5.5.11 | Interdisciplinary Collaborations, Projects, Transblog
Process Similarities Between Graphic Design, Video Editing and Improvisation
From looking at the similarities between a graphic designer and video editor’s process I hypothesized that similar process elements are transmutable across all creative fields. In order to further test this hypothesis I took a dance improvisation captured on video and attempted to fit the stages I have identified as shared between Adam, the editor and Matthew, the designer into my own dance making process. I then visually identified those shared moments (across graphic design, dance and video editing) in the improvisational video.
Interestingly, the final reframing in the improvisational piece was the most lucrative 15 seconds of the entire 5 hours I spent in the studio that day. There is something about physical exhaustion, a willingness to keep re-framing without judgment and boredom with oneself that pushes us to be more radically different. That combination of things really resulted in my most beneficial work of the day. That 15 seconds of movement was the video I used over and over in my graduate school applications. Lucky graduate schools got to see many witty videos like the one below.
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This is very interesting. It brings up many different associations and contradictions as they relate to our program, process, and reflections that are oh so necessary to capture and ‘reflect on’. First – you have framed this as a dancer, and designers with solo practices. Then you distilled these practices into common traits that can be applied translated across the fields with accuracy and relevance. I wonder if these characteristics have the same agency in the explicitly collaborative projects the studio undertakes. How do two individuals operate vs. a group of five? How do friendships and trust compare to strangers collaborating for the first time. I would posit that the common traits you might distill from these situations have some relevance, but might be analogous to contact improv, or random dance parties in the subway. Remember, ants act in swarms even if one gets lost on it’s journey and ends up wriggling in a drop of honey.
Next. Let’s video our interactions and reframe an hour of group ‘improv’ collaboration.