Video link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vUIhvDCEeKU&ab_channel=MiroSwisher
ChucK code
My vision was to create an unsettling horror-ish depiction of tunnel vision.
The primary idea I am aiming to express in this narrative is that after each
goal is accomplished, that one has obsessed over incessently, they lose a part
of themselves in the process. Jumping from one hoop to another without
reprieve wears us down and weathers our soul. The monkey itself dosen't really
mean anything in the fact that it is a monkey, but the almost randomness of
the monkey to me speaks to the sense of suprisingly unfulfillment after
acheieving a goal. That feeling of, "that's it? This is what I worked so hard
for? This stupid monkey???"
The floating cubes along the x-axis of the scene represent the things of life
that are not appreciated or experienced as we tunnel vision on something. They
move orthagonally to us and our goal, and chime as they fly by and away. As we
progress from goal to goal, the melody that places as we progress becomes less
and less familiar. The notes are randomized, dissonances appear in our lives
as we refuse to give focus to other things. In the final stage of the
narrative everything turns blood red in a classic horror movie aesthetic move.
However, this time when we are prompted to go again, to chase that next thing,
we are interrupted. The noise stops. There is a stillness. The goal, our
accomplishments, our life's work faces us. Are we proud? No. We are unnerved
by it. It sits alone in a world of nothing. This is all we have left in the
end.
I think an important aspect that should be noted is that while physically the
monkey moves toward us, the lines of the road imply that we are the ones
moving toward the monkey. Either way, the convergence is inevitable, and as we
slave away in this life of Goal1, Goal2, Goal3, ... our goals betray us in the
end.
I felt very seen making this project. Sometimes there is a frustration with
the way things are and I perceive horror in some of the the things we accept
as mundane. Letting some of that dark energy out into this project was very
therapeutic. Some difficulties I encountered mostly had to do with the timing
of everything. I eventually found methods that made the most sense, but the
code is far from clean. I think that more experience with ChucK and ChuGL will
prove very helpful for Sequencer.
Reflection: I honestly felt more held back by my lack of experience with ChuGL than anything. Earlier iterations of this project included having literal phyiscal tunnels wrapping around the spectrum history, and more dynamic movements, and my lack of ChuGL expertise got in the way greatly for things like that. Nonetheless, it was a lot of fun. I was sort of inspired by the jumpscare monkey from day 1 and also interested in the design of surprise and also leading the idea to one point (the middle) only to distrupt it.
Video link: https://youtu.be/4AoBuWkBAB0