Penu Penev is a Bulgarian citizen, father, grandfather, husband and Carpenter for over thirty years. I spent two months interviewing him,

finding out about his life and identifying patterns of behavior and mostly importantly reasons behind them. During the two months

many personality traits showed very clearly resulting in a Non-digital installation which resonates his ideologies and

behaviors.

Conversations of Degradation.

21.07.2014

Seven years old,started school at

‘Otec Paisi’

Graduates from schoolcontinues on to be a senior

at same school

Moves to live with Auntie in Ruse.Enrolls into new school

studying carpentry

Graduates schoolof carpentry

in 1965

Army Dutybased in Carnobrat

Two years and ten daysArmy Duty ends

In 1968 starts workwith ‘Slavic Arts’ as

a carpenter

1970, becomes‘Head of Sustainability’

Gradually democracy comes to Bulgaria.Privatization of companies within the

industry begins and so do budget cuts

1995, becomes‘Technical Lead’ at

‘Slavic Arts’

2000, last day at work with‘Slavic Arts’

One year on benefitswhilst looking for

work

Works as securityat various places

2007-8End of work as security,

retirement soon after

Seven years old,started school at

‘Otec Paisi’

Graduates from schoolcontinues on to be a senior

at same school

Moves to live with Auntie in Ruse.Enrolls into new school

studying carpentry

Graduates schoolof carpentry

in 1965

Army Dutybased in Carnobrat

Two years and ten daysArmy Duty ends

In 1968 starts workwith ‘Slavic Arts’ as

a carpenter

1970, becomes‘Head of Sustainability’

Gradually democracy comes to Bulgaria.Privatization of companies within the

industry begins and so do budget cuts

1995, becomes‘Technical Lead’ at

‘Slavic Arts’

2000, last day at work with‘Slavic Arts’

One year on benefitswhilst looking for

work

Works as securityat various places

2007-8End of work as security,

retirement soon after

The first thing I did when starting this project is creating a time-line of Penu’s education and working life. This helps visualize his life and

acts as a reference when spotting behavioral patterns. This time-line is interesting as Penu has spent an enormous part of his working life at

only one company, this was one of the first things I enquired about when interviewing him. The next interesting thing is that there is only one year

when Penu has not been employed, but most interestingly, throughout his childhood, youth and retirement, Penu has always been involved in the craft

of carpentry whether professionally or as a hobby.

TIME-LINE‘A TIME-LINE OF TO PENU’S WORK AND EDUCATION’

Penu Penev was born in Buglaria, Sushica on the 15th of November 1945. He grew up playing football , riding bicycles and playing games just like any other child in the area. At age seven he enrolled at ‘Otec Paisi’, the

local school. At a very young age his mother would send him out to the local shops to buy bread, however

on the way back from the shops he would see his mates playing football. Too excited he would place the

packaged bread loaf on a bench and get involved. Only to come back after the game too see the neighbours

ducks had ate the whole thing...apart from the crusts.

Carpentry was a compulsory subject at Penu’s second-ary school. It came natural to him and he decided to

carry this on. At age seventeen he took this beyond the classroom. Being a big Beatles, Penu had the

hairstyle, the look and so did all his mates. Seeing his mates play guitar very well Penu decided to build his

own guitar and learn how to play. These were early signs of the love for carpentry, a craft which he would later

dedicate his working life to.

During compulsory Army Duty which took place when Penu was eighteen, he was placed in a diving unit. After

two years and ten days of Army Duty he decided he enjoyed this and took it on as a full time job for the next

year. At the end of his year, fellow colleagues advised him against continuing. The job was dangerous and there were better things a man of his age could be

doing. Penu agreed and left to look for other employment.

CHAPTER ONE

In 1968 Penu began work with, directly translated, Slavic Arts. Slavic Arts focused on creating spaces and

furniture for everything but the home. Their markets were: working spaces, pharmacies, hotels, hospitals

and many more. The company had over four hundred employees and was known for its long lasting products. The business was going very well internationally too. An

interesting client of theirs was USSR. USSR army had decided to take its soldiers out of Germany shortly after the Berlin Wall was taken down. Newly built housing was

ready to house the soldiers and their families and Slavic Arts were to produce furniture for each

apartment. It was a six months process.

