A refugee problem, a band called Rammstein and a little self defense.

The past eight months, I have been working to set myself to a new level as an designer and illustrator/animator and a new set of skills. These skills are called storytelling, animation techniques and character design. There is still so much to learn, but step by step I improve by newly discovered knowledge and not only that, the great love I have found in this extraordinary world. The life of a designer lies on the balance by a mare phone call. One day you are bored with nothing to do and the next day you find yourself nowhere but behind a computer all day and night to reach a deadline. But those days are over for now and everyday i am making new work, experimenting, reaching out for my inner creative mind, scraping those last particles of energy to create, more and more and i love it. I want to make that beautiful and rich story of peopled and landscaped worlds with amazing fantasies connecting trough out.

The refugees

There’s a refugee crisis going and is taking toll within our society. To control the masses, one must think about a certain degree of propaganda. Since we were practicing on approaches to certain festivals, creating ideas for projects within i found that it would be a great idea to use this festival called Lowlands as a candidate for a somewhat peculiar theme on refugees.

This project consists of a narrative that tells the story of a people fleeing from an invasion and which seeks asylum after a devastating journey. I want visitors to experience what it is like to actually be a refugee by means of three dimensional expressions on the Lowlands site, by this creating empathy. Specially with children objects i’d like to shock my audience a little bit. The narrative begins at the main entrance where you will find a setup of custom control with actors and all the annoying requirements for it to work. A ticket acting like a certain passport, visa which you will need to gain entry. You will start to notice a lot of luggage left by many people, just like Ellis Island. It also is in relationship with the luggage that many visitors take with them since this festival is of a three day camping festival. The entire camping site can be seen as an refugee camp. So bring only what is important for survival, cause it’s gonna be a long ride.

SAMSUNG

There are several things to find within the festival, excluding the actual owners of the objects. After finding thousands of little teddy bears, toys, clothes, etc. “Where are those people from whom these things belong to?” On several spots in the Lowlands area there will be some artworks that carry the narrative, but the main narrative will be brought to the graphic novel which we want to sell at this festival. A graphic novel for people to read when there resting in there tents.

The story starts in a land where political crisis is at an all time high. A nation that once was a rich multicultural functioning land now falls in the depths of a civil war. After several disputes, a military coup was formed and started on a purification genocide targeting unarmed civilians. People unable to resist were forced to leave their homes and massed on the run. Trough this story we meet with an entire community on a journey far into the wilderness. What is most interesting is how this community’s infrastructure actually serves as a mobile city, kind a like the series Battlestar Gallactica. Within this mobile city, full of life, we will start to follow a certain anti-hero. The anti-hero will do anything to keep his child safe and take care of him, breaking rules in the process. Lets also be aware of the many spies that could lure within this society trying to sabotage the peoples hope for a new land.

Rammstein

Not my usual kind of music band. This tanz-methal band is truly weirding me out at some points, but also can be quite exciting and nice! So i came pass a lot of nonsense about them being of the nazi kind. And a lot of sexual content that I don’t want to talk about… haha!

A lot of research was made on this project… which i keep in Dutch for now. I learned they used a canon in penis form to spray foam all over the audience and thought hey, what if they all got pregnant? You get some kind of Starbucks concept? Children of Rammstein, some kind of Hitler Jugend? Who cares!? Which fan doesn’t want to be the child of Rammstein? And then let’s put the style of propaganda on it to mess with the media of the past, cause we all know who the real fascists are! Its not Rammstein and its fans!

SAMSUNG

Selfdefence (IN PROGRESS!)

Schools out and children are collected by their parents, but whats that? Layla is forgotten by her parents? The kind of nightmare for any decent parent. This assignment brought to us by the Dutch Television show “Het Klokhuis” is about giving instructions on several topics, that us students could choose from. I chose self defense, since i thought it might be fun. I wanted to make a character which kids can relate to and a kind of story, proloque for them to help them focus before the actual instructions took place. So trough the girl the children learn self defense, but how would this co-excist? First i tought maybe it’s a plot within a plot, but then i realised it may be a bit too difficult and so far got to a fantasy of the girl which she is attacked by. Finally after the fight she discovers that it was only her imagination, her fear. Operator: What is your emergency little girl??, Girl: UHh, nothing! 😀 She has conquered her own fear. So during this fight she speaks aloud of steps she remembers of something, maybe television that gives direction on how to defend yourself. During this process i met a foreign exchange student where we decided she could step in with the fantasy of the girl resulting into a battle between styles which in my opinion is very nice!