How Media achives a surrealist atmosphere within a narritive

For my research project I want to look at a wide array of media, and look at how they have displayed themselfs, and how they have built a surreal atmosphere, may it be in small or large ways. Studying how they have achieved this atmosphere I will be experimenting on how it works, how it can be changed and altered, the implications of it's altering and how I can apply this to my own practice.

How to be happy and relation of black and white

We where instructed by Kerian to pick out a book from the library and use it as part of our research. I have chosen "How to be happy". "How to be happy" is a collection of short stories by Eleanor Davis, published in 2014 by fantagraphics. I will only be studying one 4 page story in the book called "Darling i've realized I don't love you."

 

This caught my eye initially as I saw the last two pages, even without the introduction to these characters first there is still an atmosphere that has been created without the need of dialogue. 

Firstly the most recognisable aspect of this comic is the use of white space as a signifier of the passage of time. The panels follow a steady rhythm that breaks in the middle of the second page to leave us with only white space. This subverts our expectations and uses it's white space as an emotional break. The last panel is on it's own and does not follow the established back and forth between the couple, giving it a sense of loneliness and finality with the previous exchange and pause in dialogue.   

The white space comes more into it's own as a signifier of time as we turn to the next double page and we understand that the couple is having a baby, we understand that the baby is not actually there in a black void, rather the black void around it is communicating that it is in the womb. The black of that panel tells us that the space that the baby is living in is both lacking in any light but is also groundless, through association of these elements combined we understand that it is growing in the womb and continues to grow with the inclusion of more white space under it. 

The next page over gives us again a metaphor in replacement of something that may take many more panels and may make it loose the emotional depth within the comic. 

The use of the couples expression, or lack of it is a large part of what makes this comic so effective, it's use of the same expression throughout tells us that it is not something that is said, or maybe even thought in these character minds, but an underlying feeling of where they wanted to be in life and where they are now and what they choose to do in effort to change that in effort to be happy. 

This is accumulates in the final page as we see though a metaphorical birth of the couple looking outward together, still with the same expression as before, the woman then taking the baby into her arms, the distance between her and her partner emphasized even more with the use of his black shirt creating even more distance between the mother and child. The final panel having the mother holding the child, with the same blank expression and the man looking on at both of them, seemingly removed standing back. There is no resolution to if the baby has brought them any closer, or given them any happiness or alternatively drove them further apart, we can see by their unchanging faces that they are still as distant from each other before the child and it ultimately did not result in anything.

Eleanor Davis, E, D. 2014. How to be happy. United states: Fantagraphics

Un Chien Andalou and Subvertion of expectation

"Un Chien Andalou" Is a 1929 Surrealist short film directed by  Luis Buñuel and written by both him and Salvador Dali.

The most stand out thing about Un Chien Andalou is it's lack of narrative, however it settles us in to very familiar situations, having a beginning of what a viewer may conceive as a traditional narrative before throwing us off, putting it down, and moving on.

Even within this lack of traditional narrative a viewer is repeatedly displayed characters, objects and symbols where they want to draw conclusions on what is happening yet there are no conclusive answers. Ultimately it largely relays on shock, and offence to subvert the expectations of viewing.

So, how can I take inspiration Un Chien Andalo and compare it to my own practice?
With an overview, non sequitur may play a large part into developing a comic form of what it may display, having a both consistent panel structure only with the insertion of the bizarre.

 

Ultimately i feel that this is something that can be approached in long form and short form practice although it may need a larger span for the shock effect to be effectively to sink in.

biblio

Michael Koller. M, K. 2001. Un Chien Andalou. [Online] [13th feb] Available from:http://sensesofcinema.com/2001/cteq/chien/

 Sabina Stent. S,s. 2014. Surrealism, symbols and sexuality in Un Chien Andalou (1929) and L’Age d’Or (1930). [online] [13th Feb] Available from: https://silentlondon.co.uk/2014/03/14/surrealism-hands-and-sexuality-in-un-chien-andalou-1929-and-lage-dor-1930/


Wikipedia. 2017. Un Chien Andalou. [13th Feb]. Available from: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Un_Chien_Andalou
Family name, INITIAL(S) (or company name). Year. Title. [Online]. [Date accessed]. Available from: URL

Blue and the omission of image

Derek jarmins "Blue" was his last film released in 1993.
The film largely is a consistent field of blue, narrated over with largely describing his life living with AIDS and going blind due to complications, but also long parts of visionary thoughts and the personification of blue.

