For Renee Gladman's Brown University Course, 'Architecture of Poetic Space,' Spring 2013.

View the project: http://reddesertincursion.tumblr.com/

Description:
"This project seeks to examine the synesthetic space constructed within Michelangelo Antonioni's Red Desert. Echoing throughout the richly textured film are the mechanical reverberations of factories, the lapping of the polluted sea, the lonely cries of a damaged woman, and the susurrous whispers of the sickly mist. Along with the melancholic aural space of this bleak and inhospitable soundscape comes vivid pops of unexpected color. These shades of scarlet, yellow, green, blue, pink, violet and orange stand in stark contrast to the barren and muted landscape that serves as the foundation for the austerity and isolation depicted in Antonioni's first color work, a masterpiece that is both a tale of loneliness and a sensory aestheticization of the industrial environment. Simply put, and reflected in the revealing title, the film is a portrayal of color in a barren space.

The flashing gradient that serves as the background of this digital incursion is built from colors culled via screenshot from the film itself. The looping, auto-play soundtrack is an interpretation of the various sounds and sonic textures found throughout Red Desert, a collage of electronic synths that have been time-stretched, chopped and screwed, whale echo-location recordings, rain, metallic chimes, recorded machines, nature tapes, animal noises, and wood creaking in the wind. This piece seeks to be an ambient and simply translated depiction of the visual and aural space within Red Desert."

oliviafialkow