Final Submission

Essential Services Only: Some Form of Social Interaction, 2020.      

Chelsea Graves and Liam Mooney (Colab Pair 6).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lxk2i90tn-E&t=28s.

24 Minutes Long.

16 participants over a 24 hour time frame. 

The past few months saw the world as we knew it disappear suddenly into a global pandemic. As our nation went into a sudden lockdown, everything became uncertain and what it meant to communicate with our social groups we were distanced from, our community and with the environment we were confined into had changed. We have manifested a campaign that identifies and encourages the conservation of care and manaaki for ourselves and the those around us. We have offered people the opportunity to take part in a project that allows them to share with us the spaces they have occupied, both their outside local community and their inside personal spaces. A key part of this campaign is the visual connectivity we have had through  technology during these covid-19 levels. Social media, video calls, gaming rooms etc, have been a key part of what has bounded us together through this time. This work explores the connection we have had socially of our own realities through a virtual non-reality. 

 Chelsea Graves and Liam Mooney (Colab Pair 6)

(Please watch video in 1080p HD)

Also, please see in arrows in top left corner:

- Each individual persons own page 

- Bibliography for the Campaign

Final Reflection

Overall, I think that this process has been difficult but such a learning curve at the same time. We don’t realise how much we miss human interaction when we aren’t around our friends, extended family and co-workers, etc. I think that this campaign is subtle, it isn’t your normal slogan, design project like a lot of the other groups are doing. Chelsea and I come from a visual arts background so obviously it is going to be in this context. We are happy with the work we have made, I am extremely thankful for Chelsea, she has helped a lot. We have worked well together whilst also extended and allowing our relationship to blossom even further. Even though there are probably still a lot of things we could have changed or we could have done more, I feel like this work represents us and is very conceptual but also hard-hitting. I am going to send the link to everyone who was a part of it and ask them to send it around social media see how many people look at it. This assignment although being delayed and constantly blocked by COVID-19, was great opportunity to use it to its advantage. We are both happy with what we have produced and know we did it well together, Glad to see everyone back in studio’s and at university thought but also what a good way to end our minor as well. Hope you enjoy.

Chelsea Graves and Liam Mooney, Entertaining Images from our Zoom/Teams Calls, May - June 2020

Seeing Chelsea

After how many months of just Zoom calls Chelsea and I were luckily enough to have time to see each other before this was due to share the last kind of moment together of the assignment that we have been working on for so long now. I think it was a nice way to end it we went out for food and then we went back to Chelsea’s and we ate and talked and caught up but then looked at the work we had done and felt a sense of accomplishment. So in perspective to the work which we made, it was a nice 360 tie in that we started together, then separated then back together in order to end the semester and the minor off on good note. 

David Maisel, KYDOIMOS: The Din of Battle, 2017, Auckland Art Gallery. 

I went to the Civilisation Photography Exhibition at the Auckland Art Gallery, and although I did not really enjoy any of it, this work stood out and the grid of the screen reminded me of the work Chelsea and I were doing so it was just a nice tie in and a different perspective of the grid, so i just thought i would pop it in here. 

Final Decisions

So we have decided that nothing really needs to change other than the fact that there are more squares than the first original final draft, but also that there should be sound. We think over the 24 min period as each person is popping up like an activity status, or joining the call/community we should be allowed to hear the noises coming from their stories and communities and their own voices as well. So this was something that we think definitely needed to happen. But also, we didn’t think that sharing any of the information such as the time stamp or the occupation or person’s name on the video was relevant. So that it why it is just the grid and the videos popping up at different times based over a 24 hour clock. 

Chelsea Graves and Liam Mooney, Final Touches Completing the Video, June 2020.

Chelsea Graves and Liam Mooney, Dimensions and Numbers for Videos, June 2020. 

Final Week

So we are in the final week of doing this assignment and it is all hands on deck Unfortunately, we also have our Studio presentations due so the first two days we will have to be focussing on that. Then doing the final touches, and finishing all the videos plus maybe eve going to see Chelsea in person to make this whole process a full circle. Let’s do it. 

16 Participants

Liam:

Myself

Jack. G-C

Danielle

Jermaine

Jennifer

Monique

Harry 

Alesha

Chelsea:

Herself

Megan

Jack. C

Liam. H

Teyah

Jordan

Peter

Kelli

New Volunteers

Well after seeing the video we went on a bigger hunt to fid a few more people, just asking around some of the other people who messaged but then didn’t reply again, just to ask one more time, we felt like the 3x4 screen was too messed up so we are on the hunt to finding 4 more volunteers so that brings us to 8 each and a total of 16 to create the videos. 

Reflection on Presentation

Everything went good, it was nice to see us all kind of lead the presentations and the way we responded ourselves rather than just Rebecca and Lindsey, like they said, however, there was a part of me that wishes they had some more questions or concerns about certain things to help us with the video. However, i said what me and Chelsea had talked about the night before in order to make sure that everything said we were on the same page about. So it went well, 

Kendra commented on the layout and how she was confused on why it was like that so I guess we need to explain that a bit more maybe and do we tell the audience that is what it is. But at the same time show don’t tell. 

Also Ava, made a comment about live videos and well it would be way to hard to organise that but she did love the idea and I was interested in what she did say. 

No one really answered the questions that we posed which was kind of sad so obviously they either didn’t get it or they were fussed. So I think we will have to come together in order to make these final decisions and then submit the final video. 