The most stand out part of Blue is it's lack of moving image, Although this is largely done in representation of Jarmins blindness this film greatly reminded me of the colour representation the burn's used in exe'd out.

The narration is very poignantly colour based, having a large focus on bright, primary colours and deep contrasts, that although it's a flat plain bring forward richer imagery with the narration being detailed but concise in it's actions, droning music.

Blue largely works because of it's name sake and the history of colour blue, largely blue does not strain the eyes when looking at it for extended amounts of time, if it where red or yellow, two very prominent colours within blue, strain might be off-putting. Blue is also a colour that has been noted as a relaxing colour, but also historically it has held many other complex connotations to do with great wealth, prosperity but also sadness.

 

Universal Blue compared to the red an yellow in the same area of shade it is. 

When the eye looks at a simple image or a pattern for an extended amount of time the eye relaxes and stops sending signals to the brain, and so the brain starts so hallucinate to fill in the gaps, letting a person experience a part of their unconscious mind through blue, only being fed audio information.

However what if in Blue changed colours? there are many shades of blue described in Blue, just having the blue change would be a distinctive deviation, compared to the film.

 if we where to introduce the entire colour spectrum described in blue shifting to that colour when described that would give much more personification to these colours that are only personified through colour.

Taking this a step forward we can personify the colours used further with the inclusion of shape.

This kind of imagery may translate better on page, and ultimately we can understand it almost wordlessly.
Authough the narration is ultimately not always abstract, it is in fact very grounded in it's description of what it happening, but we are seeing much more than what could ultimately be displayed through film itself with the use of flat colour.

Overall i feel like this is a hard concept to translate to image effectively to page, however i think it's very effective in it's message. It minimalistic boldness has a large impact on how we view the image overall and the lack of confrontational imagery leaves the readers to interpret things by themselves.




Bibliography

Blue. 1993. [Film] Derek Jarman. Dir. UK: channel Four Films, Arts Council of Great Britain
Charles Burns, C,B. 2010, X'ed Out. England: Jonathan Cape
Gridley Minima, M. 2007. Blue.[Online]. [9th Feb]. Available from:http://www.h2so4.net/reviews/blue.html
Kyle Kallgren, K.K. 2014. Blue - Brows held high [Online]. [5th Feb]. Available from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FoImLuNoqYQ
Wikipedia. 2017. Blue (1993 film). [Online]. [9th Feb]. Available from: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_(1993_film)

Twin Peaks and repitition

Twin peaks sets itself up as a show that has a lot of facets, encompassing a lot of genres at the same time. And while more avante garde aspects of the show do not appear within the first episode, it sets up the tone tightly with succinct introduction of characters with small visual cues, and very little words.

The creation of atmosphere in twin peaks is largely it’s use of droning background music, it is never very noticeable however the use of ambient sounds the repeat over and over create a tense tone, sparsely using motif to create an atmosphere we only see Lauras motif on the reveal of her body and again as the news of her death and another distinct comedic motif in Audreys reveal of Laura’s death to the Norwegians.

This is paired with the cinematography of a mixture of claustrophobic close up shots, its stillness often forcing the viewer to look at our characters very closely this in turn leads us to sit and stare at any ensuing horror, there are no jump scares or quick cut techniques used in twin peaks that diffuse the tension and this allows the audience to carry on that feeling of dread throughout the viewing time.

There is also the heavy use of establishing and wide angle shots having a main focus within a very still foreground, character action being in the background this carries on the idea of stillness within Lynches cinematography. This along with quick interlaced cuts of scenery moving with no human contact within them gives the work a sense of emptiness.

