THE GREATER THE DARKNESS, THE MORE WE SEE

Format: Video / 2D animation
Duration: 3 minutes 45 seconds
Year: 2020

Synopsis:

This project compiles various stock footage videos to create a form of animated collage. However, this video uses a particular technique consisting of masking the footage with abstract animations to show specific elements of each video and hide the rest.

Using this technique allows me to create different combinations to guide viewers' perceptions and prompt them to draw imaginative connections between the videos. In this sense, my goal with this project was to point out how an individual image could carry multiple meanings depending on its context. Moreover, it allowed me to foreground the malleable and fluid nature of our perception.

Context

Lisa Feldman Barrett's theory of constructed emotion initially inspired this project. Among many things, this theory refutes the claim that emotions are universal and instantaneous reactions to events or situations. According to Barret’s theory, emotions are not reactions but predictions made by our brain based on our bodily state and previous experiences. In a way, we fill in the gaps.

I found that this idea of guessing the missing parts of an image similar to Eisenstein's concept of "Intellectual montage," where two unrelated images put together one before the other could create a third image that did not exist in the previous ones, but only in the viewer's mind.

Festivals:

Dulcísimo Ovario (Pachuca, México)
NoCA - The Nomadic Contemporary Cinema (New York, USA)
Kwalhia / Experimental Films Online (Nuevo León, México)