Project Title: Love at First Sight Order Purchase
Overall Project Description:
This piece will be an investigation/musing on Love at First Sight, and whether it exists (see Tina’s earlier blog post for some general themes)…
To gather these perspectives, we’ll be setting up a confessional “love” booth at 3 different locations, at different times of day… At this booth, we’ll have a sign that says, “Do you believe in love at first sight?” We’d invite people in to talk about whether they think it exists, and, if so, to tell the story of their experience. We’ll set up the booth at Grand Central Station during rush hour on a weekday evening, in Central Park on a beautiful spring Saturday, and at a third location yet to be decided—perhaps a subway station, or outside a bar.
We’d also solicit responses to the question online via the UD website, encouraging people to post creative responses that involve media—video responses, photographs—as well text comments.
The final product will be a film that combines audio of people talking about whether they believe in love at first sight, and stories of it happening or failing to happen. These disembodied voices will be accompanied by several different kinds of images. The first recurring visual element will be a long, panning shot of a people in Central Park. The camera rests on individual faces, but only momentarily…as if implying that anyone of these people could hold the possibility of that lightening strike. This will be combined with a series of more abstract, atmospheric images of the park during springtime, shot with Super 8.
Relationship to General Topic of Mythology:
Falling in love at first sight is held up as the mecca of romantic moments by so much of popular culture that investigating whether it exists is inherently probing a myth. But, outside of this most obvious “myth,” we’ll be exploring other cultural clichés and assumptions with this piece. Visually, we’ll be playing with the iconic association of love and springtime, and dancing between affirming and exploding such connections. By having a booth that encourages people to discuss something as personal and intimate as falling in love in a public space, we’ll be challenging the public/private dichotomy… And by producing a piece that disassociates the voices speaking about falling in love with the people the audience is shown, we’ll be playing with sight vs. sound: love at first sight is a concept that privileges one sensory experience and formally we’ll be giving people incomplete sensory experiences: just shots and just voices that they’ll have to decide how to connect and interpret.
Description of Component for Theatrical Presentation: Pills Cheap
The final result of this project will be a 6-7 minute film that could be easily incorporated into the preexisting MoMA presentation.
Description of Component for Print Publication: Order
For a print form of this project, we could excerpt quotes from the audio and/or online submissions and combine them with excerpted stills from the film. The idea would be to produce a collection of text and images that, like in the film, are not directly connected, so the viewer can make up their own connections between words and photographs.
Description of Component for Online: online
We’d like to set up an online version of the “love booth,” putting the question about the existence of falling in love at first site to visitors to the UD website. We’d like to set up a place where people can submit their own perspectives—either in writing or using other forms of media: video, photographs, audio. We’d also use the website to post where we’ll be with the “love booth,” ahead of time.
Project Team
Tina Antolini, Shawn Wen, Katia Maguire, Jolene Pinder… We’d also be interested in a guy or a couple of guys to run a male version of the “love booth.”
In general, Tina and Shawn would be more on the audio end of things, and Katia and Jolene on the visuals… But the idea is that everyone would have their hand in all these elements, to learn from one another. At least 2 project members will be present for each running of the booth, if not all 4.
Schedule:
Tuesday 3/16… 6 p.m… first booth in Grand Central rush hour in the evening
Saturday morning 3/20… booth in Central Park.
Weekday evening before Easter… 3rd location booth.
Saturday, April 17th… shooting/booth in Central Park.
Goal: Be editing audio by beginning of April… Edit video post-4/17 shoot.
Technology Requirements:
Audio recording gear
Super 8 Camera
Super 8 Film
Panasonic HVX 200
Or a Canon 5D or 7D– still camera that shoots video
35 mm lens
Folding table Cheap
