Urban Screens

Research report
November 4, 2011 Phase 1: Urban Screens

Bjoern Hofmans

Bisschop Zwijsenstraat 129, 5021 KB, Tilburg, T 06 249 981 80 info@bjoernhofmans.nl www.bjoernhofmans.nl

Urban Screens

Urban Screens
Introduction
I thought that I wasnt familiar with the subject of Urban Screens, so I decided to start my research by nding out what already had been done. To my own surprise Id already done some work for a Urban Screen called Dropstuff, I guess I totally forgot about that one. This research report has a direct connection with the practical part of the Urban Screen assignment. I started doing my research on themes like propaganda, disinformation and mass media. I wanted to know how I could connect them to my work. I also liked to do my research about positioning myself and my work in the context of the professional eld. My intension for this research was to make a summary of all the things that were done within the eld of Urban Screens. It turn out to be more like a reection on the Urban Screen assignment.

What about Urban Screens?

The rst period of the animation master this year is all about Urban Screens. We were meant to chose between two different forms of Urban Screens, an artistic one and a commercial one. I would really make something in the way Roel Wouters handles the medium. Everybody was assigned on the commercial one because the artistic one was cancelled. I felt this was a pity so I decided to take the artistic/commercial approach to this assignment. The company who asked us to develop content for their narrowcasting network is BriljantNet. During the brieng from BriljantNet it became clear to me that this project was all about exploring the borders en limitations of the Urban Screen medium. The guys from BriljantNet werent very specic in the rst brieng of what they expected from us to deliver. Thats why I immediately decided that this would be my starting point for this assignment. I wanted to create a theme that reected on my point of view on the medium of urban screens, BriljantNet and my own specic sense of humor. I also wanted the freedom to experiment with different kind of techniques of animation. The nice thing about the BriljantNet network screens is that they are on spots where the viewers arent always aware of these screens. So in that way its much easier to trick or fool innocent by-passers. In an early stage of my concept phase I realized that all of the movies needed to feel and look like the original ones. With the original ones I mean the informational and commercial content you always see on the screens in schools and train stations.

Disinformation.
A good example of the thing I wanted to achieve in this project, yet on a much smaller scale, is the classical radio drama of War of the Worlds by Orson Welles. H. G. Wells's original novel relates the story of an alien invasion of Earth. The program's format was a simulated live newscast of developing events. The rst two thirds of the 55 minute play was a contemporary retelling of events of the novel, presented as news bulletins. This approach was not new. Ronald Knox's satirical newscast of a riot overtaking London over the British Broadcasting Company in 1926 had a similar approach (and created much the same effect on its audience). Knox's 1926 broadcast mixed breathless reporting of a revolution sweeping across London with dance music and sound effects of destruction. Urban Screens - Research report 1

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Knox's broadcast also caused a minor panic among listeners who did not know that the program was ctional. An 1874 hoax in the New York Herald claiming that wild animals had escaped from the Central Park Zoo seems to have had a similar effect. The examples above illustrate the direction I wanted to go for this project. It are early examples of disinformation. Disinformation is intentionally false or inaccurate information that is spread deliberately. For this reason, it is synonymous with and sometimes called black propaganda. It is an act of deception and false statements to convince someone of untruth. Disinformation should not be confused with misinformation, information that is unintentionally false. Unlike traditional propaganda techniques designed to engage emotional support, disinformation is designed to manipulate the audience at the rational level by either discrediting conicting information or supporting false conclusions. A common disinformation tactic is to mix some truth and observation with false conclusions and lies, or to reveal part of the truth while presenting it as the whole. At this point I was sure about making disinformation the focus point of my project, but at the same time I got concerned if this concept would get screening time on the BriljantNet network. So it was important that I kept things light and funny. Its not my intention to offend people, or get people into trouble. Its also nice when people get the joke.

Absurdism.
When I was brainstorming for my concept I also researched what was being shown on most of the Urban Screens. I prefer the artistic screens above the commercial ones, but I noticed something important on the commercial used Urban Screens. Like in every other medium, the commercial Urban Screens has developed their own image language. They are all about communicating their commercial message with simple motions and animations, bright colors and a specic lay-out. When I was looking deeper into these commercials I was shocked by the fact that it would be very easy to transform them into something bizarre and funny. There are too many images around us nowadays. Thats why most of the times you even dont notice them. In modern life people have developed a lter to protect them from all the (audio)visual garbage you get exposed to in everyday life. Thats why at rst didnt notice the complete absurdist commercials around us. To attract attention commercials get stranger and stranger. The concepts I developed for this assignment arent that far from everyday reality.

Conclusion.
I want to keep this report short. Im already over the maximum amount of words. This report is now mostly used as a reection on the practical part of the BriljantNet/Urban Screens assignment. The research was a great help for the concept part of this assignment. It was also insightful concerning my view and statement on the subject of Urban Screens.

Urban Screens - Research report

Urban Screens

Reading list
Birth of the motion picture, Emmanuelle Toulet, Abrams Inc, New York 1995 Reader animatie in context, samenstelling Sarah lughthart en Rene Bosma, AKV St.joost, Breda 2010 Terror on the air!:horror radio in America, 1931-1952, Richard J Hand, McFarland, New York 2006 Meestal in t verborgene: Animatielm in nederland, Mette Peters en Egbert Barten, Uniepers, Abcoude 2000 The end of celluloid: Film future in the digital age, Matt Hanson, Rotovision, Mies 2004 Urban Screens reader, Scott McQuire, Meredith Martin, Sabine Niederer, Institute of Network Cultures, Amsterdam 2009 Hollywood versus the Aliens: The motion picture industrys participation in ufo disinformation, Bruce Rux, north Atlantic Books, California 1997

http://dropstuff.nl http://www.urbanscreen.com http://networkcultures.org/wpmu/urbanscreens http://www.urbanscreensassoc.org http://www.urbanscreens.org http://www.scienticamerican.com/article.cfm?id=misinformation

Urban Screens - Research report