The furniture would be produced on site in Bulgaria in the space of three months and shortly after it would be taken over to the housing, where Slavic Arts employees would spend three months installing it. Penu was doing

well, moving up in the company and often being asked to take trips abroad to study international markets

and trends but with Penu’s wife being a primary school teacher, he noticed a niche market. Penu started

looking into creating furniture for a younger target audience. He would sketch smaller versions of current

furniture which could be used at ‘playtime’ in schools, as kids played role playing games. The would be kitchens only with smaller chairs and fake stoves which children

could interact with, Penu’s sketches would be handed over to designers at Slavic Arts and would later be

taken into mass production.

Like most companies Slavic Arts had a supporting Union. At age of thirty Penu was elected to be the ‘Head

of Organization’ at the Union, an unpaid role, his re-sponsibilities included organizing any event held by the

Union. This was somewhat of a hobby for Penu as it was something he liked doing and continued to do for nine

years until he was chosen to be the ‘Head of Organiza-tion’ at, directly translated, ‘Technical Creative Youth’; a small organization which runs networking events for

younger people looking to get into carpentry and other creative industries.

CHAPTER TWO

After over thirty years of working with Slavic Arts and seven years of working as security, Penu is now officially retired. He spends most of his time in his apartment, in

Ruse, with his wife. Although his passion for carpentry is still there he has now come back to his old hobbies of

cooking, reading, watching football and re-visiting his book collection which is made up of over eight hundred

books.

Working with Penu on this project there have been a number of things which were very clear to me in terms of his outlook on life. I categorized my questions towa-

rards him , but the one category which I had no answers for was ‘Regrets’. He made it very clear that he has had a chance to work, raise a family and give back to people which in his opinion is a full life. Despite his impressive

career achievements he made it very clear that there were hard time, of course, but the good times in his life

outweigh the bad.

CHAPTER THREE

Penu is a history fanatic with a focus on Bulgarian history and also World War Two history, his book collec-tion is made up of historical non fiction, historical fiction and even archives of World War Two meetings between

world leaders. This interest could well be from his father who spent a lot of time reading about the second world

war and would even spend half of his salary on new books on the day of receiving it.

OCCURRENCE ONE

OCCURRENCE THREE

OCCURRENCE TWO

The first occurence of this pattern was during a casual online video conversation about previous jobs. Penu mentioned he worked

as a diver for a year after finishing his Army Duty. Towards theend of that year he decided to look for another job after a conversation with one of

his older colleagues who advised him to find a different career path as diving isdangerous for a man of Penu’s age and also there are better things he could be

doing at that age. Penu took the advice well and decided to listen to someone who hadbeing doing the job for years.

After quitting his job as a diver Penu had some experience working as Technical Assistant so he decidedto apply for a backstage assistant at his local theatre. Previously being given good advice

from someone more experienced in the industry, he sought the help of one the theatre managers.The theatre manager advised him against working there as the media industry

can be stressful for a twenty year old, the actors are fussy and there aremuch better things a twenty year old could be doing.

Penu once again took the advice.

The third mention which formed this pattern was again during a conversation about work life. The interviewwas done via video chat, which was not recorded and therefore the conversation was very casual.

During his first two years at Slavic Arts Penu was doing well at the company and showed talent but hadn’t started progressing up the company ladder just yet. After conversations with his much older colleagues they suggested he look for advancement opportunities

and perhaps put his name in the hat when it came to electing a new employee for those jobs and so he did.This third mention formed a pattern in which Penu is seen as someone who looks up to and respects people older than him.

Respecting people older than you is a family value, which would have been strongly enforced in those days and still isin Bulgarian culture.

