New Horizons
bodies & pixels
space of a pixel & its borders dictate what is visible
bodies merge and bleed into pixels
sometimes digital subjects are isolated by the 'invisible' pixels around them
sometimes light is picked up through the subject and turns them opaque
A hypnotizing performance by Pharoah Sanders that ignited these thoughts & made me fall asleep shortly after:
After looking at Lara's blog post about internet archive, I came across this video called 'To New Horizons', described as follows:
"Definitive document of pre-World War II futuristic utopian thinking, as envisioned by General Motors. Documents the "Futurama" exhibit in GM's "Highways and Horizons" pavilion at the World's Fair, which looks ahead to the "wonder world of 1960."
it has an interesting usage of overlays, depicting all kinds of ways technology was developing at the time, morphing and embracing and replacing one another.
some overlays lasted longer than others - timelapses of people walking around were particularly long. Why is that?
There was one part where a microscope was overlayed over several videos, lasting maybe 30 secs.
The narrator keeps mentioning 'new horizons', a future of more, of bigger & better
in order to depict a future of 'more', what do you take out? How were these videos chosen? At what point in each clip did they decide to start the overlay?
What is in the utopia built in that overlay?
Dancing with technology:
For convenience, I was recording audio and video on my computer using my phone, but I was already beginning to edit, crop, alter the footage - performative?
EDIT: 14 MARCH
Looking back at my research I wanted to add some reading & thoughts in reflection of the research towards and production of my video.
Text that I've been thinking a lot about: Machine Readable Me - The Hidden Ways Tech Shapes Our Identities by Zara Rahman
discusses our identity formed in the digital space and biometric data collected online
it explores how physical borders, particularly those that separate countries and space, have been formed by us, and the data collected to shape our identities digitally are entirely defined by them & also define our ability to move through them. It's something you can easily overlook as a standard procedure, eg. collecting biometric data when you travel, but really we never truly realise what our digital identity consists of until it prevents us from moving freely.
Looking back at my research I realise how important this image of water, of flow, has been throughout my exploration of found footage and the creation of my video work. The image of water is often linked with the digital space as seen in the use of vocabulary eg. surfing the web, but I feel it also relates to the ability to move between the vast array of information and media found online. Whilst a flow of water allows easy movement, an overabundance of water makes movement almost impossible - An image I believe reflects our position when facing the overabundance of media online.
