Tuesday, April 20, 2010
Sandra's Response to April 2010 Assignment
Sandra's Response to April 2010 Assignment from Sandra Chatterjee on Vimeo.
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This is an abstract study, still quite raw, that reflects my response to the story and the instructions to Anjali's assignment. I worked with a sense of journey, which, if it communicates, would be interesting to develop.
Feedback questions:
1) Do you feel that the study fulfills the assignment?
2) Having read the assignment and the story, is a connection recognizable?
3) What do the cuts/edits in the video communicate to you?
4) Any suggestions for developing the idea?
5) Other thoughts?
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1) Do you feel that the study fulfills the assignment?
ReplyDeleteYou do use the chunni and a rhythmic build. I’m pretty sure that if a viewer hadn’t read the text, they would not understand the underlying child widow --> courtesan story, but the piece does respond to that trajectory in a more abstract way.
2) Having read the assignment and the story, is a connection recognizable?
Knowing the background, I came up with the following interpretation. The different kinds of floor/ground surfaces are the most instrumental meaning-makers for me: the dark tiles read as being boxed in, caught (the child widow abused by in-laws); the stairs are her choice to move away from that world; the concrete with sand is perhaps when she journeys – emphasized by the footwork (leaving with the traveling entertainers?); and the stepping onto the grass is an arrival in paradise (garden of eden?), freedom, nature (becoming a tawaif?). It also generally reads as a movement from urban to nature.
3) What do the cuts/edits in the video communicate to you?
Maybe a sense of time passing? I’d be curious to see a version without cuts.
4) Any suggestions for developing the idea?
I think the beginning section on the tiles could be tightened. Maybe you could play more with the boxes/squares of the tiles – avoiding ever stepping on a crack, for instance, to show how carefully you have to tread? I wonder if the camera could be held steadier in the beginning so that when it jostles during your footwork it’s more obvious a contrast.
5) Other thoughts?
Chunni in beginning reads like a landscape or a river – it is lovely but I find myself wondering why that perspective never returns. I like the environmental sounds but find the sounds of the camera moving around a bit distracting.
1) I don't feel that a viewer would necessarily connect the study with the story without knowing the story first, but I think it is a very creative and imaginative approach---a symbolic metaphor
ReplyDelete2) The widow is wearing a white skirt (the white brings associations with Indian widowhood). The journey is then reflected through the different grounds or surfaces the heroine walks upon. Beginning with the stark black tiles to the circular stone and finally the soft green grass--a trajectory which is reflective of the widow's journey.
3) I did not focus on the cut/ edits and just saw it as one image flowing into the next. I did go back to see the connection between the very first image and how it transitioned to seeing the heroine's feet.
4) Maybe we see the soles of her feet at moments and each texure brings a different sound/s . Try playing with the tempo and pace of her walk (where she speeds up and slows down). Does she ever stop and where does she begin?
1) Certainly.
ReplyDelete2) Yes. To me the tiles were a drab world, then the speeding up across the circle stones brought excitement as the pace sped up, then finally a new experience with the grass - a new life. The grass also brought a sense of relief and something about the texture was very satisfying.
3) I'm not sure if I have one clear idea for what the edits represent...at one point it seemed confusion, at another it seemed like change, at another it seemed like the passage of time, at other times I wasn't sure.
4) To me the beginning with the cloth exploration and the end with the texture of the green grass are particularly satisfying parts of the experience and would have loved to see both expanded a tiny bit more. With the grass I thought it would be nice to see your hand on the grass added or even your face as you lie down into it.
I was least engaged in the tile world though I enjoyed the sound of your feet with the slide as you stepped backward. The sliding sound reminded me of a heavy burden or weight. I wonder if that part of the journey could be more about being confined within the boxes of the tiles and exploring the weight of being confined.
5) I didn't know what the cloth signified in the beginning (other then widowhood), but felt the texture of it and the movement underneath were like something was going to be revealed, some transformation was already afoot within it. I'm curious what else could be communicated just with the cloth itself.
I just got a new costume for the new projection piece with Cyn and Anj's projections on me in the white cloth...and I ended up getting the same skirt you have in this study but in burgandy. So, now there's a little bit of each of you in the piece! And it also makes me think that those type of skirts could be a unifying costume piece at some point in the show.
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