PATTERNONE

‘LISTEN TO YOUR ELDERS’

OCCURRENCE ONE

OCCURRENCE TWO

OCCURRENCE THREE

With Penu being a relative I was already aware of his political stance but I wasnever aware of the reasons behind it. In a casual conversation about politics Penu brought

up the change from socialism to democracy in Bulgaria. My follow up question was how thechange effected him. Penu explained how his employer Slavic Arts was a thriving business and then

went on to describe the total degradation once privatizations came into place. Carpentry was a craft he devoted a huge amount of his life to

and it was taken apart due to political factors.

.From this, the reasoning behind his current political views became very clear and

so did his stance on other related topics such as emigration. In a totally separate interview I talked withhim about a recent newspaper article on Bulgarian citizens emigrating to other countries. He immediately came back to

Socialism and made comparisons between the nature of the events back then and the current state of the country,Partially blaming the democratic ways. To this day the aftermath of democracy effects how Penu votes and sees the current

state of his home nation.

Later on during an interview in an entirely different category; fashion and trends, I questioned Penu about the trends he took part in when was a teenager. He answered my question but also went on

to talk about culture in general. He made his point clear that Bulgarian culture and values are fading, there is less emphasis on what’s important for the country and how democracy is partly to blame.

He used Bulgarian agriculture as an example; there is a heavy reliance on produce from other countries firstly because agriculture is a private sector and secondly because

there is a severe scarcity for farmers as this proffesion is something the ‘’new generation’’ are not interested in and therefore the topic of emigration comes up again. This conversation concluded that

his dissatisfaction with the new political ways are something that is part of who Penu is and the behavioral pattern is caused by his experiences.

PATTERNTWO

‘SOCIALISM WASN’TPERFECT BUT IT WORKED’

OCCURRENCE ONE

OCCURRENCE THREE

OCCURRENCE TWO

The first occurence of this pattern was during a casual online video conversation about previous jobs. Penu mentioned he worked

as a diver for a year after finishing his Army Duty. Towards theend of that year he decided to look for another job after a conversation with one of

his older colleagues who advised him to find a different career path as diving isdangerous for a man of Penu’s age and also there are better things he could be

doing at that age. Penu took the advice well and decided to listen to someone who hadbeing doing the job for years.

After quitting his job as a diver Penu had some experience working as Technical Assistant so he decidedto apply for a backstage assistant at his local theatre. Previously being given good advice

from someone more experienced in the industry, he sought the help of one the theatre managers.The theatre manager advised him against working there as the media industry

can be stressful for a twenty year old, the actors are fussy and there aremuch better things a twenty year old could be doing.

Penu once again took the advice.

The third mention which formed this pattern was again during a conversation about work life. The interviewwas done via video chat, which was not recorded and therefore the conversation was very casual.

During his first two years at Slavic Arts Penu was doing well at the company and showed talent but hadn’t started progressing up the company ladder just yet. After conversations with his much older colleagues they suggested he look for advancement opportunities

and perhaps put his name in the hat when it came to electing a new employee for those jobs and so he did.This third mention formed a pattern in which Penu is seen as someone who looks up to and respects people older than him.

Respecting people older than you is a family value, which would have been strongly enforced in those days and still isin Bulgarian culture.

PATTERNONE

‘LISTEN TO YOUR ELDERS’

OCCURRENCE ONE

OCCURRENCE TWO

OCCURRENCE FOUR

OCCURRENCE THREE

Not so far down the road Penu is elected as ‘Technical Lead’ of the (directly translated) ‘Self-Sustainability Division’ in the company. His superiors allow

him to take trips out of the country to study international trends and markets.Penu does this well, spotting a niche market and coming back with designs which eventually

go into mass production by Slavic Arts.

After eight years as Head of his supporting Union Penu is approached by a friendand colleague who selects him as ‘Head of Organization’ at (directly translated); ‘Technical Ceative Youth’.

An organisation which hosts networking events for young people trying to get into carpentry and othercraft-based industries. Penu has the responsibility of organizing the events and the position

is once again unpaid. The third occurence helped to establish a pattern which shows that Penu’s management and organisational skills were recognized by other people

and therefore exposes a side to Penu’s personality which is backed by his accomplishments.