Notes for Presentation

Title:

Unfortunately we haven't come up with a fully resolved title yet but will be on the top if our list as we come into the final week. Mission Statement:To revisit our mission statement there have been a few changes. Add in that it is going to be over a 24 hour clock Activity status No video calls recorded just videos sent in by participantsPlus also a few interview questions and a discussion online to keep relationship and collaboration high with each person. 

People:

We sent out a call using our social media platforms instagram and facebook and also messaged a few people asking them whether they were interested. We each had a few friends respond and ended up with 12 definite people including ourselves with 10 already sent in videos and 2 we are still waiting on to send. A range of people got back to us, but specifically ages between 20-25, it was the age range which we were kind of expecting as it was people we knew from uni, school and other places. I know a few of Chelsea's people who responded were essential workers and they document how they would be still going into work etc. A lot of mine were more uni students and documented them doing their work from home or activities around the house. It was a good mix which we have and we are in further collaboration with maybe a couple more if we have time next week. 

Model Release:

Each participant was given a model release form, Chelsea put the model release form together for each person to sign; here is just a rough kind of the rough note version of it to give you an idea of what kind of things were required and so that the participant was comfortable with the project and new what was happening. We also posed a couple of questions for them to answer just surrounding what their Covid-19 experiences were like, we originally were supposed to do these over video call and implement them in to the video however, with time restraints and also working around timetabling it was hard for us to kind of have a decent amount of time with each person and just setting up a time was difficult. This was definitely something we needed to work on, especially around other uni calls and making sure that Chelsea and I were constantly communicating. Our idea almost kind of had a small change as well with how we wanted to present the video, so I think that was another reason we decided to scrap it. Chelsea and I came up with these questions to ask each person and we separately talk to people that had personally responded to us obviously because we already had a strong relationship but I know with some of mine I was able to call them and ask them and just share our experiences and the time which we had in the places we stayed. So this idea of conservation of our spaces and ourselves, through this social connectivity was something that still existed in the project. These answers I think are something we have decided to keep for our notes and to reference back to, we had a discussion around whether we wanted to put them alongside the video. However, we felt this invaded a bit of privacy and kind of ruined the personal relationship that both of us had with our peers and friends. So this will be put into our online visual diaries alongside a personal reflection on our time talking to these people and building these stronger relationships through a virtual setting. 

Video:

We wanted to show you what we had done without showing the full extent of it. It is a 24 min long video 1 min per hour of the day, over a period of one day as a representation of each day going by. Since asking the participants to send us the time the video was taken I was able to put them into an order to show it like they were popping up at different times of the day, this also further enforces this idea of the activity status. This is sped up version so that you can see the idea of this activity status as well since we don't have enough time to play the whole thing. There is one frame i didn't scale down properly and only realised after I exported it.We got a range of different videos, some people fully didn't grasp what we were wanting to do and some understood it so well and it allowed us to reflect on what we had said and how we had approached telling people the idea, in order to make sure it was being clearly communicated. Like Lindsey kind of pointed out, we really didn't know what people would send but we worked with it and have produced this. 

What have we done? 

So we have done this video as a base for our final presentation next week. We still think there are a few final touches and decisions that need to be made for it. Like I said before 12 people have agreed, 10 have sent videos just waiting on two more. If any others are interested I think we will try and fit them in because the distortion of the videos since it is a 3x4 layout.Like said before we have to come up with a title for the work and we will consider maybe talking to others about this such as the participants get their input as well. Also final decisions and touch ups and making sure the videos are aligned perfectly. 

Questions posed:

After doing this draft video we had some final decisions and questions which we thought me could ask to get some feedback on if anyone has any at the end of the presentation. Do we show the participants occupation or role they had in the levels?Do we show the time stamp on the video? Sound or no sound? What responses do you get from the video before any final decisions are made? any recommendations? 

Presentaition:

We have decided to do an online video premiere as we feel like this will allow us to kind of keep a more visual arts context to the work. We don't see this working as a social media video or in a gallery context at the moment and especially with things only opening back up we thought it was fitting to do it online like i know a lot of the other galleries and artists are doing. Like I said since we both do visual arts we thought this would be a good idea and didn't want the social media aspect to take away from the work itself. We had a discussion about this and addressed the idea of  what it means to put art on social media and whether this was something we wanted but decided the video premiere was a better route. We have a rough date of putting the video live the day the presentation is due so that we can get the participants  and ourselves and friends to share the link and I think this is where the social media side of it might come in a bit handy in order to further elaborate on the 'spread of the virus.' 

Compromises: I

nstead of recordings and video calls that we were originally going to do, the interview questions and the conversations we have had one on one i think allow us to make sure the relational also kind of 'field research' that we could do with the restrictions of the alert levels.Obviously communication and collaboration has turned from face to face to then online calls. We weren't fully aware of what people would send and we had to work together on calls in order to just get the video rough cut done. Chelsea did a lot more of the writing and talking parts where because I have premiere pro on my laptop and she doesn't I put the video together. But with the calls we have had we have worked together to see which videos and how we want to structure it was important. Yeah any questions or comments. 

Presentation

Chelsea Graves and Liam Mooney, Untitled, June 2020. Premiere Pro. 

12/06/20

Progression Session @10:00 with Group A

11/06/20

Call with Chelsea @20:30 Meeting Time: 2 hours