After some of the first tries and especially the last one with the beamer I got pretty frustrated. A lot of things didn’t really work the way I wanted them to. I also noticed something about myself again. If I don’t learn things quickly or see results early on I start losing interest really fast. And when stuff doesn’t work because of technical issues like the beamer last time it just kills the motivation even more. So for now I want to change the way I approach it. I don’t want the only goal to be a projection on flowers anymore. I still like the idea but I think I need to be a bit more open and just try out different things. So antoher thing I will be focusing on is the projection onto other surfaces too not just flowers. Try out stuff that’s fun or maybe unexpected. Just to make it feel more playful again and keep myself from getting frustrated and stopping completely. What I also started thinking about more is the feeling I want the projection to give. Not so much of a deep concept but more like the mood of it. Since I’ve been working with plants fake flowers and some analog photos I feel like soft and slow visuals work better than fast and flashy ones. I don’t want it to look like a VJ setup in a club. More like something calm maybe even a little surreal.
When I projected onto my analog photos I really liked how it changed the whole vibe. It made the image feel kind of alive. That made me want to go more into that direction. Maybe only animating small parts or details instead of everything at once. I really like when something moves quietly in the background while everything else stays still. It feels more thoughtful and less overwhelming somehow. Right now, I imagine trying something like a very simple loop that almost follows the shape of the Monstera leaf or fades in and out depending on the structure of the object. For example, the holes in the Monstera could stay dark while everything around moves slowly. Same with the money plant or even a shape like the banana, here just using its shape to guide the projection instead of covering everything. I might also try something a bit more playful on a paper flower, just to see how it reacts. It doesn’t have to be deep or super emotional, I just want to explore how the surface influences the mood of the visuals.
This time I didn’t do any new projection tests, but I finally started creating my own animations which helped a lot. It felt good to actually make something again instead of just thinking about what could work. I realized I was getting a bit stuck in the idea phase, so just sitting down and starting to animate gave me a bit of new motivation. The first animation I made is a soft, circular loop – kind of like an abstract movement that spreads over the whole image. It’s not super complex, but it already creates a calm and slow atmosphere, which is exactly what I’ve been thinking about lately. I imagined using it on one of my plant surfaces or even the paper flower. It’s meant to cover the full image, but not in a flashy or overwhelming way. More like a soft layer of motion that slowly shifts and brings some kind of life into the still object. I also made a second animation that’s a bit more playful. The colors and movement feel more dreamlike, maybe even a little surreal. I thought it could be fun to try that on the paper flower and just see how it reacts.
