Inky Mandala Messing

I tried to create a sort of link between my Fibonacci film and the mandala clips by exploiting the freedom of movement in the ink pixilation. It nearly worked. With a background of ink experiment footage it might have looked a bit better, I think it's a bit rough as it is here though. I do really like the way the light from behind shone through my mandala cut outs though and that the ink could be seen spreading beneath them. It's messy but could be quite pretty with layers of colour. Unfortunately, this linking section wasn't needed in the end anyway as my other footage didn't work well with the green screen effect (think I needed to use a stronger colour to take out), so my mandala pixilation films couldn't really be edited together smoothly. Sad Face.

Pixelation is the way forward!

Soooooo, after 4/5 weeks of continuous drawing for this silly peg bar animation that I now hate from staring at it for so long, I managed to create 45 seconds of animation using the pixelation technique in an afternoon!!!! 
These sections of animation are quite quirky and sweet (I prefer them to my hand-drawn animation), but I'm not sure now if I'll be able to use them in a final film. The techniques I've picked up are useful for the future though, not just for the fact that it's a quicker process and therefore you can get much more done, but also because it gives a cute, homely quality to the film, which I love. (There was another video, but it is too large for the blog to handle unfortunately.)

Chakra Pixilation

This is the pixilation I made which should have gone over the ink footage from our workshop. I got the green screen (aka purple screen) wrong though and the keyer setting on Final Cut Pro X picked up too much of the rest of the image, rather than just the background. I tried adjusting the settings for the keyer effect so it would leave behind some tones but then my film had a lilac tinge to it which I disliked. This meant that the mandala film didn't get made in the end because my footage couldn't be linked in a professional way as it was. I would have needed to re-film all the pixilation work and there just wasn't time to do this. :( 

Using Zeitraffer

I've been experimenting with filming a wire toy I have that reminds me of a 3D version of a mandala. It's very delicate and can be manipulated into different shapes. It's so 90s too; a relic from the age of mood rings, Buffy the Vampire Slayer and dungarees. 
I tried to create a pixelation of it at home, but without a tripod, proper lighting and just your basic digital camera, the result is a bit poor. I think this needs to be re-shot in the studio. The only part I like really is the section at the end where it gets squashed down, because you can see the transition quite clearly. (I used my suitcase as a homemade tripod there). Really I wanted this film to be used in my second animation, and reflect the paper cut mandalas, which will be revolving. I'm not sure how clear the transitions are though because the object is so complex, so I'll have to retry the pixelation and then see how clear it is. 

Chakras and Palmistry Experiment

To compliment a section of my hand-drawn fibonacci animation of an outstretched palm, I've been looking into Buddhist ideas of chakras in the hands for my mandala film. I've discovered that different parts of the hand relate to different areas of the body according to the chakra theory, and this correlation is shown by colour-coding the matching areas. The complimenting film section that I could create for my mandala film could therefore be a pixelation of the coloured areas spreading across my left hand (to mirror the right hand in the fibonacci animation). The film section needs to only be 3-5 seconds long which is plenty of time to paint and draw across my hand and map out the basic chakra areas. 

 < Section of the hand-drawn fibonacci animation. Right hand holding a nautilus shell. 

< My left hand painted to demonstrate the areas of the palm relating to chakras in the body. I painted onto my palm using acrylic paints which come away easily afterwards, as opposed to inks, which stain. 

< My painted left hand with patterns drawn on using biro pen. I thought the colours alone looked a bit bland and bare, so I experimented with shapes and lines I've used in my mandala creations. I might alternatively just write onto my palm which sections relate to which chakra in the body, as they all have different names. 

Printing patterns

In order to get every element of a mandala the same, it makes sense to use a printing technique. Obviously with printing, there is always an aspect of difference between each print, depending on how the paint/ink has connected with the printing block and then the surface. I did some experimenting with found objects such as jewellery, pins, charms, coins and pen lids. 

I also tried printing leaves but the effects were so different each time that I didn't think they'd make good prints for mandalas. Other people have used leaves to create natural mandalas though by using the entire leaf rather than just an imprint of it. 

Alternative Mandalas

Since researching the historical and spiritual aspects behind the mandala pattern, I've been taking into account how people subvert symbols from other cultures for use in their own, sometimes losing the message along the way. For example, mandala patterns are now very commonly used for tattoo designs, but as the idea has become more prevalent, the mandala form has evolved. This is perhaps due to tattoo designers becoming more and more ambitious and competitive with each other, and thereby creating more complex designs, rather than adhering to the traditional 4-cornered Buddhist mandala. Mandala designs are more intricate and floral, taking aspects from Indian paisleys and henna patterns, Aztec geometrics and natural forms. As these are permanent fixtures to the human body, they disregard the Buddhist tradition of destroying the mandala once it is complete. Instead they often focus on the harmony of the design, its symmetry and beauty reflecting body, mind and spirit combined. 

