In two 2018 the UK government has continued to explore options for establishing alternative options to the Customs Union (that is part of the European Un ion membership) to prevent a hard border being required between the United Kingdom and Europe (Grierson and Carroll, 2018). There has been discussions on mechanisms to establish frictionless trade via technology (BBC News, 2018). I decided that I wanted to explore ways to express the transformation of a hard border into a frictionless border. During the ‘Sustainable Prospects’ module I created work a series of rubbings from the decking on the piers along the Essex coast. These rubbings are an abstraction of the hard surface. The abstract images as a still image look similar to the surface of the water a fluid form. Converting the image into a cinemagraph (En.wikipedia.org, 2018) would allow the surface to take on a fluid or frictionless form.
I decided to use the Plotagraph web-based application to convert the rubbing image into a gif file. The resulting animation could then be presented via a number of different surfaces such as web, projection or screens.
Using Plotagraph I masked the sections of the image where I did not want any motion and then using the interface added motion points to the rest of the image. After experimenting I with the motion arrows I decided to way the length to create a non-uniform motion across the image. After adding multiple motion markers I did my first test of the resulting cinemagraph which showed promise however my masking meant that the edges of the image exhibited a ripple effect while i wanted the frame edge to remain static. Further tuning resulted in the cinemagraph below which I was an acceptable outcome.
<Plotagraph image>
https://simonfremont.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/WIP-Mod4-08-1200px-25fps.gif
The initial experiment resulted in a dynamic image that looked as though a stream of water is flowing across the screen. If cinemagraphs get incorporated into the exhibition I need to determine a way to present the images as part of the exhibition.
References
- BBC News. (2018). Frictionless border ‘regardless of deal’. [online] Available at: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-42299329 [Accessed 6 May 2018].
- En.wikipedia.org. (2018). Cinemagraph. [online] Available at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cinemagraph [Accessed 6 May 2018].
- Grierson, J. and Carroll, L. (2018). Boris Johnson: Irish border issue being used to frustrate Brexit. [online] the Guardian. Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2018/feb/28/boris-johnson-irish-border-issue-being-used-to-frustrate-brexit [Accessed 6 May 2018].