During the time Slavic Arts faced mass lay offs the members of theGoverning body, including Penu, had to take on the roles and responsibilities

of entry job employees. Penu was now not only in a managerial position but also had other entry position responsibilities such as driving the stock from site to clients,

being the sales representative at conventions and general warehouse duties.This finalized the pattern in which Penu’s sense of

organization is clearly seen to come very natural and is also thriving.

Whist working for Slavic Arts, Penu’s leadership skills were noticed and he was elected‘Head of Organization’ at Slavic Arts’ supporting Union who’s main purpose was to act as the

voice for the company’s employees. This was an unpaid position which Penu carried on for eight years. His responsibility was to organise and manage

any events held by the Union which he enjoyed and saw as a hobby.This occurence took place during a conversation about hobbies and interests.

PATTERNTHREE

‘ORGANIZATIONALBEHAVIOUR’

OCCURRENCE ONE

OCCURRENCE TWO

OCCURRENCE THREE

OCCURRENCE FOUR

Penu subscribed to interior design Magazines which werepublished internationally, one in particular was called ‘Mobel Und Wohnraum’.

This would again inform Penu of international trends. A subscription to a magazine defines someonesinterest in a topic therefore this occurrence as of interest.

During his time at Slovanic Arts Penu would take trips to exhibitions and other companies for leisure. After examining new trends

and styles he would create sketches for new products which would then be handed to the design team at Slavic Arts and in some cases

taken into production. This occurence showed me that Penu’s interest in carpentry spread beyond the workplace.

During his time at Slavic Arts Penu worked on a self-initiated project.He took the concept of a board game, which his colleague pitched to him,

and worked with the Slavic Arts design team to develop it, this resulted in the boardgame being put into mass production.

To this day Penu still practices the unlikely craft of hand carving gravestones.He also creates wooden interior decorations, these aren’t particularly concept heavy

but rather focus on aesthetics and complimenting an interior. This occurence concluded a pattern which shows that carpentry is something that is

not only a talent for Penu but also a passion which he hasdedicated his working life to.

PATTERNFOUR‘A LOVE FOR THE

CRAFT’

Visit for leisureVisit for work

Through conversations with Penu I gathered that he has traveled around Europe. He visited most of these countries for leisure however Slavic Arts

gave him the opportunity to visit Poland and the Czech Republic on a number of occasions for work purposes. On these occasions Penu would

complete the task set by his employer but he would also take the chance to visit interior design exhibitions and add to his notes on current trends and

styles. The interesting thing is that he would also do this on his trips for leisure. I decided to crate this info graphic showing the analytical data as it acts as evidence to the pattern ‘passion for carpentry’ which I found in my

research. Penu’s passion for carpentry was evident even on his trips abroad as even though there are more leisure trips than work trips he still made

time to feed his interestn each one. This a very intriguing behavioural pattern.

PENU’STRAVELLS

‘A GUIDE TO PENU’S WORK AND LEISURE TRAVELS’

Visit for leisureVisit for work

Now that I had gathered enough information and I hadstructured it in such a way as to help me understand

Penu’s personality, I started thinking about how I would resonate his behaviors. Penu’s place of employment

for over thirty years vanished in the space of ten years due to Democracy coming into Bulgaria and this has effected a lot of ideologies, reasoning and behaviors.

There are three things which I wanted to communicate clearly in my final piece: The degradation of his craft,

the fact that this ethnographic research was carried out online and how what happened to his industry can be

related to a wider context; the future of Bulgaria

When Penu speaks about this it all seems very dynamicits very much an intimate experience , explained and told

so well that it almost makes the experience, tangible. Therefore the only way to communicate this would be

through an installation, something the audience can walk through as if exploring his stories in tangible form.

I decided to use a 70’s design piece of furniture as an object which represents Penu’s love for carpentry. It is

apiece of furniture which is assembled and solid just like Slavic Arts before democracy. Once democracy swoops

in, the set of drawers just like Slavic Arts, becomes dis-united, disassociated, split. Finally to communicate the nature of ways of communication me and Penu used over the project I decided to project Penu’s interviews

on each separate piece of wood which makes up the set of drawers.

