrians catalogue, 1995)
She:
People go to deserts to find enlightenment…
Me:
…to see things more clearly in an elemental place…
She:
…away from the comforts of life that blur reality.
Me:
Revisit Log entry on structures.