Thursday, 27 April 2017

First thoughts about Final Major Project (FMP)


When coming to deal with the final MAJOR project, it only comes down to: what can I say that has not been said before? How can I bring anything new that has not been done before? How can I re-invent the wheel and still make it roll?

The brief itself is very flexible and open, it gives me the chance to produce something, anything, but justify every move and process. I need to be clear.

One thing that came to mind is the size. Before I even start thinking about an initial idea, I need to consider the time I have to produce it, costs of materials and space. How big do I want to go? How big CAN I go? Putting aside minor details, I need to come up with 3 different ideas, different mediums for each idea and make it logical.

I am now thinking about something completely irrelevant to the brief itself: how provocative do I want to be? Do I want to shake people’s minds? Do I want to mess up with them? Can I justify my need of provoking in the name of art or is it just for the sake of provoking? For example: if I want to move forward with an idea that will require offending people in a way, how can I avoid offending them and make it clear that I just want to deliver a message, an idea, leave my mark and not just be another student delivering a project?

One of my ideas involves light. The initial idea was an installation and whatever whatever whatever light. Then it progressed, as I started playing with the meaning of light, having to do with my name of course (yes, Or in Hebrew means light). I wanted it big, sparkly, changing, involving the crowd, mega giant super wow. And then I reduced it to the concept of light, but let’s go smaller, maybe think about the phrase “let there be light” and quickly it became the seven days of creation and the whole biblical story of Genesis 1. Few hours later I moved from super complicated to super simple. How about a room? I imagined a dark room, and a light switch. Hey, wait a minute, not even a switch. Let’s make it an infra-red movement detector, and if someone walks into this room, there will be light! WOW effect and orchestra in the background. I am a genius! Now let’s minimise it even more: how about a dot. Just a dot. Simple. Minimalism. Project is done. An hour later, I am still in the same room, but the floor is moving, the sealing opens up and the creation of the world happens in the same room with the light switch. No, no good. Too many health and safety issues, not enough time to get something like this done, and I will probably need a stage crew to make something like this happen. Ok, so let’s focus on hearing. Yes! Everyone relays on vision, they will never expect something like this: same room, everything is dark, white noise (thank you Steven for the fab idea!) and a deep voice announces: let there be light! And then, we can hear the sea as God separates heaven and earth and then more sounds of birds, wind in the trees, animals… you name it, it’s there! Oh, and while we are there, how about some sparkly skies? Stars? Maybe even glitters (the audience will love that, won’t they? Erm, no.) Yes, I messed up the order of the days but I am overly enthusiastic about it all. And just before they are about to leave the room, I need to come up with the creation of man but how? Relay on sound again? Maybe put Eve’s voice telling Adam she asked him to do something 5 minutes ago and how many times does she need to ask? Maybe not. Maybe just a silhouette of human bodies, nothing specific? Just something that passes through, allowing the brain to make the connection? God! Creating a world is too hard!

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