After considering how the mandala has changed subject to culture and time, I decided to again reinvent the mandala by creating a design whilst cooking. I made a pizza mandala, which disregards all aspects of traditional and contemporary mandala, and instead shows the impermanence of things. The design changed first when the pizza was cooked and then was destroyed by being sliced up and eaten.

Light and Water Workshop

Today we did a workshop based on the effects of light shining through water, and had various materials provided to us which would create certain effects when dropped into the lit water. We used an overhead projector with clear Perspex bowls filled with water placed on top. This meant that anything dropped into the bowl of water would be projected onto a wall and enlarged. We experimented with various coloured inks, washing up liquid, coloured films, oil, prisms and magnifying glasses. We also tried different methods of delivery into the bowls of water, such as dropping inks from high up and dribbling them down the sides of the bowls. We also experimented with the effects made by blowing on the water and using a straw to create bubbles. These looked really good when reflected onto the wall, as the bubbles collected a deeper tone of ink around the edges and refract light within them. Some of the images looked like living things, such as microbes or bacteria. The oil and washing up liquid worked well with the water and inks as well because they don't mix, and so blobs of oil separate in the liquid, creating suspended islands of clarity within the inky water swirling in the bowl.
The videos we made had a very ethereal quality to them, and give an impression of balance and magic. I think therefore that this technique will be fantastic when used as a background in my 2nd film about mandalas and the Buddhist theories on the karmic balance of the universe. Other techniques I may use in this film might be pixilation and paper craft.

I attempted to make my own projections at home using a perspex tray and my lightbox, but it wouldn't project clearly enough so I just photographed the tray itself. I think they look like forming galaxies, which is very relevant to my project. 

Mandala Meanings

Merriam-Webster dictionary describes the mandala symbol as follows:

1:  a Hindu or Buddhist graphic symbol of the universe; specifically :  a circle enclosing a square with a deity on each side that is used chiefly as an aid to meditation.

2:  a graphic and often symbolic pattern usually in the form of a circle divided into four separate sections or bearing a multiple projection of an image.

In Tantric Hinduism and Buddhism (see Vajrayana), a diagram representing the universe, used in sacred rites and as an instrument of meditation. The mandala serves as a collection point for universal forces. By mentally “entering” the mandala and moving toward its centre, one is guided through the cosmic processes of disintegration and reintegration. Mandalas may be painted on paper or cloth, drawn on the ground, or fashioned of bronze or stone. Two types of mandalas represent different aspects of the universe: the garbha-dhatu (“womb world”), in which the movement is from one to the many, and the vajra-dhatu (“diamond world”), from the many into one.

This is a fairly concise and clear description of what a traditional mandala form means, however, as with most symbols, the form has been adopted by other cultures and in many circmstances it no longer holds its sacred meaning. Traditionally Buddhist monks will work on a mandala collectively (as a group of 4), and will only be allowed into the 3 year long process after they have studied artistic and philosophical practices. The process requires meditative concentration and is a balanced construction with each monk working on their own quadrant in synchronisation with the others.

The mandala is traditionally made out of coloured sands, and at the end of the lengthy process it is customary for the image to be destroyed, often by throwing the sands into a nearby stream to distribute the positive energies. This process, although it seems destructive and unfair, is to remind the monks of the important fact that everything is impermanent - a central Buddhist teaching.



Spirals are EVERYWHERE!

It's amazing how your subconscious focuses in on something after it's been exposed to an idea. It's the kind of phenomena that means as soon as you buy a new car or dye your hair a new colour, you start seeing the same car/hair colour everywhere you look. The simple fact is that they've probably been around you for a while and you just haven't noticed until it was relevant to your life. This is what has happened to me since I started looking at the Fibonacci series and mandala patterns. I'm now noticing spirals and patterns everywhere.
In uni last week we had a guest lecture from Brendan Dawes, who tries his hand at a variety of different mediums and styles. I really liked some of his work; his happiness machine is exactly what I think art should be, entertaining and there to make people happy. It's his work for EE however which captured my attention in relation to my project. He created a way of visualising links in Twitter over 3 days and 11 different cities as part of their promotional campaign. His final design is based on the formation of sunflower seeds on the flower, but he uses different sized and coloured dots as a code for the Tweets, which gives the effect of a sporadic mandala pattern.
I absolutely love it when data is visualised by artists, hence the reason I'm so into maths for this project. My flatmate owns a book called 'Information is Beautiful', which is a collection of innovative ways of presenting data. I think Dawes' EE Digital City Portraits could easily be a part of the book, as it has made millions of tweets digestible in just a few beautiful images. I particularly love how one of the images shows an influx of tweets from the London area regarding a hurricane in New York, and the formation of Dawes' images reflects the structure of a hurricane as it follows the same Fibonacci spiral - a lucky, unintended stroke of brilliance in the work due to the data that came through.
http://brendandawes.com/projects/ee