While browsing Google for experimental video I came across Italian filmmaker Donato Sansone’s Videogioco. I probably spent close to 2 hours trying to find a website but was only able to find him featured on a ton of blogs, his Vimeo and MySpace sites which both give little information about the artist. They did, however, boast quite a few very intriguing videos. The two that I found most interesting are completely unrelated to each other in concept and process.
Videogioco, Italian for Videogame, combines 2D drawing, flipbook-style motion and stop-frame processing to create an interesting take on a cartoon action sequence. The film focuses on a character whose head, having been dismembered by a rival, travels throughout the sequence by being punted, swallowed and cut only to land back on its body for a final punch. The video loops so that the end picks up at the beginning. What’s interesting is that you see the artist’s hand involved not only in the movement of the paper, but also in the storyline itself. He interacts with the characters by acting as the puppeteer, but also by-for instance- helping the dog who swallowed the head regurgitate it back into motion. The sound effects are intriguing and I do feel like I am watching a cartoon. The graphic nature of sound used reminds me of cartoons like Ren and Stimpy. The fact that he’s added in the sound of the paper flipping I think is wonderful because it emphasizes what exactly this piece is comprised of and I like that it acknowledges the fact that it’s not a traditionally-made cartoon. I am impressed by the amount of work that went into this piece as well as the organization and overall flow. The subject matter is easy to follow and more exciting every time I watch it.
The second film is called App-Circulatorio. It is narrated in Italian and discusses the flow of blood throughout the body and the function of the heart, veins and capillaries, among other organs. This video features a male subject whose body is overlaid by a graphic of internal organs. The subject moves quite a bit throughout the film and the graphic moves along with him. It’s interesting to watch, at least, how the graphic behaves when the subject moves. It’s interesting watching the color that emphasizes the organs the narrator is speaking about; it’s kind of like watching someone paint. There is a very stylized artistic effect being executed here and while the graphics are very advanced, I feel like I could be looking at a diagram from Da Vinci’s notebook.
While I think my images do have a style of their own I’d like to be able to push that even further and get even more specific with how I use light and photograph my subject matter as well as establish an easy flow with my filmstrips as well as in my videos.
(I'm not entirely sure if a blog is due tomorrow, but here's an update anyway...)
I've been incredibly busy with everything but school work since I've been home. This is my first visit back to NOVA in about 2 months--which is some sort of record. It's refreshing being home and with my family and friends again and I feel inspired to move forward with my concept and create stronger, more involved work. I have renewed patience and hope that I am moving in a positive direction and that everything I've endured while photographing at home will be very well worth it.
I feel like a different person from when I started this semester. It's an interesting thought to consider the parallels between the concept of my work and the growth I've had over the past few months. My confidence has grown in my work, conceptually and technically and I feel sort of impervious to things that would've bothered me before this year. Coming full circle and concentrating this work on myself rather than on my siblings has enabled me to realize and face my own fears. When I was working with Michael and Hayley I think I was using them and their innocence as an escape. They are the closest thing to my childhood beside my own memories and they are still at that in-between age where they can still feel like children; they can still be ignorant and naive without second guessing themselves. But I suppose at the end of the day, once I was alone, the journey I took with my brother and sister was only a false hope for myself to overcome something I was too scared to face on my own. And while I do feel like I've grown as a person, there are still parts of me that feel like they're missing. There are parts of who I was a few years ago that I need to remember so that I can become whole as who I am now. Growing as an artist and a big sister is only a very small part of who I need and want to be.
Wings, digital photograph, Elizabeth Fleming, 2007
Dust Bunny, digital photograph, Elizabeth Fleming, 2007
Hand Prints, digital photograph, Elizabeth Fleming, 2007
I am blown away by Elizabeth Fleming’s documentary style of photography. At first I found her work to be fairly superficial; a stay-at-home mom with a camera and nothing better to do. But after having enveloped myself in her work I can say that she is probably my favorite documentary/narrative photographer. Her work successfully encompasses and illustrates everything I’d like to communicate concerning my issues at home. Her work Life is a Series of Small Moments I & II effectively captures the in-betweens of daily life. The transient moments that aren’t quite here nor there. She elusively transcends words, yet manages to say so much. I admire her use of light and perspective in that they make the viewer feel they are seeing this image for themselves, as though one was actually present for such an instance, taking the picture themselves. Her images are comical, nostalgic, hopeful, and melancholy all at the same time. When viewing her work I feel a rush of emotion I can neither control nor want to control. Her work provides such a release that I feel inspired and brand new and excited to create work of my own.
