Artist Research- Zhao Renhui

Similar to my idea of a camouflage cloak, the artist Zhao Renhui who’s works “The Blind” was a series of images documenting a camouflage cloak produced by the Institute of Critical Zoologists for zoologists and nature photographers to observe nature. This series of images which documents the camouflage cloak being used provides a peculiar image of man’s attempt to try to be one with nature.

Even though the meaning of the work is completely different, I feel the designs of the work is what is needed to protect being seen by the aliens.

Initial Ideas

Ideas for methods of Protection:

·      Aliens detect movement- stay still as a statue

·      Hide and keep still

·      Aliens detect heat- cover yourself in wet material

·      Aliens can read our minds – wear hat at all times

 Ideas for a protective product:

·    Read minds – metal hat to stop them from reading minds (‘Signs’, (2002), M. Night Shyamalan – the children wore home- made tin foil hats so that the aliens "Can't read their minds“).

·    Cloak - camouflage into the streets, concrete, grass, bushes (The Lord of the Rings,(2001), Peter Jackson - rock cloak)

Protect and Survive

"Protect and Survive" was the title of a series of booklets and Information Film series produced by the British government during the late 1970s and early 1980s, dealing with emergency planning for a nuclear war.

The purpose of the programme was to provide the public with instructions on how to protect themselves and survive a nuclear attack. A copy of the 'Protect and Survive' booklet would have been distributed to every home in the UK, and the films would have been transmitted on domestic television.

Here is one of the film series, “Action After Warnings”.

As well as creating propaganda posters and information leaflets, I could consider creating a series of film or adverts similar to the “Protect and survive”, but using the technology and culture of today.

Artist research – Brian Moore

Based on World War II propaganda posters, the posters have been rethought in contemporary context, remixed for today’s Internet culture.

As well as similarities of looking at World War II propaganda, I also will be recreating them to reflect today and the future. He has turned something important and serious into something funny; I also want to make my work humorous but still having the background of informing.

Whereas Moore has used actual posters from the war and changed the text, I will only be using the template of what the posters have e.g. type of information, style of images, layout.

World War II Propaganda

Here are three posters from World War II that will influence my works; I am interested in warning and showing what could happen when the aliens come and no action is taken. Also I think it is important to give clear information on what to do. Like this war had gas masks for protection, I want to create a protection product to use so to prevent capture by the aliens.

As well as having a product to protect us I also want to create methods of protection, I want these methods to reflect the humour that we feel they was during past wars, they was given to ensure the people stayed calm and felt safe, even though the methods were not reliable such as the ‘Duck and cover’ method.

Birmingham is Under Attack

From the influence of Banksy I created this quick experimental piece on Photoshop; I feel it captures the cheesy humour I intend for this project. I may use the technique of photo editing for my final works.

Banksy – Alien Invasion

Bristol Museum -15th July 2009

Here Banksy has taken an old painting and defaced it by altering it into a futuristic sci-fi image, where he has added alien space ships attacking earth.  Like all his other pieces of works, the painting has a humorous and immature feel.

Research on Real Claims - Betty Hill

I am more interested about the alleged abduction of Betty Hill, also known as the Zeta Reticuli Incident in 1961. Even though this claim may be untrue I feel this can be an influence to my work. She gave many interviews describing what took place on 19^th September 1961. She gave detailed descriptions on how the aliens look:

·         Form of human

·         Larger eyes

·         Smaller nose

·         Smaller mouth

·         No hair

·         No pinna part of the ears

Also she stated that all communications with the aliens were verbal, they could understand and speak English but not fluently. After she put up a fight about being taken into the aircraft, she told us the aliens said “all we want to do is some tests and we will leave you alone”. Her and her husband where taken on board and separated into different rooms where they were both being tested on, they was interested in the nervous system and bone structure. Both Betty and her husband where under control, however betty came out of it and was fully conscious, she said she was talking to the leader about our way of living and asked where they was from, the leader then went on to show her a map of stars, betty at the time was unaware of where theses stars were, until few years later after having nightmares and hypnotism, she could remember what actually happened that night, and could draw the star map the alien showed her. In 1968, Marjorie Fish, an elementary school teacher and amateur astronomer, Intrigued by the "star map", found a match to the map betty had drawn, it was from the viewpoint of the double star system of Zeta Reticuli. Therefore she concluded that the UFO might have come from a planet orbiting Zeta Reticuli.

From Betty hill story I will use the information of how the aliens look to influence my ideas, but exaggerating it for a humours factor.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3g93YoWsHjU

Research on Real Claims

After doing some research about real claims on aliens visiting earth, such as:

·    The ‘Roswell Incident’ –In 1947, Army Air Forces allegedly recovered remains of a crashed “Flying Disk”.

