human flow in urban spaces
DESCRIPTION
How people behave and interact in various urban spaces in WellingtonTRANSCRIPT
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Table of Contents
Ideas behind my project ........................................................................................................................................................................................................ 3 Why? ........................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................... 3 How? ........................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................... 3 Genre ........................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................... 3
Gehl arcitects/ Human Scale ................................................................................................................................................................................................................. 4 Gordon Matta-‐Clark .................................................................................................................................................................................................................................. 4 Sophie Calle ................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................. 5 Alexey Titarenko ....................................................................................................................................................................................................................................... 5 The layout and framing ....................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................... 6
FOOTBALL FIELD ..................................................................................................................................................................................................................... 6 Why? ........................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................... 6 The layout and framing ....................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................... 6
PARKING LOT ............................................................................................................................................................................................................................ 7 Why? ........................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................... 7 The layout and framing ....................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................... 7
FARMERS MARKET .................................................................................................................................................................................................................. 7 Why? ........................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................... 7 The layout and the framing ............................................................................................................................................................................................................................................... 7
The order of the sequences ................................................................................................................................................................................................................... 8 The series and the text ............................................................................................................................................................................................................................ 8 The music in the movie ........................................................................................................................................................................................................................... 8 The project of making a movie ........................................................................................................................................................................................................... 10 The learning process ............................................................................................................................................................................................................................. 10 How to make it better for next time? ............................................................................................................................................................................................... 10
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Proposal slide
Ideas behind my project
Photography has created a new relationship with time. Now it is
possible to capture and preserve the past in the future.
But it is more than that. It is able to make an alive and moving past in the future. Photography is a time machine. Another thing with time and photography is the notion of time lapses. By taking a series of pictures after each other it is possible to make a video and show pastime actions in real time. For me this idea of a time machine and using my camera to discover behaviour and flows of people fascinates me. How people flow through streets, bridge and being able to make single human being into a flow and a pattern by playing with time is very interesting. A while ago I went to the cinema and watched The Human Scale made by the Danish architect company Gehl. The architect Jan Gehl has studied human behaviour in cities through 40 years. He has documented how modern cities repel human interaction, and argues that we should and can build cities in a way, which takes human needs for inclusion into account. This movie inspired me to make a time-‐lapse looking at human behaviour and interaction in Wellington.
Why? I fell that this project is interesting because it reveals how people behave in different urban spaces around in Wellington. This can be
used as a study to see how well the urban spaces works with humans. It also reveals how spaces can be used in many ways intended or not. The purpose with The Human Scale is to show that cities are created for humans and should be a place where people can interact and be. I have tried to show that in my project by showing different places where people are and behave. I have chosen three different places that are used as pathways for people, but as the sequences show people also behave in different ways and create their own space in these places. Last place even has changing human behaviour during the week. The overall purpose, as in the movie, is that cities should be build for humans and not e.g. cars. I hope that you can fell this underlying purpose in the movie.
How? I chose to do a time lapse with four different sequences around in Wellington to give an idea of how urban spaces are used. I walked around and found that these spaces are interesting as they each express a special behaviour or pattern of people the urban space surrounding them.
Genre The genre is documentation, as I am documenting how people interact and behave in the urban spaces that surround them.
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Artist Precedent slide Gehl arcitects/ Human Scale
Gehl Architects focus on the relationship between the urban build
environment and people behaviour and interaction.
They made the movie called The Human Scale and filmed different
cities around in the world and how the urban spaces allowed people
to be and behave in the city.
This movie was my main inspiration for this project, as I also
wanted to show how people behave in urban spaces in Wellington.
