as always, i started this project in my sketchbook
during the process of brainstorming and researching, i came across some interesting things on the internet that ultimately informed my concept for this project
i first found *this* article that mentions a writer who collected true stories of the seemingly impossible ways in which lost objects found their way back to their owners. this, along with Jung's idea that the causality of coincidence just has not been discovered yet, ultimnately got me thinking about who controls these concepts (coincidence, love, and decay) in the modern world. i then came across a reddit post (shown below) that i at first found a bit funny, but it got me thinking about gods and goddesses. specifically new gods of these three concepts. so who are these new gods?
.she lives in an empire of all things lost and forgotten. she facilitates the mutual attraction of related objects, and as such, is responsible for the seemingly coincidental return of lost objects to their owners. she spends her days planning these returns, and when the time has come, she plucks an object from her collection and drops them into the realm of the living. she takes humans' awe as worship. their quest for the hidden meaning satisfies her hunger. she is the undiscovered causality, and she will always remain elusive.
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.was the creation of humanity simply a coincidence?
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i had started working on the Love video first, so I reused the glitch effect I had animated in After Effects for the intro of the Coincidence video
i then filmed myself holding up different objects I had around my apartment against candlelight. these objects represent just a few of the goddess' extensive collection.
.the newest goddess of the three. she was born out of the digital age, the code for love. angel-faced and new, yet she holds the most power over humanity - influencing their every decision, every emotion. is the love we feel today still real? is a digital love a real love?
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i watched youtube tutorials to teach myself how to make these animations in Adobe After Effects, then I transferred the footage into Premiere Pro to edit the video together. i also used Photoshop to edit the love goddess/alien graphic.
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.in the age of mass production and consumption, decay means something entirely different now. because of this, a new god was required to facilitate the cycle.
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."this is the sound of the end of the world" - the whole world is in a state of decay.
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i first froze a flower in water and recorded a timelapse of the frozen flower melting. i used After Effects again to isolate the frozen flower and added a black background. i then brought it over to Premiere Pro and overlayed the flower footage with footage of yellow oyster mushrooms and rotting leaves I had filmed. i had collected the leaves from Tompkins Square Park and bought the mushrooms from a guy selling them outside the park (don't worry, i don't plan on eating them).
i created all the audio in Garage Band after the visuals were done. i basically just used the synthesizer keyboard and created sounds on the fly that felt like they fit with each video. i like the spontaneous quality of the audio, but i do wish i had spent more time exploring the possibilities of this aspect of the project.