IDEA:
Our original idea for the artefact was to create a plant for the world. Our first impression for an artefact was to create something that would just simply fit in the world of our selected film. A few of us talked about maybe creating a mushroom sculpture including fairy lights, however, after discussing the idea with Mike he suggested something more meaningful.
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I considered the idea of creating a journal for Jake in his time in Pandora. Maybe he could have been gifted a blank book from the Navi and use it to keep notes and doodles. We had separated the pages of his journal into categories such as: Language, Creatures, Eywa etc.
I wasn’t until I’d did more research that we realised that the journal would be too similar to his video diaries that he keeps. We still liked the idea though of a ‘diary’.
As Jake’s story is already explored in the film, we thought maybe to explore a less developed character and keep to the theme of ‘New Narratives’ and create a new story for an existing character.
We decided to focus on Grace’s past as we found her to be the most interesting character who didn’t have enough focus. A few of us agreed on creating a blog on Grace’s behalf which she would have used to learn about the Na’vi and Pandora.
We were debating about storylines to incorporate for the artefact, and I suggested this idea, which we stuck with:
ARTEFACT STORYLINE IN BASIC FORM:
- Years Later from Jake and Neytiri
- The Humans are dead
- New generation of Na’vi people
- The balance in Pandora has shifted and Eywa has weakened and has been forgotten about.
- This is due to the new generations curiosity of the technology left behind by the humans
- Eywa has been forgotten about and the Na’vi have completely lost connection with the creatures and plant life
- The creatures are no longer friendly and the Na’vi now hunt them
- The Na’vi now rely on human technology to survive
- A descendant of Jake and Neytiri accidently discover the Tree of Souls which appears dead.
- A Woodsprite suddenly appears (which is a form of Grace’s memories) it then hacks the boy’s headpiece and shows him a new menu on his screen.
- This menu will show Grace’s blog and remind him of his people’s past and how they used to be connected.
ARTEFACT:
Our final artefact was a blog which we created on behalf of Grace to document what she learned while spending time with the Na’vi
We all submitted one post each to her blog as part of her research and time on Pandora.
This is the headpiece that was created, which I named a “P’ey Tkan” to make it sound like it belonged in the Avatar universe
Research:
Progress of the artefact:
Myself, Katie and Sinead worked on the artefact. Sinead and myself proving materials and working of details, while myself and Katie patterned and glued the headpiece together. The main piece is made from craft foam and faux leather which I took home over the weekend and added a light layer of brown paint to make it look more worn. I also used a sheet of thicker EVA foam to create the ‘metal’ embellishment on the front to show that the Na’vi had now incorporated technology into their culture:
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