New Perspectives - Losing Focus began as a Senior Thesis project during the fall of 2018. This series explores abstraction by losing focus on the meaning behind an object and focusing on the way the forms interact within an image. By altering the orientation and using alternative angles the viewer interprets an ordinary object as an abstract organization of lines, shapes, and colors. Projecting the still images onto models created a new dynamic abstraction where the viewer focuses less on the model and more on the way the figure interacts with the abstract subject matter being projected onto them.

This project began as a photo series where I captured images of subjects that were not necessarily "beautiful," but when I took the photo at different angles the subject became abstract and interesting. I wanted to force viewers to see the world through a new perspective by losing focus on the meanings behind objects and focus on the object's form. I learned when working with film photography that you can make a boring photograph a dynamic one simply by rotating it or by cropping it, so I began rotating and cropping my "still" work to create interesting and abstract photographs out of ordinary subjects.
After working on this for two months I had a photo shoot where we projected images onto models. I believed that by projecting my abstract work onto the models I could expand my project and make the human form an abstract figure. By projecting images onto the models I found the interaction between the physical form and a flat image disorienting and wonderfully abstract.
As I was photographing the models I started to take many photos as the model moved through the image, which inspired me to create stop-motion styled animations. I wanted my animations to have the same disorienting and abstract mood as my photographs, so I created a quick paced and flashy language for the animations. The animations allowed me to explore my theme not only through still image and human form but also movement and the relationship between the way figures and forms interact together. To complete the animations I recorded sounds with the same mindset as I took my images when I first began my project, ordinary sounds that when you remove the meaning behind what the sound is it becomes an interesting work, such as the sound of a printer, a train, and even scratching the back of a ukulele. I paired the sounds with animations based on the mood of the animation, whether it was cold and repetitive or warm and lively.
In the future, I plan on exploring this theme by introducing video recordings and using clips of fluid motion with jittery stop-motion animations.