(Brackets signify images and animations):
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Antarctic landscape is beyond the experience of most of us. (map, brain, coil head)
To some it can seem terrifyingly remote. (there be monsters)
But if we want to learn what the future holds, for our children and grandchildren, it is important to find ways to connect with this place. (sea ice extent)
Antarctica holds evidence of our planet’s changing nature. (ice cores)
Antarctica can change a person’s nature. (beset)
Living and working in close quarters, in isolation from the rest of the world, we become mindful of the impact of our actions – reflecting upon ourselves, each other, and the landscape. (people working together, observing, measuring)
Artists and writers have used ice as a metaphor for self-reflection.(Mount Fuji)
You often hear it said that being in Antarctica can be life-changing.
Animation is the visual language of change.
Can animation be used to take us into the landscape, to feel something of these changes?
Animation has been used, in mainstream cinema, to show the impact of our actions on the happiness of penguins. (Happy Feet)
The Happy Feet story reached large audiences, and raised awareness of Antarctic wildlife.
But did the film’s extreme distortion of shapes and colours help to connect us with the landscape?
Or did it push it further back in people’s minds, remaining that ‘unreal’ place, so easily overlooked as mattering?
Scientists use animation to visualise important data. (c02)
But how can non-scientists connect with these? (animated graph)
As stilted, moving graphs, some visualisations can seem remote from human experience. (examples)
Others “breathe”. (SIE)
When the motion is organic – and more like how we move – we can connect more easily with the data.
With this as the premise, I am working with dancers, to move and draw, to the words of expeditioners writing from the ice. (Jack words, studio shot, drawing, animation)
I am animating voices describing moments of pleasure in the landscape.
There is pleasure in feeling, and knowing and doing.
Connecting to a moment of pleasure in Antarctica, can cut through the fear that some feel.
It can help to remove the blind spot.
Dear Lisa
I hope you don’t mind me suggesting that in such a brief presentation you need to focus on one thing – and you say that that is what you are going to do:
…In this presentation I am going to focus on one aspect of a project that draws art and science together through animation…
Then you could either talk about how to understand the works that you will be showing (perhaps the most appropriate thing to do)
or
you could outline your Freudian framework for seeing (so that we can understand where pleasure fits in)
or
simply tell the story of how you became involved (we all love to be told stories).
Simon,
These are excellent suggestions, and I will inevitably address all three in time. They look like good chapter topics for the thesis.
I will go with the original idea, however, as I am keen to entice expeditioners in the audience to tell me their moments of pleasure.
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I seek voices from other places, with other perspectives. Sur Polar is a good place to find those voices.
With this as my main purpose, I will make that clear by prefacing the talk with:
…and by inviting people to approach me at the end of the talk.
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With a slight alteration to my script I now refer to objects I am showing at the exhibition: Sea levels rising, Oceanic minds
and Ocean waves:
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My animated journal, 42 days in Antarctica (2002), and the page of animations from my website, will also be displayed.
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I have retracted my comment about “stilted” scientific animations. My resident scientists have clearly demonstrated how scientists work hard to achieve an organic quality to their visualisations.
A good example is a Snow to ice animation, from the New Zealand Science Learning Hub.
Whilst there are some stilted scientific animated visualisation, these may not necessarily be the norm.
looks great Lisa! personally, I think it is refreshing not to have such a ‘constructed’ presentation (like in conference papers). only other comment is whether you need more of an ‘ending’ even if it is an open-ended ending – does that make sense? I mean where you invite responses.
Now, I need to write mine!!
Thanks for the feedback Karin.
What you say about the ending makes good sense.
I have done a re-write, with a stronger ending that invites responses.
I’ve recorded my voice speaking the words, and am using the sound as the score for the pictures and animations.
I will turn off the sound when presenting, and speak to the visual material.