Power Artefact-A Reflective Review

Let me begin by stating that the poem that is read in this piece is by Wilfred Owen, one of the most famous WWI poets. How does that change your perspective of the impact of the meaning of the piece? And that is the feeling I wanted to convey. The sense of power that is produced as a product of not knowing either where something has come from or who has produced it can come from anywhere. The piece makes the spectator question what is going on. It engages them by making them query the story behind the poem, and who could have created such vivid imagery. It’s almost the same feeling created by my first artefact: The engagement of the piece by making the spectator ask who, what where and why?

With the constraints of only using audio imposed on myself, by myself, made me really think about what was going into the piece. I knew I wanted to keep it simple, so by only using two audio tracks: 1 background atmosphere and 1 spoken word track, I kept the simplicity to a minimal. I had to create all the sounds myself, so a lot of thought had to go into if the two tracks would work well together and I think they do. I originally wanted to use juxtaposed background atmos to the spoken poem, however this didn’t work. It sounded too confused and detracted from the original message I wanted to convey.

This is exactly the piece I wanted to create, so regardless of how entertaining or fun it isn’t to listen to, it still explores what I wanted it to from the set off. I also got a lot out of the process of development, things that I can apply to my future video projects. Things like the importance of making sure the atmosphere audio tracks fit with whats being said.