Psychogeography Flash Narrative Artist Statement

My goal for the psychogeography flash narrative project was to convey feelings I felt were personal to me, but not necessarily in an overtly literal fashion. I wanted to use representational or figurative images in order to communicate a psychogeographical concept in such a way that it would reflect my own personal experiences, but I also wanted the final product to be abstract enough to present the opportunity for other’s to identify with it as well. That concept, I decided, was going to explore the interactions of individuals in new, unfamiliar, or even just strange environments. It is almost always inevitable that when introduced to a new environment, one of the biggest challenges an individual can face is making connections and developing new relationships with others – my narrative describes this type of situation.

The story begins with the protagonist bird who attempts to approach the other birds and share his food. The other birds steal it, and whilst the protagonist isn’t paying attention he appears to feel a connection (represented by the heart on his chest) based on their interaction and proximity with him. When they leave, however, he realizes that he hasn’t actually gained any companions and his heart breaks. The scene develops into a thunderstorm, conveying his feelings of loneliness and vulnerability. When the storm clears, the narrative appears to end as it pans away from the protagonist, but instead it comes upon another brightly colored bird with a broken heart. This bird is obviously not associated with the black forest, and when the protagonist notices it they form a connection and their hearts snap back together.

Ultimately, they story line that within my animation expresses the belief that even in new or unfamiliar environments, individuals can always connect and benefit from new and developing relationships even if they initially struggle in doing so.

From the initial planning stages of the Flash narrative project I knew I wanted to incorporate my drawing style in the animation, so all of the figures are either hand drawn and scanned or drawn with a tablet. The art style seen in the piece was meant to be kept simple in order to more clearly communicate its message. The birds that I included in my flash movie were given opposing colors in order to indicate the separation between them. The choice of teal for the main “protagonist bird” was really only to complement the other colors in the animation, while the black of the opposing birds was meant to convey a connection between them and the ominous dark environment/trees. The purple color of the very last bird is simply meant to distinguish it from the black birds and environment, however, it also establishes a connection between it and the protagonist bird due to their shared brightness. My intention wasn’t to focus on gender related relationships, so I hoped that choosing a the teal and somewhat feminine feeling purple color wouldn’t influence the viewer to perceive either the protagonist and purple bird as a male or female. The hearts on the two ending bird’s chest are meant to indicate their overall feelings of connectedness or loneliness as the hearts breaks or mend themselves. I felt that these efforts were quite effective in portraying my psychogeographical concept, or message, simply and concisely.

Lastly, I felt that learning how to use Flash was incredibly challenging but also rewarding. I was able to overcome 99% of the issues that came up with Flash, but one prevailing problem exists towards the middle of my animation. For a second or two a few of the frames are displaced, the birds are the wrong color and the motion is choppy. Hopefully I’ll be able to get some assistance in fixing the problem.

EDIT: Here’s a link to the animation. The video quality is absolutely terrible but you can get an idea of what the final product looks like.