Her artist statement describes her work perfectly: “Part of me is scared to reveal too much—but perhaps the tension between showing and withholding is where the intimacy lies; not in stripping everything away but in respecting my sometimes guarded nature. I’m riding a line, creating a push-and-pull in the coming together of mystery and revelation, discovery and hiding.I feel compelled to examine ordinary moments, to fight against my obsessive-compulsive rooted-in-the-mind-and-not-the-world tendencies through the act of being present behind the lens as I find poignancy in the commonplace. I’m there as a record keeper, and it is through repeatedly catching these instants that I become more and more able to anticipate them, which at times gives them a cinematic or allegorical air. But fundamentally, it’s about really seeing: honestly looking and observing and loving the visual, and then carefully editing and arranging my images.”
The part that allows me to really connect to her work is the last sentence in her statement that reads: “Each photograph has had a very particular journey, and has been fussed and sighed over and stated at until it reaches the state where I can say, ‘I am ready to present it to you.’” When photographing at home, there is such a pressure to feel okay with and cope with having to show my images to an audience and to have to explain the meaning behind them. It’s a struggle to force outward my existence within my head; because by doing that it means I’m verifying all that’s happened to me and suddenly everything becomes real and so much more complicated. But at the same time, photographing those suddenly-physical thoughts helps me to cope with the idea that these things no longer exist just to me, but can still remain personal.
Waterline, image size: 11x16", 17 framed c-prints/wood/paint, Francis Cape, 2006
London Avenue, 96x156x36", poplar/text/sandbags, Francis Cape, 2008
Francis Cape is the visiting lecturer for the sculpture department. Cape apprenticed a wood carver in York England before studying sculpture at the City and Guilds of London Art School where he achieved his BFA before moving on to achieve his masters at Goldsmiths College at the University of London. He is represented by the Chelsea and Murray Galleries and has been featured in a number of group and solo exhibitions worldwide.
Francis Cape’s lecture was a huge disappointment. Having viewed his work online I was really interested hearing what he had to say. Unfortunately, for a majority of the time he spoke about other artist’s work who I assume he was influenced by. These artists included painters, furniture designers and photographers, among others. He spoke very little about his work and from what information he was giving us I concluded that one would have to understand the history and function of furniture in the mid-late 1800’s in Britain as well as the history and fundamentals of European Socialism. His concepts were very dense and jumped around quite a bit between the history and use of furniture in England to the destruction in New Orleans and the aftermath of Katrina as a result of the Bush administration. I had a huge issue relating to his work based on just the imagery and sadly found myself even more disconnected from it while listening to Cape share his ideas.
Cape also refused to share his current work being shown at the Anderson currently because he didn't want to deter us from seeing the exhibition itself. Kate and I were discussing that seeing the work on a large screen is going to be a completely different experience from seeing it in person in a gallery space. A majority of the work he did show us were what looked like unfinished walls with dressers or small desks and shelves attached to the wall frame. The gaps between the wood supports and the patterns they formed were interesting, coupled with the more refined forms of the desks created an interesting juxtaposition. However, most of this related to having to do with furniture made in the mid 1900’s in England as a result of the world wars; furniture was made to be accessible by the public and with as few materials as possible. They were meant to be functional on multiple levels. He tied this idea in with Katrina by making the dimension of the wall in said piece (he gave no titles) the same dimensions as walls in homes near New Orleans that suffered as a result of the hurricane. He also suggested that the fragmentation visible in his unfinished walls (I assume in reference to the gaps between supports) was mean to discuss the role of the viewer in that the viewer finishes the piece and not the artist.
Cape’s work is clearly political and while I’m not very interested in this type of work I thought he made some interesting points about the Bush administration. For instance, a few pieces he showed us comprised of wooden screens that he made in response to the Bush administration’s “murdering” of the English language to conceal or hide things from the public.