These are some of the techniques I have found studying the first episode of twin peaks, and there are many techniques I could focus on here, however I would like to focus on one aspect of his cinematography, I would like to develop his use of repetition into a graphic novel format. While for this particular experiment I will only be focusing on one aspect of his visual language I would like to carry on with what I have learnt in this study, and see how relation to other artists, seeing how Lynch was influenced and has influenced others in creating surrealist narratives. 

Largely influenced from a later portion of the series, i found with translating the repetitious nature of the lynches cinematography made the overall image become like a pattern in it's nature, having to substitute overall ambient sound throughout made me want to push it's repetition through repeating action.

I like the overall layout of the page however i feel that this kind of repetition would need to be on a larger scale overall to effectively communicate what i wanted to as the atmosphere of twin peaks is built more upon a slow build of repetition.


bibliography
Jared Rapfogel, J, R. 2002. David Lynch and Mulholland Drive. [Online] [7th February] Available from:http://sensesofcinema.com/2002/david-lynch-and-mulholland-drive/lynch-2/

Nicolas Lezard. N,L. 2012. David Lynch: director of dreams.[Online] [7th Feburary] Available from: https://www.theguardian.com/film/2012/feb/17/david-lynch-film-director-dreams

Polygon. 2016. Why twin peaks doesn't need jump scares - Shriek Week: Day 1. [online]. [19th Janurary]. Available from:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jRO2V6NgI7U

Twin Peaks, Episode 1, Pilot, 1990, ABC,  [April 8th]

Exed out and iconography play

Surrealist atmosphere in X-ed out and how we react to things differently though the use of shifting style.

Xed out is a Graphic novel written by Charles Burns  in 2010 it is the first part of a trilogy. X’ed out follows the story of a man called Doug, it uses dream states to give us jumping off points on how we are introduced to Doug’s past, there is a very clear divide in X-ed out on the difference between how we view Doug outside and inside of the dream.

We are introduced to the visual parallels between Tintin on the cover as it references the 1941 cover “Shooting star” we are already introduced to the TinTin’s ideals being contrasted with the darker nature of the Charles Burns style and content.

There is a great contrast the two dreamlike states in E’xd out are presented to us in a Tin Tin esque style, however they are mostly limited to Doug’s facial expressions.

Burns stills retains his detailed character designs and backgrounds, large changes are in the contrasting colour pallets between the two worlds. A Lighter and brighter colour palette is used in the dream and this is contrasted with the dull or oversaturated colours within the flashbacks.

The TinTin style is emulated mostly through Dougs body and in later books other peoples, this communicates an underlying sense of adventure with it being displayed, Authough Doug is ultimately shocked and disturbed, it does not have the impact that it may once have if he where to keep his usual face.

It largely acts almost mask like in nature with the world around him having largely the same level of detail sans Doug.

so, how can a shift in style, change how we see a character, and how we see overall narrative in my own practice?

 If we take this picture to have the character "on model" we can see from the following pictures that the more cartoonish style shift ultimately makes them appear less grounded in their own reality, they appear to be more familiar with the overall softness of the figure.

 

 

 

ultimately the shift from realism toward iconography makes creates a less confrontational picture than it would be if portrayed realistically. This largely makes the character more relatable, we see the character more as ourselves than the "on model" character above, through the simplification of the figure. Thus when the Character goes through trauma of any kind, it is not as grizzly as it could be presented in a real context gains symapthy rather than shock. And alternately when images shift back "on model" there is a sense of dissonance between the two versions of the character, we want the more recognizable, character we can more easily see ourselves in.

So how are we affected differently when we are presented with many different styles? 

Disney's cookie carnival 1935

Both connotations of classic feeling, but not yet encroaching on a great large scale iconography. This kind of imagery may also be compared to the betty boop aethetic and other jazz era with this characters aesthetic.

X'ed out snap cuts it's transition to it's other style, what if we where to change this and have a distinct shift into a style change?

This changes how we see the character swell, leaving the ambiguity of the characters mental state bare and giving much more connotations that they might be seeing things in an altered state from reality. 

The Overall idea of shifting a how a character is a very expansive one, and an idea to be built upon more it's overall aesthetic leaves viewers easily interpreting things differently than having one style all the way through.