CONCEPT

This represents the digital ways we used to communi-cate and carry out observation. I think these guidelines

and the concept over all are very organic , coming straight of the research. The installation is a step into a

disrupt industry, the audience walks into the a chaotic setup, seeing Slavic Arts, represented by furniture, exploded, imitating and explosion with each sector/department represented by a piece of debris from

the furniture, with an interview of Penu on each one, taking the audience through the journey, sharing his

stories and his vision of Bulgaria’s future based on his experiences.

Once I had sketched out my concept I took measure-ments of the set of drawers which I was going to use for this installation. I took down the length width and

breadth of each individual piece of wood which made up the piece of furniture. Having these would create a pre-cise CG version of the set of drawers. The process was

pretty straight forward and the final outcome was more than satisfactory. I made sure to include every curve and

every joint to capture that seventies look to the design.

I used the ‘Sketch and Toon’ rendering option as it was most suitable for my need which in this case was to get

a precise look of what the installation would look like geometrically and not in terms of materials or lighting.

As the whole concept was surrounding the idea of degradation and separation I could have used a built in

effector such as Explode to create the disunited look which I needed, however I decided to do this manually as I would have more control. I tried a number of variations

until I came across the most natural looking set-up. I would later use these renders as guidelines for building

the installation.

PRODUCTION

I wanted to get a look at how much space the installation would take up once the chest of drawers

is separated and up in the air, so to do this I used the measurements I previously took of each piece of wood

and cut out a piece of cardboard the same size for each piece. I only did this for the three biggest pieces of wood

but through doing this I realized I might need morelighting rigs to distribute the weight evenly.

Projecting one piece of media onto multiple surfaceswas something I hadn’t done before so I used the same

prototype to try this. There were some limitations towhat pieces of wood I could project on as the projector lens was fairly small. The two adjacent pieces of wood

could be mapped however the projection seemed to bequite faint due to the small surface area, this was some-

thing to consider. Another thing I noticed was hanging the pieces of cardboard with just two pieces of string

was not enough , this was something to consider when hanging up each piece of wood. Even though it would

be hung up with fishing cord perhaps it would still need more support.

Prototyping like this was something I hadn’t done before but it definitely came in handy and allowed me to see problems I might encounter before going ahead and building the real thing. The fact that some pieces of wood were near impossible to project one was a big

problem as this was the heart of the idea. I decided to work around this by moving the projector at different

angles and projecting onto each piece of wood separately and then filming, rather then creating a one

mapping for all the pieces and losing image quality.

PROTOTYPING

I decided to do the first shoot in a classroom. There was something about the room which looked industrial or

factory-like so I though it would fit in very well with the guidelines and the concept. I used the two lighting

rigs which were already in the room and two extra video lights to lighten up the sides of the set of drawers. Even when filming the establishing shots the footage looked

well but there was the simple matter that it did not look interesting, I also had difficulty working with a tripod

dolly which was not built for going in straight lines and therefore decided to find a new location for the

shoot.

The second Photoshoot took place in a photo studio, there were lighting rigs which were built to take the

weight of other equipment which can be attached onto them, therefore I decided to use the horizontal rigs to my advantage by placing two by twos across them to

create a grid. This allowed more space on which the set of drawers could be distributed evenly. I also decided to set up a green screen around all three sides of the

studio, this would give me control over the background when it comes to post-production.

Another big problem I encountered once the set of drawers went up in the air was that it did not look

like what I had imagined, the concept was not being projected through the installation therefore I decided to adapt by taking a new approach. I decided to project on different parts of the furniture separately and abstract

the idea out. I decided to film the experience of being in the installation and interacting with, like a promotional

video for what would be an installation or exhibition. I did this by filming at angles which capture the scene in

different aspects and evoke the feeling of separation.

