Project 3 Progress

For this project, I learned how to fold origami to touch on the idea of transformation. When I thought about what film truly was, it was a succession of images that “transformed” into movement - basically, an illusion. The basic idea of this project was to create a character that reflected what I considered to be my “alter-ego.” Basically, in the story of my video, a government experiment dubbed “Atrophy” escapes after it develops an artificial intelligence. While the video goes on, we see the AI struggling with various paradoxes and seemingly “glitches” while it tries to reason why certain things are true even if they contradict each other. The idea is to highlight the inherent subjectivity of a lot of human concepts like morality, happiness, and life.

To go about this, I wanted to fold origami in front of a camera, almost in the form of a “how-to” video. Spliced throughout this video would be the various photographs that I would print out and place in front of the camera, reflecting the narrative of the AI’s developing sense of self. In other words, I wanted to create a parallel between the transformation of paper to crane and of intelligence to consciousness.

At this point, I printed out the images and began (unsuccessfully) folding cranes out of paper. I tested out different types of paper and cardstock and ultimately settled on a paper similar to construction paper. Here is a picture of a “failed experiment” set on fire!