My understanding of the terms precarious is that of something being fragile or on edge, as if it could break or bend at any second. As Stewart (2012, pp. 524) states “precarity’s forms are compositional and decompositional” and I take this to mean that whatever subject is “precarious” is in a constant state of flux, it is never certain in it’s state. I took this idea as the basis for my media artefact this week and attempted to show my chosen palm tree, shot from the same spot, in various weather states and times of day and to see what sort of outcome that would harbour. Luckily there was some harsh wind on the Friday morning which showed the most literal meaning of precariousness in that the tree was caught in the heavy winds and looked least comfortable in it’s surroundings. To further add to the precarious effect I tried to bring in some editing techniques involving shots of surrounding urban environment sped up to create unease and attempt to show the tree is battling the encroaching urban environment. Group feedback expressed that although the tree, did look precarious in some shots, the fact that it was withstanding all environmental factors also gave it an element of stoicism. I would liked to of developed this further through more heavy editing to give the tree a more humanistic portrayal of precariousness in relation to the viewer.

Stewart, K. (2012) ‘Precarity’s Forms’, Cultural Anthropology, 27(3), pp. 518–525.

This weeks task was in response to making a plant appear vibrant. A task that was an uphill battle for myself in terms of my environment and naturally ‘vibrant’ plants. After searching and only finding banal or miserable looking plants I decided to use a palm tree and attempt to show vibrancy through editing techniques and to try and give it some human-like qualities rather than relying on the natural beauty of the plant as I could not, as Thomas Dunn in the reading puts it, “be surprised by what we [sic] see” (Bennett, 2010, p. 5). Feedback from my peers indicated that I should use landscape mode on my phone (a poor habit I have as I nearly never use my phone camera) and also as it was a dreary day, use some colour adjustment to brighten up the picture to add vibrancy. The concept of  looking for deeper meaning in seemingly inanimate objects is easy to understand but harder for my brain to process as it involves a significant unlearning of the skill of sifting through useful and useless information in order to determine said outcome, one which has been learned throughout a lifetime. My practice of “Thing Power” (Bennett, 2010, p. 6) is only in it’s infant stages though.

(NOTE: An earlier version of this video contained copyrighted music which has been removed)

Reference:

Bennett, J. (2010) ‘Thing-Power I: Debris, The Force of Things’, in Vibrant matter: A political ecology of things. Durham: Duke University Press, pp. 4–6.

The key rhythm this week was in response to environment. Environments are all encompassing and are a part of everything, they have no limit. Our task was to find different environments and think of them differently and observe them through the lens of a camera and see if any patterns or rhythms emerge that were unexpected. My media artefact responded to this prompt by covering varied environments that I travel through multiple times a week and trying to record them in an unbiased and unthought out way and trying to notice the interaction of the natural and built aspects of both of them. Through doing this it was not until after that I noticed that a common theme between the environments was tree lined travel paths (whether bike, tram or walking). The response I got from classmates indicated that if a shot was better framed it is more likely to elicit a positive or more engaged and interested response from a viewer. Although I realise this point to be true, if one puts more thought into framing a shot in an environment does that also not bias the viewer into thinking a certain way about it?