Opening Commentary
Edward Ruscha: Dodgers Stadium, 1000 Elysian Park Ave.
This monochromatic birds-eye view of this stadium with its surrounding car parks, motorway and housing, really interested me due to how all these different shapes tesselate (or don’t) when viewed from above. The different patterns and lines are well organised and structured, rather like the habitual, constant motion of a lawnmower around a lawn. The top-down view is also very interesting, as this image has lost its sense of scale when viewed from a distance. This manipulation of size is something that can easily be done in VR.
Richard Long: A Line Made by Walking
Similar to the Ruscha piece above, this line was created by the usual back and forth movement of Long in a field. It looks as though a thin lawnmower has cut that particular strip of grass down, as if a lawnmower/Long’s walking has cut back the grass to restrict it’s growth, literally cutting it short. When growing copper sulphate crystals, you have to allow them to grow in order for them to reach their maximum possible form. In response to these two pieces, I will use my drone and try to film, from above, the motion of my dad cutting the lawn.
Raw Drone Videos
Digital Tracking of Lawnmower Path
Using “HitFilm Express” and the motion tracking feature to target a section of the lawn mower and follow it around the garden, leaving a line showing the position of the subject at a given time.
Just like I had done previously with the engine oil path, I traced this path in blender and used it as a camera path around a crystal;
Etienne-Jules Marey
To match with the theme of the juxtaposition between growth of grass and of crystals, I have modified a previous video of the crystal/engine part scene in the same way as the lawnmower video above.