iPod digital storytelling brings out the geek in me

iPod Mobile Digital Storytelling and Media Lab

Since I first put my hands on a serious camera, I’ve struggled with the Geek Factor – that thing where you want to touch the gear. It’s like walking around in fear you’ll buy a Leatherman Tool on an whim – the one with belt holster.

Then my son – whom I consider as far from Geekdom as one can get – got a Leatherman as a gift and was all ga-ga over it. Suddenly I was freed. Freed to indulge my gear fetish – in a healthy way.

One of the pieces of gear I consider a healthy choice is the iPod Touch I’ve been using for about a year now. It’s become my go-to, universal media tool.

In fact I recently used it to produce a 14 minute personal-story documentary in collaboration with inREACH, a social agency that offers support for young men who are trying to break connections with gang activity.

I use it extensively in my work as director of the Latitudes and Longitudes Digital Storytelling Project. I shoot still photos and video; write blog posts (like still one); edit video and record sound. At the digital storytelling project one of the greatest challenges is providing workshop participants with suitable technology environment for creation of their personal narratives.

In the past this has meant a fulling equipped computer lab with professional grade software and hardware – a tall order indeed for start-up art projects such Latitudes and Longitudes. This is where the iPod Touch comes in. I recently bought six basic iPods to form the basis of a mobile digital storytelling and media lab that I will be using in my future work.

First up is Local Food Bytes a series of two digital storytelling workshops designed to capture community stories about local food and its impact on peoples’ lives. The freedom afforded by a mobile media lab will allow me to hold these sessions at a neighbourhood coffee shop that offers a community meeting room and free WIFI to patrons – Misty Mountain Coffee Company on Queen Street South in Kitchener. You can get more details and register on the Latitudes and Longitude website.

I’ll also be using the mobile lab with a new project at inREACH, as well as at a Grade 5 classroom project funded by Arts Smarts Waterloo Region.

1+1+1 = All Mixed Up

Colour Mixing Experiment

I’ve been taking classes with Kitchener artist Alan Daniel. Alan is a master of technique and a marvelous illustrator. You can see his illustrations in the much-praised books The Story of Canada and recently in Fireside Al’s Treasury of Christmas Stories.

One of the tasks that Alan set for me was to learn how to mix a wide range of colours using the three primary colours – red, blue and yellow.

The accompanying image is of one of my mixing experiments using acrylics on wet watercolour paper. I love the way the colours spider across the wet paper, but unlike watercolours you can lay down heavy layers of paint while the paper is still wet, getting a more textured effect.

So much to learn, so little time.

A Year in the Making

Yes, a year in the making! How can it take that long to enshrine a tree root in a concrete arch?

• Create a cardboard form;
• cover it with a chicken-wire armature;
• apply a  2 cm. layer of mortar mix concrete;
• add a finishing coat white Portland cement;
• polish it with a rotary sanding disk;
• and add the centrepiece made of tree roots sanded smooth; ebonized with a mixture of vinegar and steel wool finished with three coats of clear water-based polyurethane.

I’ve been mulling this over — for a year — and then it was revealed to me last Sunday morning. An epiphany of sorts, while driving along a bleak section of Highway 407 with my wife on our regular pilgrimage to visit our mothers who living in nursing homes in east-central Ontario.

It was the piping of Joan Biaz singing “We Shall over Come” on CBC Radio 1, The Sunday Edition that evoked not only a deep wave nostalgia, but also a realization that it is in the “singing” that I take the greatest pleasure. I connect to my art through the process, so I’ve had a year of savouring the “singing” while making this piece — not bad.

Resources (added July 22, 2009):

Art Concrete: website by Owen Sound, Ontario artist Andrew Goss (opens in new window) – great how-to section with mixture recipes and gallery of work from various artists

The Creative Fire by Clarissa Pinkola Estes (opens in new window) – 3 CD set of poetry, storytelling and myth to fan the inner fire

Out of focus

colour-form2

Originally uploaded by dwightstorring

What if the intention of the camera was to capture colour and form rather than replicate three dimensional objects on a two dimensional medium? This set of images is what I think it might look like if we changed the camera’s character.
I’ve been intentionally making images out of focus for some time now and I’m outing myself with this post. It clearly does work for everything, but in some situations I find the colour-and-form images evoke a deeper emotional response than a sharply focused one. It frees the mind to explore and seek out a personal narrative for the piece.
Click on the photo on the right to see more colour and form.