The Focus: Final Project

This ended up completely different than I originally planned it, but I like how it came out. The video wasn’t working out so I did more of a photography/documentation project instead. I found signs and traces of digestion along the line and documented them through digital photos, dividing them into two main groups of natural and industrial/human digestion, and then organized their contents into smaller groups based on what was being digested and how and put these records on mat board. Underneath the mat board I hung pages from my sketch book where I wrote stream of consciousness thoughts and ideas on digestion, printing out the lines that stuck out to me and pasting them on top. The title was written on an old piece of wood and placed on top.

 

The Focus

I’ve tried to do some more work with the video but it hasn’t been working out like I wanted it to, so instead of making a video I’m going to make a collection of images, finding evidence of digestion along the Line.

I still need to organize them and figure out a way to present them, but it’s getting there. I wasn’t that into photography in high school but I really like how some of these came out.

The Focus

This is my video so far. I hadn’t ever worked with video before but I really like the whole process of it. I would probably have to reshoot some of the scenes that get overly blurry and still need to add a lot more and edit it more finely, but this is just the beginnings of the rough draft (rough video?).

At my meeting with Michelle, she was talking about how the project seems more like two separate ideas (human digestion and non-human digestion) and that she thinks I should choose one and go more in-depth with it. I feel like that’s true, so I might just scrap this and start over. Or maybe I’ll go more in-depth with this one, I dunno yet.

The Focus

Thinking about digestion as just another very common form of biological processing, I’m exploring the line by finding and documenting different ways of digestion, from people eating to wood rotting. The results of the exploration will be recorded by video, using both digital video and stop motion animation.

I’ve starting collecting images to try to get ideas going, trying to keep my eyes open for any evidence of digestion or consumption along the Line. Some of the photos came out kind of blurry, but they’re just for my to keep a record of ideas so I’m not too worried about it.

The Word

Digestion is the mechanical and chemical breakdown of matter into smaller components to be absorbed by some organism. In humans, mechanical digestion is done by the teeth and muscles of the alimentary canal, while chemical digestion is done by enzymes in the saliva and chemicals in the digestion organs. Most animals have a similar structure and process. After the digestion is finished, the remains are excreted.

What constitutes digestion? It it limited to just humans and other animals, or do bacteria and bugs digest, too? Digestion is really just like another form of processing or consumption. It’s everywhere. Everywhere you go, the world around you is being consumed and processed and spit back out again. In your head, in your body, in the bodies of other creatures, in the bodies (are they still considered bodies?) of microorganisms, through the natural processes of the environment, etc. Thinking of digestion as a purely human process is really a conceited view, thinking that the processing of materials within the human body is the most notable of all types of processing. Digestion is a vague concept that encompasses a great deal and variety of procedures.

The Word

Digest -
1. To convert food in the alimentary canal into absorbable form for assimilation into the body.
2. To promote the digestion of food.
3. To obtain information, ideas, or principles from.
4. To arrange methodically in the mind; think over.
5. To bear with patience; endure.
6. To arrange in convenient or methodical order; to reduce to a system; classify.
7. To condense, abridge, or summarize.
8. To soften or disintegrate by means of moisture, heat, chemical action, or the like.

Digestible things:
- Food
- Drinks
- Ideas
- Education, knowledge
- perceptions (sight, sound, taste)
- Words

Indigestible things:
- Gum
- Dirt
- Wood
- Metal

Documenting digestion:
Excrement, writing, creative expression, sweat,

Experience of digestion feels like a rumbling in your stomach, and then a need to shit. Feels like a strain in your head, and then relief.

Exploring the Line

Other drawings were used to explore the texture of the rocks, either rubbing the rock on the highest tips of the surface or in the deepest depressions.