“Studying the hat. Entering the world of the hat.”
God, Sondheim. SONDHEIM! Amazing! Ach.
Anyway, on this Sunday in the apartment with Angela, let’s celebrate a “hat” three (lazy) years in the making: my 2015 “second a day” video! 🎉🎉🎉🎉
Background (artist’s statement)#
On 31 December 2014, I decided I wanted to do one of those “second a day” projects for the next year. I like the idea of art that plays with time: something that commented on impermanence and something that grew in value over time. Something where time was a strong component and a “second artist”.
A “second a day” project is great for that: when you think about it, you forget most days you live. By capturing a single second, you get insight - you preserve a moment. It’s also great because, by condensing time, you see the slow-moving changes: hair growing, weight gain or loss, all that.
Anyway, in December 2014, I was living in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, but I knew I would be moving somewhere else after sometime in 2015. I knew 2015 would be a busy year full of change: a lively year!
Yet more nostalgia: Python#
This project was also my first Python project. While it was painless to film a second a day, I realized it would be painful to edit all those multi-second videos into one, ~6 minute thing. And so I had that one fateful thought:
“Wait, is this something I could use Python for?”
The answer to that question is usually yes. Specifically, I used Udacity’s Programming Foundations with Python and found MoviePy and - I was off to the races!
Three years later, I can safely say my Python code was – yeeechhhh, AWFUL. But hey ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ whatever. Girl’s gotta learn somehow.
That was years ago…#
What would Sondheim, Mandy, and Bernadette have to say about all this nostalgia?
MOOOOOVEEEE OOOOOOOOONNNNNNNNNNNN