Here is a link to the trailer of the movie:
http://thehumanscale.dk/trailer/
Gordon Matta-‐Clark
Title: Conical intersect Date: 1975 Size: 101.9 × 76.2 cm Medium: Photo Genre: Documentary
Method: Black and white Description This is a photo of a hole through a building in Paris. Matta-‐Clark bore a tornado-‐shaped hole to exit through the roof. Context/idea This is an example of anti-‐monument. Matta-‐Clark is very famous for this work that changed structures, such as this building where he cut a hole through it. He studies the relationship between public and private space and human behaviour. Response I like this picture as it is not something you would normally see. People take photos of buildings all the time, but capturing this relationship between an urban space, art and the possibility of a new behaviour in the city is inspiring.
Relation to my work
I chose this photo and Matta-‐Clark based on the idea of creating new
pathways for people. This is an example of a shortcut that would give
people an easier path by crossing through the building and not having
to go around.
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The football field is a good example of this. Even though the people
crossing the field do not have to break down walls, they still create
their own pathway where it was not intended.
Sophie Calle Title: Please Follow me
Date: 1983 Medium: Book Genre: Documentary
Methods: Black and white Description The photo shows a man being standing on some stairs. The photos is taking from below and he looks away and seems not to be aware of the photo being taken. This gives you a feeling of being a stalker spying on the man in the picture. The top of the stair is placed in the rule of third which makes you not notice the man until a little time after. Context/idea She meet this man and chose to follow him for a few days. She was new to Paris and she felt that this was a good way for her to get to know the city. Response I like the idea of crossing the private and the personal in the way she does it with this photo and the whole series “Please Follow me”.
Relation to my work
This relates well to my project, as I am also a person out in the public
space, taking a time-‐place of people and somehow crossing their
personal sphere, as I am documenting their every day patterns and
behaviour. I also document human behaviour as Calle did in this
series.
Alexey Titarenko Why: His way of photographing people as flows rather than
individual humans relates well to my project. I looked as his pictures
to get some ideas of how to make good time-lapses and create this
notion of flows.
Period: born 1962 -‐
Method: He often used long exposure and thereby had many blurred people on his pictures. Black and white pictures
Description of his work: The pictures of the streets e.g. in the old Soviet Union all express emotions -‐ emotions of the people living in the country and a motion of the past and the present time in the chosen city.
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Places in the time lapse
STAIRS FOOTBALL FIELD how people create their own paatern to match their behaviour in the city
Why?
I chose this space as it is a place where people pass by every day
withoit this about it. It is just a crossing from one place to another. But
a lot of funny things happen on stairs. People stop up and watch the
view or look at a map to find their way. Some walk to the right, some
to the left. When I was there a group off people started using the stairs
and their “outdoor gym”. Even though it is all within the same frame
people have different patterns and use the stairs in different ways.
The layout and framing I chose to use the pillars on the stairs as the frame of this picture.
What was on the stairs was my main focus, just as in a theatre with the
curtains as the frame.
FOOTBALL FIELD
Why? I noticed on my “brainstorming” tour around in the city that people
use this space in a funny way. People jump the fence and walk across
the field to save a few seconds on their way to home or school. I found
it interesting how people create their own pattern in a way that was
defiantly not intended in the first place. Different from the stairs
people use the space in not only create ways but also in unintended
ways and create their own patterns to fit their every day life.
The layout and framing I found it a bit hard how to shoot this picture as I could not find any
natural frames for this photo. In the end I chose to put the place where
people jump the fence in the point called rule of third.
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PARKING LOT
Why? I wanted to show how cars destroy the natural appearance of people
and interaction between people. When looking at this sequence it is
rather obvious that cars and human intimacy does not correspond.
Cities should be created around people and not cars. But in many
cities, for example here in Wellington, this is not the case. The result is
that people to not meet, interact and create life in the city. Is this how
we want our cities and our surroundings to be like? Look at the
sequence at tell me.
The layout and framing I wanted to focus on the space in the parking lot where people are
actually able to walk and pass by. The main focus in my framing was to
capture as much of the road as possible. I choose that the frame for the
photo should be cars on both sides to get the feeling of being
surrounded by cars.