BUILDING

As planned originally I then projected a filmed interview of my chosen person onto various parts of the structure. This was more difficult than I thought as projecting onto varnished pieces of wood didn’t create good results and

I had to work around this by just projecting onto one other alternative. I tried my best to capture the

experience which the installation was intended to create.My original idea did not go to plan however altering the

outcome and using the same concept/guideline was a great idea it allowed me to experiment and surpass the

original idea.

The effect I placed onto the footage before projecting imitates a sketched animation, I decided to use a sketch

effect to communicate the authenticity , simplicity and originality of the topic, each frame imitates the detail

and shading found on a carpenters sketch. Once projected the flicker between frames onto the rough unvarnished part of the furniture added very much

to the scene and complimented the concept in a very natural way.

FILMING

Overall the nature of the topic combined with the video effects and angles of the footage created a very tense but intriguing atmosphere. This was heavily anchored

by the dark mies-en-scene the pace of the footage, the dark surrounding almost created space for an audience to listen, subtracted any distractions and allowed more

focus on the slightly displaced projection . This was anchored by the sound track later added,

When it came to post-production is when the video really started to take shape. I edit the clip to start of

with very abstract close ups of textures created by the projection and eventually, slowly, reveal the structure.

This would ease the audience into the story. Instead of fade to black transitions which would have been

conventional for those days I decided to use transitions which imitated film burn. This fit in great with the

concept as it was all about conversations about the past and reminiscing, to some extent, so the flashing

film burn added a lomo, throwback, almost dream-like, colour grading making it look as each new scene is a

flashback for Penu. When it came to effects I made sure every effect was there for a reason and it fit in

well within the guidelines of the concept. I wanted to communicate the fact that the topic at hand occurred

years ago and wanted to capture a rawness almost as if the information is coming from one of Penu’s archives

belonging to his history book collection, and there is still dust on it and it is almost a battle to get it to the

audience. I wanted to create a sense of scarcity to communicate the fact that what the stories heard in the narration are valuable, something you don’t usually hear about. I did this through adding noise and wiggle to the

original footage which captured this perfectly.

In terms of sound design the concept was all aboutdegradation and almost erosion of an industry but also

hope. To capture the hope I used a light-hearted, slightly upbeat piano riff. To communicate the fact that

the topic at hand is serious I used orchestral strings which thickened up the track and added more depth to the EQ. To really anchor the noise effect and the black

and white effect added to the footage I added a bass pedal to the strings with slight feedback which adds to

the theme of degradation as the slight feedback almost erodes the upbeat notes just as democracy did to

Penu’s business.

Toward the end of the video the subject matter changes slightly. I saw Penu’s stance on Bulgaria’s current issues

as very patriotic, therefore I chose colours and effects which complemented this, I chose red for the transitions

as the subject matter is socialism and there are very left wing views expressed in the speech. However there

is also a lot of passion which I think this choice of colour expressed very well. The look of the transition had char-

acteristics of fire, communicating the fact that Penu’s memories are ones of passion and the fire still burns for

the topic at hand.

POST-PRODUCTION

The two months of research consisted of casual phone conversa-tions, online recorded conversations, interviews, observation and

much more. I have to come to realise that as a person Penu sticks to what he has learnt from experience and doesn’t stray from what he

was told as a young man. Much, if not all, of the occurrences and experiences from his life mentioned in this book are positive and there is a reason for that. At the end of each conversation Penu

would end with a disclaimer: ‘There have been bad times, but the good outweigh the bad’ and it is for this reason I decided to only

mentioned the positive, to reflect his optimism.

In terms of the research once I had found my key patterns which were: his organizational skills, love for carpentry, his respect for the

opinion of elders and dissatisfaction with democracy I used them to inform my final outcome. This was a tangible installation which

captures the moment Penu’s pace of employment for over thirty years goes through degradation as democracy swoops into Bulgar-ian politics. The audience can walk into the installation and explore

different fragments which reresent the debris of his company, to anchor this an interview of Penu sharing stories from that time , is projected on each surface of the installation, helping the audience

experience what really happened.