BLACKBOX

an actlab production

by Heather Nirenberg
PROJECT NUMERO UNO

21st Century Gods: A Coloring Book

Blackbox was, and is still, an enigma to me.  This first project was created before I had much of a grasp at all on the concept of "blackboxing".  However, I do believe that it stands up to the theory.  The idea of a "god" is a fairly blackboxed concept.  The most widely known definitions deal in the realm of the supernatural, a being worshipped and believed in by many people, and someone or something that has other-worldly powers.  Nothing new.  And my project doesn't much stray from these definitions.  Money, religion, the open road...they all have powers that no one can explain and they rule many lives.  And now you can make them any color you want.  Who's got the power now?



PROJECT NUMERO DOS

"Evolution" (in three steps)
As I got along to this project, I began to understand a little more.  We talked a bit about the concept of evolution in one of our class meetings and, like a good college student, I began thinking in my sometimes random web of thought.  "Evolution," I thought, "That rhymes with 'revolution', and that rhymes with 'devolution'".  Interesting, I know, but this all got me thinking about my linguistics class that I had taken one of the previous semesters.  In that class we talked about the origin of many words, and I learned that, more often than not, it's no coincidence when different words are very similar in spelling and pronunciation.  Usually they all toe the lines of the same concept.  So I looked up the definitions.  Evolution happens when something changes through a gradual process, usually into a better form.  Revolution is the overthrow or thorough replacement of the body in power, and devolution is when the central body of power delegates authority to its subordinates.  Abstractly, this all screamed to me what has been going on with nature and mankind.  To me, nature is the central body of power and it has devolved some of its authorities to us, but instead of evolving into better beings, we have revolted.  With the ability to clone and manipulate nature to such an extreme, a revolution seemed to me the best way to describe it.  So the gorilla is my mother nature and she is pregnant with a beautiful world.  Little does she know that the little humans inside have a revolution in mind, complete with bombs and test tube babies.


PROJECT NUMERO TRES

Garbageman
This third project is more about closing some of my own blackboxes.  I am a film student, yet know very little about the process of making videos.  I did it once, but was babied along the way.  I needed to do this on my own.  I've watched many of my classmates' videos in this class and was blown away by many, and I wanted to know how they did it.  So, step one was a little daydreaming to come up with the concept.  My friend, Jesse Kammerdiener, is a very talented musician and I was listening to one of his recordings while riding the bus home from school.  I daydreamed an animation, halfway dancing, halfway just bumbling around, to his song.  Step two, I got home and went straight to the computer to see what I could do.  I made some drawings in Paint and uploaded them to some video editing software that came with my digital camera.  Next came about 5 hours of playing around, stressing out, coming up with more ideas, all followed by an ocular migraine.  I knew I was doing something right.  Watching the animation over and over, I realized that this could be a little more than my little dude dancing around.  He's got his own blackboxes he could be fooling around with.  So that dumpster there, that's his brain and all his cranial trash.  It's tempting and he's hungry and when he goes in there, he happens upon a tidbit of memory.  It's distorting and emotional and when he pops out of his mindtrap, it comes back to get him.  Point is, don't open those blackboxes unless you're not scared of being eaten by them.  Bon apetit.