Website release: Coming soon!

Release of the website - delayed

I am very sorry for the late notice, but because I had a problem with my external Hard Drive (it has just stopped working), where I kept all the original video files, the release of the website will be delayed. The release then will be soon. Many apologies for the ones who contributed and are waiting to see the outcome of this project. The website will be online soon.

Creative way to answer it

Photo by Sophie Klevenow

Just received this picture from my friend Sophie. Funny way to answer the question! :D Thanks, dear! Very nice! Hahahah.

The Nomads Map

Click here to see the original size and download, print, etc.

This is the map I created by taking lines from the national borders of the world map and made what I'm calling as "The Nomads Map".

Using a transparent paper, I put it on the world map and drew pieces of lines from the country's borders. Then, I changed the position of the paper (turned upside-down, went to another place in the world map) and drew another piece of line, and so on.

The concept was to break national borders to create a new map. In this map, I'm showing that this project shows part of the nomads map and that the map goes beyond the frame.

News

Hm... what shall I say about it... Well, I don't think it is funny.

European art causes controversy
An art installation at the European Union Council building in Brussels, which is meant to poke fun at European stereotypes, is proving to be highly controversial.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/7827762.stm

Handed in! Phew!

I've been absent from this blog in the last week. Basically I was finishing my piece to hand it in on Wednesday (21/01), so it was a crazy marathon finishing that for the hand in and I was absent from anything apart from the Adobe Flash, Adobe AfterEffects, my camera and my Critical Evaluation essay. Basically I had one week for the post-production of the video, which is a really short time, especially because I've never worked with video editing before. So I was making it until the Tuesday night (which I had no sleep at all) to be able to fit the schedule and not miss the assessment. Those who knows me knows that this is atypical for me. I usually take the last two days just to make the finishing adjustments. This project was quite unusual in many ways.

Nevertheless, I'm back to life again. And if I say that I finished the project, I said wrong. It is done for the assessment but there are still things I'm going to change and get better to put available online. The deadline for it to be completely and beautifully done should be on the 11th of February, as previews planned.

I'll try to put a first sight available here, so you can take a look at what I handed in and what I need to change and get better.

About the project

This project is my final project of the Master in Interactive Media, at University of the West of England, Bristol.

It is about stories of nomads, people that are constantly moving and leaving things behind. It is a collection of stories by people from and in different parts of the world who wrote about what they have ever left behind.

I’m trying to show and communicate in this project that not only people who move from place to place should be seen as nomads, but we all should see ourselves as nomads, as foreigners, as we do not have roots and we are not attached to any land, and we are in constant movement, no matter if it is by moving from place to place or just because time goes by. Therefore we are all moving forward and leaving things behind.

“(…) The foreigner lives within us: he is the hidden face of our identity, the space that wrecks our abode, the time in which understanding and affinity founder. (…) The foreigner comes in when the consciousness of my difference arise, and he disappears when we all acknowledge ourselves as foreigners, unnameable to bonds and communities.” (Kristeva, Stranger to Ourselves, 1941, p 1)

My aim in this project is to focus on individuals rather than their nationalities and to break national borders. To see people not by where they come from, but as another human being.

To achieve that, I sent notebooks abroad to people in different parts of the world with the question “What have you left behind?” and asked them to fill in a page and pass the notebook to another person. After one month, I collected about 130 testimonies from people from different countries, from different social, cultural and educational backgrounds.

After collecting the data, I developed a website to present this content I’ve received, and also to try to communicate my point of view.

What have you left behind? - story of nomads by nomads
www.whathaveyouleftbehind.com

Test/Simulation + First layout

This is part of the test I did yesterday (with no proper tripod, bad light and bad crop) but just to see how the animation will work and to help me planning for the proper shooting tomorrow.

This is the loading part.


This is after loading (building up the website, but there will be a "skip intro" for the returning users).


The idea is to have something like this:

The map will be the video and all the other element will be above it.
I'll explain the things about this test (like sizes of button, interaction between the elements, etc) soon.

I'm now preparing the things to film tomorrow. But at least you can get a sense of the website.

The project is getting a shape now. I'm very pleased and positive with the final layout. Using the proper lighting, tripod, etc, I believe it's going to be very interesting and beautiful really.