Thesis
The core component of my art is motion. As an individual who works across design, animation, photo, and video, the thing that connects all of these mediums is how meaning can be created over time.
I believe that in art, storytelling is not only about giving the audience a message, but also about embracing it as a process where meaning is cooperatively constructed between art and audience, experienced, and then destabilized.
In motion, I invite the viewer to participate in creating the meaning of my work
Motion as Meaning
In my art, motion is a source of meaning.
While the experience of a static image is a whole, immediate process, motion creates an opportunity to occur over time.
As the author of a motion project, I can directly control not only what the viewer sees, but when.
Structuralism
Structuralism is a perspective I use to see meaning as the result of relationships.
I leverage the idea of related imagery in Hum from the Farlands through the use of a visual motif, where characters look down at their hands. When Hum receives the package, he looks down at it in his hands, and sees the symbolic manifestation his purpose.
Later on in the pilot, Snare looks down at her hands, and sees nothing; contrasting Hum’s earlier establishment.
Using structure, I can depict these characters against one another, how they view themselves, and their objectives, all without a single spoken word.
In my personal branding, I created a phonetic representation of my name with the initials “E.N.” The mark references formal author identities like J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, and George R.R. Martin, but in motion it becomes more personal. It builds onto the screen like a written stroke, and the periods become points of movement that might suggest a wave, heartbeat, or bow.
Semiotic Theory
Semiotics is the primary way in which I understand how images, symbols, and motion can become a sign.
The logo no longer serves just to identify me. It functions as a small semiotic system where typography, movement, pacing, and gesture all work together to visually suggest the idea of me.
Post-Structuralism
I can guide meaning, but never truly define it.
In the teaser teaser for Hum from the Farlands, Hum hears whispers on the box, and the eye on the seal follows his movements and blinks. Moments inserted, and left intentionally unresolved even across the entire pilot episode.
This is done not necessarily just to confuse the audience, but to lean into the instability of interpretation, and invite the audience’s interpretation. The mysteries of the Farlands become a point in which the viewer joins the process where meaning is made.
It is a post-structuralist idea that meaning is not fixed. The audience’s interpretation can shift depending on what they expect to see, assume about the work, and what they have experienced in the past.
Conclusion
Meaning is not a closed system; it is created continuously between art and audience.
Beyond delivering a message, I want to create visual journeys where finding, challenging, and readdressing what something means becomes part of the experience of an audience.
The storytelling process of art is not about completion, it is about the experience and exploration of the work through the active engagement of the viewer.
