Fully contributed by Tracey Ngai

Pictogram / Visual Analysis of a scene extracted from A Pigeon Sat on a Branch Reflecting on Existence (Roy Andersson, 2014)

Synopsis
It is about presenting the horizontal narrative dimension in vertical dimension format. I am interested in the variables in a static condition. It reminds me of some definitions of ‘time’. They suggested only the existence of variables can prove the existence of time.

In my pictogram, I first extracted the variables, the character. Then I deconstruct them into basic unit independently without the scene’s content, therefore, no relation to time. On the other hand, I extracted the soundtrack as it is also one of the variables that construct the whole vertical and horizontal narrative of the shot. I also rebuild the whole location by filling the hidden space with different frames.

Finally, I make the outline of characters and place all together in the empty location as a chronology of movement and overlay the spectrogram of the soundtrack onto the whole picture. This represents the structure of the scene in terms of the chronology throughout the 1-minute duration.