FARMERS MARKET
Why? This last sequence shows a place where there are room for people to
interact and be.
As well as in the The Human Scale, people is what makes up cities and
they should be in focus.
I choose to have this sequence in the end of the movie to show the
perfect setting for humans in an urban space.
The layout and the framing I choose to shoot this sequence from the exact same spot as the
previous sequence. I did this to show the notable difference of people
and life in the two sequence. This is did to enhance the goal of
creating spaces that are made for people and visual show people how
much a difference this can make.
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The order of the sequences I worked for a long time with the order of my sequences as the order
can help creating a certain reaction or understanding of the project.
All the places share the same kind of space. They are all space
intended for pathways and people normally just walk by these places.
I choose to start out with the stairs. The frame of the stairs reminded
me of a theatre where the curtains are open and the play is about to
start. The stairs showed a sequence of how people use an urban space
in a creative way. The next sequences with the football field showed
how people sometimes behave in a too creative way, when they cross
over a field and actually climb over the fence to get the shortest path
possible. These two sequences matches each other as they both show
urban spaces where people behave in different creative ways. In the
first sequence people use stairs for different purposes.
Both these sequences show urban spaces that are made for walking or
passing by. But despite of that, people use the space in different ways
to match their patterns and need.
The last sequence do open up towards a different behaviour, when to
two guys starts playing soccer on the football field, rather than just
crossing it on their way to school, this links with the purpose of the
fourth sequence.
The last place is also a place where people normally just walk by as
with the other two places. But this place is different. This place
change every Sunday, when the Farmers Market is set up. By changing
the urban space human behaviour and interaction is also changed
radically. I chose to start with the sequence from the almost empty
parking, to get people into the mood of emptiness and little human
interaction. In that way I could get a stronger reaction from the
audience when presenting the next sequence full of people, interaction
and intimacy. In the movie “the Human Scale” the goal for cities is to
create urban spaces where people can be and interact with each other.
Hopefully, when watching this movie the audience also get a feeling,
that the last place is the most “humanized” place.
The series and the text I chose to include as sentence in front of each sequence to tell what the
focus of the sequence was. Since people might not have read this
proposal and know anything about the purpose of the movie, I felt that
some verbal expression was needed to include my audience in my
purpose and thoughts regarding the movie.
The music in the movie The music was harder for me to find than I thought it would be.
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It was difficult for me to find the right music, which would be pleasant
in the background, but not take over the “scene”. I also wanted to
increase the speed and the level in the music when the last sequence
of the farmers market started, as this sequences is full of people
walking around. I wanted this particular sequence to stand out and
make people’s heartbeat go faster. The purpose of my movie was to
show behaviour and interaction. This last sequences has the strongest
interaction and intimacy and I wanted that to stand out and be
stronger than the others.
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Evaluation The project of making a movie I have never made a movie before in my life. But I felt that this would
be a great time to try it. It was very fun, but also hard work. Just think
about something as the music, so difficult to find the right kind of
music that fix the different sequences, but is not too “noisy” to take
away the concentration from the visual.
Another problem occurred with my computer and Adobe Premiere
Pro. My computer was to slow for this program. Every time I wanted
to preview my movie I had to export it into an actual movie, because
the program could not show the pictures in a smooth way.
The learning process I used a lot of time on You Tube to watch tutorials on how to make
time-‐lapses and also how to use Adobe Premiere Pro. I differently
learned a lot from this project about a completely new area of
photography for me.
How to make it better for next time? I used a lot of time to figure out how to make a time-‐lapse movie. Since
this was my first time to enter this area of photography. Therefore, I
could of cause always improve for another time. Especially how to get
a smooth out of it could be improved for another time.
I also felt it was a bit difficult how to include the audience in my idea
in the video without having to write a lot in the movie. I hope that my
small sentences before each sequences did the job and made people
understand what my idea and purpose was in this time-‐lapse.