My Learning – Karyn Easton

Apr 30

by Karyn in Experimentation, Film Production, Final Major Project, Final Outcomes, My Learning, Unit 3 Blogs, Videos 0 comments tags: Experimentation, Film Production, Final Major Project, Final Outcomes, My Learning, Unit 3 Blogs, Videos

Audio Revamp

Missing Film Clips and More Audio – Today after work, I thought that I would afford myself a little break. Unfortunately, I just couldn’t take my mind off my film, so here I am at nearly midnight working on it again. I’ve got to be up for work in a few hours, but at least I wan’t feeling quite so ill today. The more I learn about sound and audio, the more I realise how little I actually know and how much there is to learn! I really can fully appreciate why film companies employ sound engineers. It is a whole art form in itself! Looking back I really wish that I’d paid more attention at college to film and sound. Thirty years ago I was much more interested in just pure photography and photographic techniques, but fast forward to the present and now I am somewhat regretful. There’s just so much that I still want to learn and so much that I want to achieve, I think this latest bout of feeling poorly has really made me reflect. However, enough of the self pity this will not help me finish my film. Tonight as I’m just about to go […]

Apr 21

Film Mark 2

Exploring Alternatives – In my Film Production blog, I talked about how unhappy I was with my first film. Things haven’t got any easier. I still feel very poorly, but the perfectionist in me is not prepared to let this go. I absolutely ‘hate’ the first version of my film now! Unfortunately, I just seem to have such a severe creative block at the moment. One of the greatest challenges I faced was trying to come up with yet another script! At one point I thought ‘oh stuff it’ I’ll just stick with what I’ve done. However I just couldn’t do that. I went to bed feeling pretty ill and pretty down. They say that sometimes when you are facing a problem, your brain will help you to work things out while you are asleep. Last week in my state of feeling so down ‘my brain, my subconscious the universe, god’ or call it what you like came to the rescue overnight while asleep! This morning I remembered something that I’d long been aware of yet forgotten. This was the old concept of ‘The Eighth Day’. In some theological interpretations, the “Eighth Day” symbolises the day of resurrection or the […]

Apr 20

by Karyn in Film Production, My Learning, Photography, Problem Solving, Unit 3 Blogs, Videos 0 comments tags: Film Production, My Learning, Photography, Problem Solving, Unit 3 Blogs, Videos

Film Production

Assembly of Ideas – After exploring a few possibilities and ideas for the film I set about trying to assemble something. After all of my previous experimentation with many ideas I finally settled on a concept. I decided to produce a film that not only covered what I have been working on over the last two years of my MA but also gives a glimpse of what I’m doing now. The video was to form a timeline. Unfortunately, I really do struggle when it comes to sound and voice-overs. By the end of this long process I had actually attempted to narrate my film around five times. I spent literally hours trying to perfect both my narrative, voice-over and audio levels. Multiple Attempts at Audio and Voice-overs Below is a screenshot of the files as they began to stack up on my desktop, so far I’ve had 5 attempts. Even after hours of trying I’m still not happy with the end result! In fact I’m deeply unhappy with it. On the plus side though I’ve learned a ‘ton of stuff’ about audio production. Learning How to Use Audio in Premier Pro The first thing I had […]

Apr 17

by Karyn in Collaborations, Conclusion, Film Production, Ideas, My Learning, Photography, Unit 3 Blogs, Videos 0 comments tags: Collaborations, Conclusion, Film Production, Ideas, My Learning, Photography, Unit 3 Blogs, Videos

Film Ideas

Five Minute Film Ideas Generation – I have to admit that working out what I wanted to do for my five minute film has not been easy. I had a number of ideas whirring around in my head. These included: A simple narrative of my practice and how it has evolved A showcase of my work without any narrative A narrative about what I would do if someone took away my camera A narrative about my mobile and how it has evolved An ‘arty’ film full of visual metaphors An animated film A five minute promo for my mobile with a commercial slant to it For a number of weeks I have been wrestling with all of these concepts trying to work out which one to pursue. I ran through a number of the films created last year. I particularly admire the films by Lauryna Narkeviciute and George Harvey. I found George’s work incredibly powerful and moving. Lauryna’s cool black aesthetic also fascianted me. I think with George’s work it was his professionalism, creativity and meticulous attention to detail that I found most inspiring. Unfortunately I had never really taken my photographic skills into film making. I do […]

Mar 19

by Karyn in Collaborations, Experimentation, Food for Thought, Lectures, Materials, My Learning, Unit 3 Blogs, Workshops 0 comments tags: Collaborations, Experimentation, Food for Thought, Lectures, Materials, My Learning, Unit 3 Blogs, Workshops

Mattering Life – Workshops Day #2

Samples Collection & Experimentation – As we arrived back at CSM most of us were feeling pretty tired. It had been an intense but very enjoyable morning in the science labs at UCL (University College London). However, we were all pretty excited to start collecting our samples. We felt it would be a great idea to collect some canal water, some moss, and some leaves. I was really keen to examine the dregs of my Chai Latte so I popped some in a little sample bottle. I wasn’t so keen to grab the canal water but luckily Charlotte a fellow member of the group was on hand to do this. Charlotte Collecting Samples Below is a mix of clips from Days #1 and #2 – they range from crystal garden crystals, to sample collecting, to fruit fly equipment and oxygen free cabinets. Sample Analysis and Experimentation After Lunch we had a quick de-brief then we headed off into the grow lab for some sample analysis and experimentation. Shem and Barbera were our technicians. Shem produced the first four of the following time-lapse sequences. The rest were produced by our group and shot by […]

