The City is a Body
2D Animation (2021): An animation that aims to highlight some of the disparities in COVID-19 outcomes experienced by different communities in San Francisco, and to explore what existing disparities may have played a role. Created as part of my Artist in Residence with the UCSF Library.
Client: UCSf Library x UCSF Maker’s Lab
Media: Procreate, Adobe AfterEffects
Process Work
Ideation
When I first proposed my project idea in February of 2020, COVID-19 infections had just started popping up in the USA, and wouldn’t reach the city of San Francisco until one month later. The initial idea of The City is a Body was to look at San Francisco as a singular entity, “diagnosing” the systemic issues that have plagued the city and workshopping a “prognosis” using visual storytelling during an in-person exhibit. However, when I began my residency later that summer, San Francisco had exceeded 4000 COVID-19 infections and 50 deaths. The residency shifted to accommodate a remote project, and I decided to examine the same theme through the lens of COVID-19 disparities in the city.
Interviews and Data Compilation
In March 2021, I interviewed Dr. Kirsten Bibbins-Domingo, who was a professor of Epidemiology and Biostatistics at UCSF. We discussed the COVID-19 data in San Francisco, including some of the underlying health and socioeconomic disparities affecting different communities, and how that has shaped their experiences during the pandemic. The audio from this interview was used in the animation.
I then compiled public data and cross-examined the COVID-19 numbers with different socioeconomic variables and health outcomes across various neighbourhoods in SF. You can view the data here.
Script & Storyboard
I finalized the script, weaving parts of my interview with Dr. Bibbins-Domingo and my own narration to give context. I then developed a rough storyboard to flesh out the pacing.
Illustration, animation & compositing
One of the key components was the visualization the SF map by neighborhood. Each neighborhood was individually illustrated so that its color opacity could reflect a value from 0 – 100 %, and allow for visualization of different data sets. This allowed me the flexibility to create multiple maps that could then be compared across different variables, such as demographic breakdown by neighborhood in contrast to COVID-19 cases. Illustrations were created in Procreate, and final animation and compositing was done in After Effects.
