Photo Novel: Story + Locations

Coming up with a compelling story is one thing, but making it the center-point for a barrage of multimedia projects another. After some weeks bouncing around in my mind my practice has lead me to a themed approach to my final year.

The previous conceptual approach of creating one story from whence all my projects will spawn brought about many problems. It compiled all my mental energy into one area, there was no productive avenue to escape to at times when the story became overwhelming. Centering different productions – script, photographic novel and interactive installation – to one story line created practical production issues; the different representations all became too literal and put restrictions on how they would relatively co-exist. So after a long hard chat I broke it off with the story – it seemed to take it relatively well because not long after dialogue began to pour.

Photographic Novel

The story lives here. It is set in a bush land outside of the City. The City has been darkened by the end of the age of electricity. In the chaotic state the man loses his love Sara. Sara is taken out of the City by people in her community to an area on the opposite side to the man’s bush land. As the city is the only place he knows he makes trips in and out to find her. He is constantly forced back out of the City by looters. He has a photo of Sara in his wallet and a Flash Drive filled with memories of her. In a desperate bid to connect with love he stops looking for her and brings elements of technology into the bush to access the imagery on the Flash Drive.

So far only one trip has been made for a location hunt. Unfortunately places of interest were found quite late in the day and not a great deal of light permitted for well documented shots. Bellow are just a few image scraped from this day.

Local mangrove area that resonates spooky alienation.

Mangroves are a particular location that communicate an eery and alienating feeling. They fit the aesthetic the story depicts. The damp, sporadically sprouting grounds will be a great setting for my character’s obsessive plight to reconnect to his love through technology.

Sun setting through tree tops

Juxtaposed to the damp fields of mangroves will possibly be sunset and moonlit shots of the landscape through thin tree tops.

River bank - possible character abode