Family name, INITIAL(S). Year. Title. Edition (if not first edition). Place of publication: Publisher.

Charles Burns, C,B. 2010, X'ed Out. England: Jonathan Cape

Herege, H. 1941. The shooting star. France: Le Soir 

Scott McCloud. S,M. 1993. Understanding Comics. United states: Harper collins

The cookie Carnival. [Animation] Ben Sharpsteen. Dir. United states: Walt Disney. 

Serial Experiments Lain and shadow play

Serial experiments Lain is a 1998 Avant Garde Cyber punk 13 episode animé directed by Ryutaro Nakamura that focuses on the titular main protagonist, Lain.

For this portion i will be writing about it's first episode "Weird" and how it was directed.

What stands out to me first of all is Lains sound design, what background music there is it is largely composed of ambient electric esque humming, noise and other distorted effects. This is often paired with ambient background noise of the scene, The sound design is often very quiet, it is unafraid of silence, often giving us long portions of the episode with only Diegetic sound. Sometimes dialogue is omitted completely as mouth flaps are intentionally left unfilled to add to the suspense of the scene.

Lains visuals are often very lingering, it feels as there are no real quick cuts in it. it uses many close ups, most notably semi realistic close ups of characters mouths. Repeating shots of peoples eyes and faces. Long establishing shots that pan across a white saturated scenery. It's Shadows often very bold but also not using pure black, it uses a single texture that is a watercolour esque purple and red, giving it both a surreal and eerie atmosphere.
"to signify that the Wired is in the shadow, even in the real world, it's still there beneath the surface"

I wanted to create a shadow texture for myself to use in my own research in this

It's use of Light is it's most stand out feature as light sources glow brightly having a very noticeable colour distortion on the scene around it, often used as a way to guide the eye around the scene, as well as ground the scene as that strong light source effects all of it we are able to keep up with the cuts throughout it. Television and monitor screens have a strong distortion on them and it easily separates them from the world that Lain is living in and what is on screen, greatly adding to the atmosphere of how people interact with these objects in their daily life.


Although on a smaller note it also uses reflection very purposefully, often in establishing shots, such as when she is in the middle of a cross walk, a car drives by the cameras view, while we are able to see that she is already in the middle of a cross walk in a build up urban area, the reflection on the car doors only solidifies that scene with the reflection being of the sky cluttered with buildings and wires.



Lain suffers from what we are led to assume are hallucinations, or major dissociation. Although any mental disorder, if any is left up the the viewer, Lain often veiws people in an othering way, as people blend into shapes alone. This pushes us to be sympathetic with Lains character as characters around her are often distant. Many People displayed are often without faces, or avoided showing them. More important characters are often othered with uncomfortable close up shots, and detached attitudes towards her.

"it's reality to her, but to everyone else that's around her, they can't see it, it's not part of their reality. so in that respect, everyone has their own reality that another person can't see, and it's kind of a playoff between realities for each individual person."

Overall I feel Lain has a very strong sense of it's audio and visual language and how it communicates it to the viewer, we have automatically established tense and weary relationships with the technology shown without the use of being told to be so though speech or narration.

I think it's hard to encompass the entire atmosphere of lain, however it's atmospheric use of light is the one thing i like about it the best and i would love to use it's use of light and shadow in my work, in more enclosed spaces it looks cluttered, however the starkness of the last panel is interesting.

 however perhaps more sexual shadow should be used in wider shots, splash pages and other things  

 

Overall although it's an interesting technique it should be approached carefully in it's use as i can come off as too overwhelming for the image

 Lawrence Eng, L, E. 2000. Panel discussion With Yasuyuki Ueda And Yoshithoshi Abe.[Online]. [1st Feb] Available from: http://www.cjas.org/~leng/o2klain.htm

Serial Experiments Lain, Episode 1, Weird. 1998. TV Tokyo. 6th july.

Symphogear. 2014. Serial Experiments Lain in the modern age of social media and the internet. [Online]. [Nov 5th] Available from: http://the-artifice.com/serial-experiments-lain/