·    Alien Abduction Implants - Most objects removed were similar in appearance to small pieces of metal or glass, the objects was lab tested and found to be not of this earth, but the metal objects were actually extremely rare pieces of meteorite that had an iron based cover, possibly for protection. whoever or whatever put these object(s) inside the individuals done so without cutting their skin. It should also be noted that in most of the cases, the embedded objects were connected to the abductee's nerve endings.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z-H3RQihy8k&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ga2LHrsLDYM&feature=related

·    Aliens deactivated British and US nuclear missiles- A group of RAF workers claim that the object came over and hovered directly over the site and beams of light fired into the base. There have also been many other claims similar to this in the UK and USA.

·    Area 51 – According to many sources this places does not exist and it is not on maps, even though it can be seen. (Google earth). Some say that alien aircrafts and autopsied alien bodies are stored there.

Film Research

I have looked into many alien invasion films, to influence the creation of the aliens in my work, how they look, move, act and attack. Below are four films I am interested in:

‘The day the earth stood still’, (2008), Scott Derrickson.

·         The alien takes a human form.                                                       

·         They attack by Realesing  a swarm of  insect-like nanites that begin destroying everything in their path.

‘Skyline’, (2010), Colin Strause, Greg Strause.                          

·         The alien ships look similar to a squid like form.

·         They  shine bright blue lights down on earth which attracts the humans, then vacuums them up into their ships.

·         The brains of the humans are ripped out and placed into bodies of new aliens.

‘War of the Worlds’, (2005), Steven Spielberg.

·         Lightning strike the ground and huge machines on three stilted legs bursts out of the holes.

·         The tripods were brought to earth long ago and been buried underground.

·         The tripods end up dying off on their own as they ingested a virus from the human's blood.

‘Independence Day’, (1996),  Roland Emmerich.

·         A giant alien mother ship, over 340 miles in diameter enters orbit around Earth, and deploys several dozen saucer-shaped "destroyer" spacecraft’s that  take positions over many of Earth's major cities.

·         The ships attack the city. And releasing smaller ships to blow up our army planes.

·         A computer virus is inserted into the mother ship which disables the protective shields around the destroyers and attackers leaving them to be easily taken down. 

Wish You Were Here - Brief

For this project I am creating a situation of an alien invasion on earth.  I aim to produce warning and survival information on how we humans can deal when the aliens attack, similar to war time propaganda. I want the work to reflect the humorous methods of protection that we feel they used during past wars to ensure the people stayed calm and felt safe, even though the methods were not reliable such as the ‘Duck and cover’ method.

To influence the alien invasion , I will look at many films which all have different approaches of how the aliens look, attack, and  also how the humans react and survive, such as ‘the day the earth stood still’ (2008) Scott Derrickson, ‘Skyline’ (2010) Colin Strause, Greg Stause and ‘Independence day’ (1996) Roland Emmerich.

Also I will be researching into real claims to aliens vising earth and their experiences and feelings about it, like Betty Hill, who had allegedly got abducted in 1961 and has appeared on many interviews giving details of what happened and how she reacted. For my piece I want to exaggerate how the aliens are to make the piece more humorous.

As well as looking into aliens, I am going to look into war time propaganda and information booklets to ensure I create realistic alien attack recreation. Other parts for survival of the wars like gas masks, sirens and radio announcements could also be an influence, as I could design a product that can be disturbed to all humans to help protect them against the aliens.

To create the final pieces of alien invasion propaganda, I plan to use software’s such as adobe Illustration and Photoshop.

Final Piece

Ideas & Development

·    We chose to add more detail to both the log and the chair backs using writing icing. We wanted to recreate the polished look of the bronze chair backs.

Ideas & Development

·    We experimented with making the chair backs out of different food e.g. chocolate, marzipan and different biscuits.

·    We chose to use the chair backs made out of chocolate as they looked best and stood in the log securely.

Ideas & Development

·    We used ready-made chocolate rolls and butter icing for the tree trunk, just as Jürgen Bey used a natural log for his bench.

·    To make the bark-like texture, we tried out different methods, e.g. with a fork and with the knife as we spread the butter icing.

·    We added crushed mints to the second layer of butter icing to create the uncomfortable texture we thought the bench would have.

Eat Your Art Out

For our starter project we had Jürgen Bey’s ‘Tree-Trunk Bench’.

“A fallen tree can serve as a seat. The addition of bronze classical chair backs makes it a proper piece of furniture, a crossing between nature and culture. Jürgen Bey makes clear that it is ridiculous to transport trees when they are locally available. Therefore only the chair backs are for sale.”