Video: Third Place, Most Creative

Jorge Pardo
Pratt Institute

Vacunao

Artist's Statement: The imagery of Vacunao addresses two symbiotic paradigms in a non-linear manner. These paradigms are the "dream" and the "narrative." The essence of Vacuna's argument rests on the crux of a dichotomy between dream and narrative. The narrative" in this context is correlated with the identity and the "dream" with the misapprehension of this narrative. Pragmatically, the narrative juxtaposes the imagery as a voice over which inquisitively alludes to surrealistic issues within a male-female relationship. This interplay allows the viewer an opportunity to freely associate the voice over with the imagery much like a shadow which silhouettes a form yet gives away none of its topographical information. Accordingly, Vacunao accentuates the formless by means of a surrealistic presentation of the protagonist in an enigmatic manner which relies on the nonsensical rather than the narrative. Formally speaking, the viewer is unable to discern exactly the intent or actions of the protagonist.

The production of Vacunao relies predominately on the masking and composite software Adobe® After Effects®. By means of masking and time remapping, the protagonist is visibly blurred and color mismatched from his surrounding environment. The implementation of DE Cinelook Filters gives the protagonist a two-dimensional quality, which lends itself towards the painterly. The protagonist often flickers in and out of the environment as if at any moment he will disappear. Throughout Vacunao, all color is under saturated excepting the protagonist who is highly saturated. The general quality of imagery is one of dark overtones with a very high grain quality. The staccato time sequencing is produced in Adobe Premiere® by means of multiple video audio tracks arranged in a nonlinear sequence. Therefore accentuating dream quality of the video. Vacunao accentuates that which is vanished, that which we do not see in ourselves, that which is Other…