Ocean Acidification Idea Process and Concept Explanation/Evaluation

From our research on global warming, we have found ocean acidification to be one of the greatest effects of global warming and climate change. After looking into this further and the effects it has on marine life, we found this to be an issue, not only that we all felt strongly about but that we felt had great potential at being expressed visually.

Idea Progression/Process

When our idea began, we started thinking about expressing the process of oceans acidifying very literally, thinking about reacting physical acid with items found in the ocean, and making a film from the chemical reactions that take place between the two objects when they interact. This would be a way of illustrating the effects of ocean acidification at a much faster rate, perhaps giving the audience a better sense of what is taking place in the world, by exaggerating it's effects.

We then developed this idea further, thinking about how we could perhaps involve the medium of the moving image piece to reinforce our ideas. This gave us the idea of modifying the film's medium, reacting this with acid rather than the objects on film. We felt that choosing this option would provide us with a more unfamiliar, bold and attention grabbing visual style. From here we decided to experiment with modifying 16mm film with acidic liquids. As can be seen in the tests shown on other blog posts, applying acidic liquids on black and white film did little in terms of creating the bleached visual effects that we were expecting. We then experimented with black and white 35mm film, thinking it would be possible to make a film in stop motion using this method. However, we found the same thing as we did with b&w 16mm film, only the surface level of emulsion was being lifted. We decided to avoid experimenting with colour negatives. This is because mixing film with chemicals and then developing the colour film would likely upset chemical balances in the developing machines.

After considering stop motion as a method of shooting, we decided to see if we could develop this further using altered still images in our project. We then thought about other materials that would give us good results when modified physically with acidic liquids, and after doing various tests with different types of paper, we found that inkjet-printed images react well and provide the bleached/psychedelic style effect that we were looking for. Our approach then changed slightly. Because this was becoming a very physical process that involved, printing, bleaching, and scanning again, we decided to keep the whole process entirely physical. We considered ways of doing this with moving image and thought of the idea of creating a physical flick book, taking the idea of film back to it's routes, taking inspiration from Zoetropes in the late 19th century.

The Flickbook Concept

Whilst finalising the idea in terms of the medium, we were also devising how our idea would work conceptually. We liked the idea of making the concept fairly literal and simple, not only because the production of our flickbook would be quite an intensive process, but also because the nature of a flickbook means the image must be simple with a single swift movement, in order for it to be most fluent. Furthermore, after discussion, we thought that to the audience, a bold simple message was more likely to make the issue clearer and create impact. We therefore decided upon using the simple action of a fish (representing marine life) swimming across the frame. As the flickbook commences, acid splats will proliferate all over the frame, and will end up engulfing the fish and the entirety of the page, symbolising the irreversible effects of the acidifying oceans. We also thought we'd use the reversible nature of the flickbook to make further comment. On the flip side, flicking the reverse way will show the skeleton of a dead fish, with absolutely no movement, defying expectations of the flickbook and creating a strong impression on the audience by further reinforcing the irreversible reality of the future of our oceans. The inside cover will provide contextual and statistical information to help position the audience and provide further information about the issue/ a call to action.

UPDATE:

Personally, having now completed this piece, I feel that this experiment is one of the strongest of all of our pieces. Although this required an exceedingly lengthy making process, I feel that this book is both conceptually as well as visually strong, highlighting the issue of ocean acidification well, by being informative as well as thought provoking.