According to INPE (National Institute for Space Research), there were 3,358 fires detected on August 22nd in the Brazilian Amazon. Chris Greenberg stated that “this was the highest number of fires recorded for any 24-hour period since 2007”. Although in the last few years environmental issues have been all over the news there are still some people who either deny it or who believe that the journalists and scientists are exaggerating the facts. There is also a third type of person, the one who acknowledges the environmental issues but simply doesn’t care about them. I wonder if media can affect those people into caring about the environment and whether the affect theory can be applied to a coding sketch and 2D animation. In this project, I will create a sketch using p5.js in which the person interacting with the sketch will control a jaguar. The background will be remixing images of Tarsila do Amaral paintings. There will be three buttons, one will play an animation of the jaguar getting a fish to eat, another will show the jaguar and a baby jaguar sleeping together, and the third one, which will be named “next day”, will play an animation of fire catching on the plants and the ground around them. After the video is done playing, an image showing a famous character in an awful situation that real animals have found themselves in will show up. To create the image I will remix a famous character with a photograph that shows an animal either dead or seriously injured due to human behavior.

I live in a country where in the last few years environmental issues have been ignored by some people. I am doing this project as an attempt to make more people aware of the environmental issues happening right now. While doing that, I am investigating if media can affect people in a way that makes them think about subjects they were otherwise unwilling to. Moreover, my main research question is “to what extent does media affect people?” In this project, I will explore the ways that memories, especially those from childhood if evoked by a certain type of media might affect people, and if it affects more than when there are no personal memories involved.

I have previously done some simple 2D animations, such as walking cycles, bouncing balls, tail animations, and so on, I have also worked with sprites and DOM buttons in assignments from the Creative Coding course. Therefore I believe I will be able to complete the project in time.

In the book “Communicating Climate Change”, it is mentioned that educators might want to try and “identify areas of common ground” so as to have “a positive dialogue with audiences even as they disagree about certain aspects of climate change.” In this project, I will try to do that in two ways. The first will be the interaction and the animations. I believe that most people don't like sad endings, especially when it involves animals dying, and most of all a mother and her baby. The second will be the remixed image of a character that some people will relate to their childhood and by showing the character in an awful situation evoke some sort of empathy from the person regarding real animals.

My project is not only influenced by artists but also by NGOs and environmental projects. In fact, on the Greenpeace Brasil Instagram account, they recently posted a short video in a paper collage style that shows animals trying to get away from the fire. An organization that strongly inspired me to do this project is Ampara Silvestre, an NGO that has been working really hard in the last few years in the wildfires that are happening in Brazil. Project Hiu, a shark protection project that works by repurposing “a fleet of shark fishing vessels by providing alternative income through tourism”, has also influenced this project. Finally, Projeto Tamar is an environmental project that I grew up visiting, it focuses on protecting sea turtles on Brazil’s coastline, and has also influenced this project.

Visually the main influence of this project is Tarsila do Amaral, I initially thought of her work because she is well known in Brazil, but I also stuck to this idea because I believe that the fact that the art pieces that I chose to use don't have many small details it will be easier for people interacting with the sketch to focus on the jaguar since the animations will be quite short.

In “The Autonomy of Affect” Brian Massumi presents evidence that media truly affects people, not only psychologically but also physiologically, I hope that this project will affect at least some people so they will start to care about the environment. According to David J. Elliot, someone's memory might influence how the person is affected by music. I believe that this concept also applies to other types of media such as coding sketches, 2D animations, illustrations, and photography. And it is by those media that I will in this project try to use people's memories to affect them. Marta Figlerowicz presents different ideas regarding if affect is or not intentional, in the case of the project that I am making I have the intention of affecting people and the whole project is being built around it, however, I believe that the people that interact with the sketch will most likely not have the intention of being affected.

The target audience for this project is young adults who disregard environmental issues and that access the Open processing website since that is where I will be posting my project. I hope that by interacting with these sketches some of those people will care at least a little more about the environment.

I will be using Adobe Photoshop for remixing Tarsila do Amaral paintings to create the backgrounds, and also for remixing the photograph with the famous character. I will also use the software for animating and creating the sprite sheet. Furthermore, I will be using p5.js inside the “Open Processing” website for the coding sketch.

The main ideation process that I used was brainstorming and with it, I was able to put multiple ideas into the paper and from there try to make connections between those random words and concepts. That was when I connected environmental issues with Tarsila do Amaral’s work. That was extremely important for my project since I will be remixing her art in a project that is about environmental issues. I have also built two mood boards, one that represents the aesthetic for the most part of the project and another one with photographs of animals that is a collection of images of which I can choose from to remix with a character that is present in the first mood board. I also organized the brainstorming I did on paper into a mind map on the Coggle website which helped me decide which animal I would use since I was able to add images and visualize the idea better.

The main milestones of the project are:

- Create 3 collages for the background - using Tarsila’s paintings;

- Day time - background for the sprite;

- Night time - for the sleep animation;

- Lake - for the fishing animation;

- Create the walking sprite of the jaguar;

- Make diving animation - jaguar fishing;

- Make sleep animation - jaguar sleeping with baby;

- Make fire animation;

- Decide which character and which photo to use;

- Remix character with photograph;

- Create the sketch on the OpenProcessing website.

Create Sprite sheet

Animate fishing scene

Animate sleep scene

Animate fire scene

Decide character

Decide photo

Remix character and photo

Create the sketch on the OpenProcessing website

I am making week C the least busy one since I want to present and submit my project early on, in case there are any issues during submission. I have also already made the collages, that is why it is not on the board.

The main risks of failure in this project are regarding time and knowledge. I attend a University so my schedule is quite busy, so I will make the animations “less fluid”, with fewer “in-betweens”, first, and if there is time I will go back and add more drawings to the animation. The knowledge issue is regarding coding, my knowledge is very minimal and basically based on the Creative Coding course and some youtube videos, I will definitely have to do some more research into coding with p5.js.

Ampara Silvestre, Instagram account, <https://www.instagram.com/amparasilvestre/>

Armstrong, Anne K, et al. 2018, “Climate Change Attitudes and Knowledge,” Communicating Climate Change: A Guide for Educators, Cornell University Press, pp. 21–24, <http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.7591/j.ctv941wjn.6 >

Elliott, David J 2000, “Music and Affect: The Praxial View”, Philosophy of Music Education Review, vol. 8, no. 2, Indiana University Press, pp. 79–88, <http://www.jstor.org/stable/40495437>

Figlerowicz, M 2012, “Affect Theory Dossier: An Introduction”, Qui Parle, vol. 20, no. 2, Duke University Press, University of Nebraska Press, pp. 3–18, <https://doi.org/10.5250/quiparle.20.2.0003>

Greenberg, C 2022, Amazon rainforest fires 2022: Facts, causes, and climate impacts, <https://www.greenpeace.org/international/story/55533/amazon-rainforest-fires-2022-brazil-causes-climate/>

Greenpeace Brasil, Instagram Post, <https://www.instagram.com/p/CiVeLIutAke/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link>

Massumi, B 1995, “The Autonomy of Affect”, Cultural Critique, no. 31,, pp. 83–109. <https://doi.org/10.2307/1354446>

Project Hiu, Instagram account, <https://www.instagram.com/projecthiu/>

Projeto Tamar, Instagram account, <https://www.instagram.com/projeto_tamar_oficial/>

Tarsila do Amaral website, <https://tarsiladoamaral.com.br/>