One piece that I thought was the most refined and accessible was called Waterline which is an installation that involves a yellow painted chair rail or wainscoting above which framed pictures of destroyed homes in New Orleans are displayed. The yellow chair rail was meant to illustrate the water lines left by flooding from Katrina as well as a way to domesticate the gallery space in an effort to bridge the gap between what one heard in the news about Katrina and Cape’s own experiences in New Orleans. Generally it was in effort to separate oneself from the gallery space so that they may genuinely experience the destruction, though abstractly.
I did a shoot for Ink magazine at the Byrd over the weekend that focused on fashion in iconic films like Breakfast at Tiffany’s, Gentlemen Prefer Blondes and The Devil Wears Prada. In total we did 6 shoots for 6 final images to be run in Ink’s February issue. It was great to be able to work with a team again and not have to worry about doing the styling and makeup and photography all by myself like I did for a majority of my fashion shoots over the summer. I was able to focus on just the photography and hone in on the details for each specific shoot. I worked with about 10 models in a 5-hour period.
Lighting was an issue and a lot of problem solving was involved. I had help from my flash for the really dark areas, but I really didn’t like the way they were coming out as I was having trouble balancing the light coming from my flash with the incandescent light and the sunlight being filtered through stained glass. So: a majority of the shots were taken in the lobby/entrance area where the glass doors allow in a lot of natural light. Not to mention it was a cloudy day so the light was beautifully diffused. It was definitely a challenge to not make those shoots look like they were all taken in the same area.
Again, it was nice to be able to work on something not class-related and it was a great opportunity to network.
I’ve managed to create a short experimental video (about 8 seconds) taking about 20 images from one of my shoots with the moth. It’s pretty cool to be able to see it in motion and the progression of the moth’s position throughout the film. It’s allowed me to see where I need to make transitions smoother and certain parts longer. For instance, the swing in focus between background and foreground needs to be more gradual in the clip I’m working on. I am having an issue, though, getting it to loop without having a black frame and a large jump between the first and last images in the film strip instead of it transitioning directly back to the first frame. There is a choppiness to the film that I enjoy as it reminds me of seeing light flash as something passes in front of a light source. It even more so suggests the movement of the moth’s wings, though not present in each picture. However I think the transition is a little too choppy, but the fastest transition available on the program I’m using is .125/s. I’m going to try this on another program more suitable for projects like this and I’m sure I’ll get the results I desire.
What initially drew me to Nadine Rovner’s work was her Portfolio III series. The slight blur and shifty movement of her subject matter coupled with the odd shape of her images and the hazy periphery around what’s visible is intriguing and I could imagine myself creating images like this. While the subject matter in some of these images throws me, I find myself more attracted to -and interactive with- her aesthetic. Her lack of quality lighting and interruptive focus makes me want to dig deeper; to find out exactly what I’m being shown and the meaning behind it. I find myself wrapped up in the fringes between the ghosts of objects that aren’t quite “there,” and the haze of light that contradictorily interrupts the space.
At first I didn’t have a clue as to what’s going on and I was okay with that. I thought the mystery is what makes them. I viewed this series as a sequence of thought or perhaps the strange linear narrative of a dream; in the greater scheme of things they make perfect sense. But after looking at them further, I realized that I’m annoyed and excited at the same time. Excited and in awe of her ability to create such an atmosphere and to capture her subject matter so poetically, yet annoyed that I may be missing something. Perhaps what’s happening is that I can read too deep into her images and that there aren’t enough possibilities. I have no issue relating these images to dreams. Though, like a dream, it only makes sense to the dreamer.
I worry my work is limited in a way that it is rendered almost inaccessible and will only be taken at face value. While the moth is personal to me, I do think that it is something that needs to be communicated to the viewer as I think its counterpart, the butterfly, suggests something entirely different. Looking through Rovner’s work has encouraged me to consider more seriously how I am taking my images and what certain subject matter suggests. I’m also inspired and intrigued by the dreamlike quality of focus and light in her work and I will strive to push my aesthetic further and explore other avenues for creating memory-like spaces.