Mar 19

by Karyn in Collaborations, Food for Thought, Lectures, Materials, My Learning, Unit 3 Blogs, Workshops 0 comments tags: Collaborations, Food for Thought, Lectures, Materials, My Learning, Unit 3 Blogs, Workshops

Mattering Life Day #2

UCL Lab talks and Tour – Below are the speakers and the order in which we met them all. I was absolutely ‘blown away’ by their enthusiasm and knowledge of their subject areas. It was clear that every single one of them was really excited by their respective research. They are all on a mission to understand the origins of life. I thoroughly enjoyed my once in a lifetime visit to what I call the ‘origins of life lab’ at UCL. Talk Images Talk Images Enrique was working with fruit flies to look for chemical signals. Below are some of the images from his talk. Talk Images Feixue was doing work using a special chamber that allowed for the omission of oxygen. Each of us tried putting our hands into the chamber. This was so that the early conditions of earth could be replicated. We all commented on how difficult it must be to work under those circumstances. This is because your hands are encased in on only white gloves but also a layer of relatively thick rubber. Oxygen Free Chamber Below is a video short showing how the the oxygen free chamber is accessed. Talk […]

Mar 16

by Karyn in Exhibitions, My Learning, My Work, Unit 3 Blogs, Videos 0 comments tags: Exhibitions, My Learning, my work, Unit 3 Blogs, Videos

Framing Prints

Getting Ready for the Gallery Paradiso – It’s been such a busy time for me since leaving London and the Low Residency. Today I’ve been framing all of my prints ahead of taking them to the Gallery Paradiso. They will be shown next week with the private view on Wednesday evening. I would have loved to attend, but I will be back in London for the Mattering Life, Scientist in Residence Programme. Below are a few images of the framed pieces. I think they look rather smart framed. I was quite surprised at how long it took me to frame them, add D-rings and package them up. However I was pleased when it was all done. Labels and D-Rings Added All Wrapped and Ready to Go Decisions Decisions… I was pleased when the pictures were finally dropped off. The whole process from start to finish was quite a lengthy one. From image creation right through to delivery I’d had to make lots of decisions, for example: How big should my prints be? What aspect ratio should they be? What paper should I choose for printing? Do I want a border? If I have a border […]

Feb 21

by Karyn in Food for Thought, My Learning, Uncategorized, Unit 3 Blogs 0 comments tags: Food for Thought, My Learning, Unit 3 Blogs

Art and Propaganda

The Use of Visual language as a Propaganda Tool – I stumbled across this video today and I found it absolutely fascinating! The narrator explains the difference between advertising and propaganda as follows: ”Advertising is meant to influence what you buy – propaganda is meant to influence what you think. A lot of effective propaganda is subtle.” I feel that my own work to some degree is designed to influence how people think. Although I would never describe myself as a propagandist. However, the following video gave me an interesting insight into how art has been effectively used as a tool for propaganda over the years. It is important to me that my mobile carries a message, and is so much more than a bunch of cardboard in flux.

Jan 29

by Karyn in Final Major Project, Ideas, My Learning, My Work, Problem Solving, Risk Taking, Unit 3 Blogs, Videos 0 comments tags: Final Major Project, Ideas, My Learning, my work, Problem Solving, Risk Taking, Unit 3 Blogs, Videos

The Concept

Hidden Depths – I have decided to call my mobile ‘The Balance of Power – Unity in Bits’. My mobile represents a ‘balance’ of power play between the major players in the AI art generation industries, versus the millions of voiceless, hidden artists who had their images used (often without permission) to feed machine learning algorithms. The mobile is based on binary code and the lines of code spell out the words ‘Unity in Bits’. Why ‘Unity in Bits’? This is an ambiguous play on words. The rise of the digital age coupled with social media and AI has led to a fragmentation of our society – namely, our ‘unity in bits’. For example we have divided communities, surveillance capitalism and lack of free speech. However, I hope that through interaction with my mobile ‘unity can be found in bits’ only this time ‘bits’ refers to the ‘bits’ and ‘bytes’ of binary code. My mobile project poses the question can that which has sought to divide us, actually bring us closer together?

Jan 22

by Karyn in Experimentation, Final Major Project, My Learning, My Work, Timelapse, Unit 3 Blogs, Videos 0 comments tags: Experimentation, Final Major Project, My Learning, my work, Timelapse, Unit 3 Blogs, Videos

Blogpost 200

The Good, The Bad and The Ugly – After working solidly for two days over the weekend, I finally finished the first prototype for the mobile. I felt on the whole it was pretty good. However, the sheer weight of the project even at this scale was pretty bad. Balancing the elements was also an absolute ‘nightmare’. This meant that some of the spacing between the mobile elements was pretty ugly. The short time-lapse video below shows roughly how many elements went into making three quarters of the mobile (some elements were already strung). I always imagined cardboard to be quite light but after this project I’ve come to revise my view. On the whole I do think that the prototype was a success – not because it was perfect or anything like that, but because of what I had learned during the whole process. First Looks Below is a very short video of the mobile. As I was concentrating on the movement of the video there is nothing to show scale. The mobile turned out to be around 6ft tall in the end! I had envisioned something much smaller and lighter. Alternative Music […]