Author: mnp305

Team Members: Maike Prewett and Candy Bi

Candy and I started by researching and collecting data on different animal measurements, and figuring out ways to represent these measurements in an urban landscape.  Some examples of this were:

• • A North Atlantic right whale’s swimming speed (5-6 mph) which is roughly walking speed
  • the speed of oncoming cars in a residential street (25-30 mph), which is roughly the same speed as a shortfin mako’s average swimming speed (with bursts up to 46 mph); a mako shark will be slightly shorter than a mini Cooper
  • the size of a street bike (a spiny dogfish will be slightly shorter and a leatherback sea turtle 1-2 feet longer)
  • if the listener goes to the 7^th floor of a building, they will be able to gauge the depth from the surface to the bottom of the Nearshore Zone (72 feet) and be able to view how far the Nearshore Zone extends to (about 8 miles from shore; someone on the 7^th floor will be able to see about 10 miles)
  • if the listener goes to the 40^th floor of a building, they will be able to visualize the depth of the continental shelf

We used the following audio projects, documentaries, conservation projects, and sound libraries as inspiration:

• • Her Long Black Hair, Janet Cardiff
  • BBC Earth, Planet Earth
  • Watkins Marine Mammal Sound Database
  • BlueYork
  • Ocean Conservation Research sound library

After collecting this information, we had to choose a narrative scope and focus for our interactive sound walk. Candy and I decided to focus our scope on a single animal, the North Atlantic right whale (which is endangered). So far, we have begun writing chunks of script using Janet Cardiff’s style of narration. Some examples are:

• • A right whale is about fifty feet long. That’s as long as a semi-trailer, or the length of twenty average-sized footsteps. Let’s walk together – ready? One…two…three…four…
  • A right whale can dive to depths up to 1,000 feet, which is roughly the height of some of the tallest skyscrapers in New York. Imagine you’re deep in the ocean, surrounded by blue water. You look up and see the sunlight glinting on the surface, just above the tallest skyscrapers.
  • Currently, there are no more than 400 or 450 surviving right whales. Laying end to end and side by side, these giant mammals would not even fill up a city block.
  • Hold your breath for as long as you can…

This week, we are looking to record a demo, edit it in post-production, and user test it next week.

 

Project Description:

GENERATED POWER is a geocinema short film exploring the former Nanshi Power Plant and current Power Station of Art in Shanghai’s Huangpu district. There were many different aspects of this site to consider: its historical significance, its role alleviating inequality, its transition from electrical power to art as an agent of soft power, gentrification, and the model of the post-industrial art gallery and white cube aesthetic. In the end, this proved quite challenging; there were so many different approaches to this narrative, we struggled to find a common thread between all of our ideas.

SmartShanghai describes this museum as an “impressive but cumbersome space, a huge building likened by curator Qui Zhijie to London’s Tate Modern. The PSA may have similar hardware to that legendary institution but it doesn’t have the software – the staffing, budgets, etc – to match.” We wanted to highlight how empty most of this museum is, even during exhibits; if the PSA relies on people to generate power, what is its purpose when this space lies empty?

We visited the location three times after the end of the Shanghai Biennale, when the gallery was in transition. The first time, we collected shots from the front of the building, and the roof, in addition to audio. The second time, we collected footage from the front of the building and distance shots. The third time, I brought a cell phone into the museum and filmed the interior. We also had to collect additional assets, which we took from Youku, surveillance footage live streams, photo archives, etc.

Ultimately, we struggled with the time constraints of this project. While I view our project as a first draft, it would require several more iterations (editing the script and flow of ideas, deepening the analysis) in order to analyze this site as critically as we would have liked. Because we spent a lot of time investigating the history of this site and initially intended to take our project in a slightly different direction, we felt rushed in our analysis of the PSA’s current role. In the end, we felt overwhelmed by the amount of information we had, and I think would have benefited from creating more rules/constraints for ourselves earlier on.

Citations and References:

Consulate General of Switzerland in Shanghai. “Shanghai’s Power and Gas Situation .” Shanghai Flash , no. 1, 2008.

Henriot, Christian. “Regeneration and mobility: the spatial dynamics of industries in wartime Shanghai,” Journal of Historical Geography, vol. 38 issue 2. 2012.

Isenstadt, Sandy, Margaret M. Petty, and Dietrich Neumann. Cities of Light: Two Centuries of Urban Illumination. , 2015. Internet resource.

“Revamped Plant to be Expo Highlight,” China Daily. 2008.

Personal Reflection:

Personally, I encountered a lot of difficulties with this project; I really enjoyed learning about the concept of geocinema but had a hard time visualizing matrix storyboarding, and drawing connections between the many different aspects of this site that we wrote down. We approached this project from several different directions, but decided to just go to the site first, collect assets, and write the storyboard second. This ended up presenting a lot of challenges (since we didn’t have rules/constraints in place when we filmed, and had a lot of different footage to comb through.) In the end, we decided to explore the relevance of the PSA when it is not in use.

I went to collect footage twice, first with Sabrina (to film the outside and rooftop view) and then by myself (to collect footage from inside the empty building). I also combed through surveillance footage looking for construction sites and power plants, screen captured satellite footage, looked for film footage from the inside of Chinese power plants on Youku, wrote the script, and recorded narration. If we had been given more time, I would have liked to edit the script a second time based on Ann’s feedback on Sunday night.