Introduction
For this assignment we need to select a single United Nations Sustainable Development Goal and researching a statistic linked to it in the context of Aotearoa. Following that, we use Processing to animate black and white geometric primitives and create an animated GIF using scripted approaches while working through an abstract perspective.
The statistic that I choose is Glacier ice volume decreased 25 percent from 1977 to 2016. - (Stats NZ, 01.2018)
Initial sketches
Based on the statistic I have selected, I first draw sketches on the iPad with procreate, and then I judge these sketches and choose a scheme that I think can reflect the data I have selected.
Finally, I chose two of them and drew the animation process on AI.
The first iteration
Through this GIF animation, I want to express that as the glaciers melt, the sea level rises. The white rectangle in the middle represents the glacier, and the white part rising from below represents the ocean.
Problems:
1. After I finished this GIF animation, I realized that it didn't reflect my data very well. I forgot the '25%' mentioned in the statistic.
2. This GIF animation is not easy for viewers to associate with glaciers.
3. This GIF animation is too simple. Although it is not a bad thing, it is so simple that it is very monotonous.
The second iteration
After analyzing the problems of the first iteration and getting comments from my tutors and peers, I constantly modified the GIF animation.
The second iteration added the effect of ice falling into the sea to reflect glacier reduction and enrich GIF animation. The white rectangle in the middle represents the glacier, the white part below represents the ocean, and the falling black rectangle represents the part reduced from the glacier
Since the reduction of glaciers will definitely lead to sea level rise, I retained the original effect of sea level rise and optimized it. Considering that the statistic I selected does not mention sea level rise and the initial search, the degree of sea level rise in this GIF animation is not obvious.
The final iteration
Statement of Intent
This GIF image is showing ‘Glacier ice volume decreased 25 percent from 1977 to 2016.’
At first, the picture shows the glacier on the sea. I use white rectangles to represent the glacier and the ocean respectively. Then the glacier began to melt, the area of the white rectangle in the middle slowly decreased by 25%, and the small black rectangles separated from the white rectangle, representing the reduced part of the glacier.
The purpose of this GIF I made is to hope that people will pay attention to and be aware of the melting of glaciers caused by climate change, because it will affect organisms all over the world, including us. The melting of glaciers will be accompanied by the rise of sea level, which will lead to the loss of homes and extinction of the creatures living in the glacier and will also affect the continent where we human beings live. The earth is our common home, protecting and caring for the earth is the responsibility of each of us.
References
- Annual glacier ice volumes by Stats NZ (30 January 2018, 10:45am) https://www.stats.govt.nz/indicators/annual-glacier-ice-volumes
- Coastal climate change and sea-level rise (SLR) by NIWA (n.d.) https://niwa.co.nz/climate/information-and-resources/coastal-climate-change