Nat Rosa
MAGCD Musings

Tag: Experiments

Categories
Methods of Translating

Translation – Experiments

For this project I chose the 1995 film Clueless directed by Amy Heckerling.

I began by considering the ways in which the film could be translated into new material. 

My first thought was to create an illustrated diary, written from the perspective of Cher Horowitz, the main character of the film. 

I then explored the idea of creating a yearbook using a series of polaroids that were taken of the cast both in and out of costume.

I then turned to the films’ soundtrack and thought that it would be interesting to translate the soundtrack into a narrative of the film.

The idea would be to replace song lyrics with dialogue from the script, and cast the characters as bands and singers.

The form of the project would be a series of album covers, front and back, inspired by the genre of the original song.

Categories
Methods of Cataloguing

Cataloguing – Experiments

For this project I chose a collection of watercolors created by artist Jacques Burkhardt depicting freshwater fish. The illustrations were created in 1865 during an expedition to Brazil led by renowned naturalist Louis Agassiz, and are remarkable in their clarity, detail and vivid hues.

I began by considering the colors and shapes unique to each fish and creating a color palette and outline for various species.

From there I created abstractions of a couple of the illustrations and played around with the shapes and colors to create kaleidoscopic patterns, reminiscent of the way in which fish are perceived when underwater.

As I experimented with colors and patterns, I turned to color theory as a source of inspiration to understand how I could work with color in a more interesting and engaging way.

I came across the book Color Problems by Emily Noyes Vanderpoel and was immediately drawn to the simplicity and beauty of her color grids, which reflected her interpretation of the color components of different objects in her personal collection of antiques.

I thought this system could be a good starting point to create my own catalogue of the colors present in each species of fish illustrated by Burkhardt.

In the spirit of Noyes Vanderpoel’s grids, I began to create my own, using a five color palette to fill in each 10 x 10 grid.

The goal will be to break down the colors in each species of fish into a grid and then collate those colors and their frequency, in order to understand whether there exist any patterns in the color schemes presented.

Categories
Methods of Investigation

Investigation – Experiments

My first experiment was counting sounds. Over the first week I created a grid comprised of 24 hours and proceeded to take note of the different sounds I heard to create an aggregate picture of a ‘day in the life.’

Cars, trucks, motorcycles. Sirens, people, airplanes. An angry cat. The soundscape became distilled into categories, and those categories into colored dots representing each sound. The process was tedious and I tired of it quickly. Counting felt meaningless. A collection of dots representing sounds, but what was I seeing anew?

Counting sound

My next experiment was describing sounds. I took note of the different types of sounds, breaking down the soundscape into words. Whirr. Thrum. Whoosh. Buzz. I then chose a typeface that felt representative of the word. Script. Sans serif. Italic. These choices became meaningful, and it felt closer to a new truth.

Describing sound

My last experiment was visualizing sound. I placed paper on different surfaces in my kitchen and rubbed the paper with a black pastel crayon. I then took those rubbings and broke them down into pixel patterns using my iPad, in the hopes of finding a way to express sound visually. The experiment yielded a glimmer of something, but was largely unsuccessful in communicating much of anything.

Visualizing sound