Experiencing the body, self-reflection

Since the writing of my proposal to the completion of my project, many changes have taken place. My initial intent was to use green screen to create an illusion of movement through space with the body. This was the premise for my project which has remained the same despite the final project being different than the proposal for it.

Initially, I wanted to create the illusion that as the image more closely approached the subject, the viewer would sense that we are entering into the body of the person. A green screen was set up with lights to illuminate it. A test shot was taken with the materials to see if the effect was achievable in the editing room. After spending some time editing to quickly create a rough version of what I wanted to do, I realized that the effect was not as powerful as I imagined. I realized that it was not such an intimate exploration of the body as I wanted. Because I was using green materials such as fabric and cardboard, it was the materials being explored, not the body.

I was getting really frustrated and as me and a friend were playing around with the materials, I came up with the idea of separating the head from the body to put more emphasis on the body. I often think about how sometimes I feel disconnected from my body. By this I mean that I feel like I do not have control of my mind because it thinks without me choosing to think. When deep in thought, I often I am thinking about something while my body does something automatically without even being conscious of it. This disconnection between mind and body is often the result of stress, confusion or inattentively.

To create the effect of disconnection I decided to take two different shots where in one, we block the body with a green shirt to create a floating head and in the second shot, block the head to create a headless body. We made sure that in the first shot the head stayed above the mid line in the frame. In the second shot the body stayed below the midline so that we may combine both shots without them interfering with each other. The movements that were recorded were random and so we were entirely sure how the outcome would look. Co-ordination between the two shots would go against the idea of disconnection because we wanted disco-ordination, disorientation. The editing was fairly simple and the end result proved better than expected. The head and the body are moving randomly in different directions which make for a visually interesting interplay between the two. I feel that it creates a good sense of confusion and that the message of disconnection between the mind and body is clear.

I feel good about the end result. I am quite interested in different aspects of creativity such as painting, drawing, music, films and writing but this is the first time that I have been able to represent this idea. The concept of consciousness is something that I have been thinking about for a long time and so it was satisfying to be able to express it through this project.