Tuesday 15 December 2009
Photography Investigation - Research and context BLOG TASK 2
Andreas Gursky
Andreas Gursky has a knack for photographing city scape's and urban environments whilst using colour, content and scale to evoke an emotional response to his work. I always feel like his images are telling or asking something of you.
Living in leeds and using his abstract industrial images as a basis, i feel architecture is an ideal motif for content.
“…there is nothing in Gursky’s work itself to suggest any kind of critique of these massive projects he photographs so grandly. Rather everything looks to me like the Grand Glorification of Money and Industry. Look how much of the earth we can take over for our racetrack. Look at how our structures dwarf the tiny humans. Even his natural subjects start to look like Land to be Colonized. It’s the Capitalist Sublime. Of course it helps to remember just how much these pictures cost, and who’s buying them. Do the bank-owners believe they’re spending six figures on a critique of their wealth?”
The world of German photographer Andreas Gursky is nothing if not familiar,
yet, everything within it is somehow askew. The overriding sensation one gets upon studying a Gursky photograph is that of having stumbled onto the documentation of an unfamiliar ritual practice. Large buildings hover in carefully staggered formations, nature rears and roars in all its overwhelming heft, and individuals gather in mysterious agglomerations. Obviously, the real-life explanation behind a work such as “Sha Tin” (1994), could be quickly be glommed with a careful look. The massed crowd of spectators– gathered round an empty, grassy oval, staring at a video monitor behind which four identical apartment blocks are punched into the landscape in front of the receding mountains– are watching a horse race.
The video monitor in the left background tells us as much, with its image of jockeys keenly pushing their horses along, aerodynamically positioning themselves along the horses’ flanks. Nonetheless, Gursky’s photo has no real horses and relies solely on their filmed representation.
This absence clarifies two of Gursky’s frequently twinned artistic interests:
first, he wants to deliberately bring out the mystery of contemporary life and make it strange; second, he wants to use photography in the service of a political agenda.
Gursky’s photographs, fully embracing this mystery, and documenting the shrines of late-capitalist existence, make beautiful the very things he critiques. More precisely, he shows his images to us, his audience, in such a way as to bring out their innate beauty. Gursky’s bright, crisp images, every inch of his oversized photos in sharp focus, filled with individual detail and colour, are lovely enough to serve as
brochure photos for the world’s Chamber of Commerces. What supplies them with their bite is their unflinching eye, which reveals every object to be a manifestation of an unseen order silently at work, everywhere.
What gives Gursky the power to endure is his unflinching humanism,
which emerges in the most unexpected of places, through the most surprising of channels.
To my mind, the most powerful Gursky work, and the most inspired commentary on our human condition, is one of his photographs in which the human form is entirely absent.
Alvazer - Koyaanisqatsi patchwork
Really like how the colour allows for this building to take one a whole new meaning. It feels patchwork. With this sort of shot, and enhancements and exaggerations to colour made in photoshop , this image could be transformed into the uncanny.....
Thomas Hawk
Andreas Gursky has a knack for photographing city scape's and urban environments whilst using colour, content and scale to evoke an emotional response to his work. I always feel like his images are telling or asking something of you.
Living in leeds and using his abstract industrial images as a basis, i feel architecture is an ideal motif for content.
“…there is nothing in Gursky’s work itself to suggest any kind of critique of these massive projects he photographs so grandly. Rather everything looks to me like the Grand Glorification of Money and Industry. Look how much of the earth we can take over for our racetrack. Look at how our structures dwarf the tiny humans. Even his natural subjects start to look like Land to be Colonized. It’s the Capitalist Sublime. Of course it helps to remember just how much these pictures cost, and who’s buying them. Do the bank-owners believe they’re spending six figures on a critique of their wealth?”
The world of German photographer Andreas Gursky is nothing if not familiar,
yet, everything within it is somehow askew. The overriding sensation one gets upon studying a Gursky photograph is that of having stumbled onto the documentation of an unfamiliar ritual practice. Large buildings hover in carefully staggered formations, nature rears and roars in all its overwhelming heft, and individuals gather in mysterious agglomerations. Obviously, the real-life explanation behind a work such as “Sha Tin” (1994), could be quickly be glommed with a careful look. The massed crowd of spectators– gathered round an empty, grassy oval, staring at a video monitor behind which four identical apartment blocks are punched into the landscape in front of the receding mountains– are watching a horse race.
The video monitor in the left background tells us as much, with its image of jockeys keenly pushing their horses along, aerodynamically positioning themselves along the horses’ flanks. Nonetheless, Gursky’s photo has no real horses and relies solely on their filmed representation.
This absence clarifies two of Gursky’s frequently twinned artistic interests:
first, he wants to deliberately bring out the mystery of contemporary life and make it strange; second, he wants to use photography in the service of a political agenda.
Gursky’s photographs, fully embracing this mystery, and documenting the shrines of late-capitalist existence, make beautiful the very things he critiques. More precisely, he shows his images to us, his audience, in such a way as to bring out their innate beauty. Gursky’s bright, crisp images, every inch of his oversized photos in sharp focus, filled with individual detail and colour, are lovely enough to serve as
brochure photos for the world’s Chamber of Commerces. What supplies them with their bite is their unflinching eye, which reveals every object to be a manifestation of an unseen order silently at work, everywhere.
What gives Gursky the power to endure is his unflinching humanism,
which emerges in the most unexpected of places, through the most surprising of channels.
To my mind, the most powerful Gursky work, and the most inspired commentary on our human condition, is one of his photographs in which the human form is entirely absent.
Alvazer - Koyaanisqatsi patchwork
Really like how the colour allows for this building to take one a whole new meaning. It feels patchwork. With this sort of shot, and enhancements and exaggerations to colour made in photoshop , this image could be transformed into the uncanny.....
Thomas Hawk
Photography Investigation - Initial reaction/thoughts
I have been drawn to think about elemental forms of art. Form and colour. Time for me is a question that i don't feel i can answer adequately in the amount of time we have for the project. I believe i will end up wasting a lot of time thinking if i try to deal with a concept as abstract as time is.
More specifically i want to look at form, and abstraction of form. I want to explore how abstraction and digital manipulation can effect the meaning and content of a photograph.
With regards to colour, i want to use it in reference to form, not as a focus point. As an element of chance into working with these parameters. (Black and white may be used as further context and test shoots.
Id like to explore elements of typography and how letters, groups of letters, words, can influence photographs and post production can distort viewers perception.
More specifically i want to look at form, and abstraction of form. I want to explore how abstraction and digital manipulation can effect the meaning and content of a photograph.
With regards to colour, i want to use it in reference to form, not as a focus point. As an element of chance into working with these parameters. (Black and white may be used as further context and test shoots.
Id like to explore elements of typography and how letters, groups of letters, words, can influence photographs and post production can distort viewers perception.
Sunday 13 December 2009
Wednesday 2 December 2009
Research - Animations
Cube and Circle relationship.
Shit sound but i like its simplicity and minimalism.
It also illustrates emotion through animation techniques.
Obscure and of no real reference, just tweaked me out a bit.
After effects . . .. . . . ... . . .
Good syncopation of sound and visual.
Pastal pop colours.
Textured layered images.
Pop Garden
A computer animated loop that was created for Images Fest 07 in Toronto and projected as a large-scale environmental 'wallpaper'. No audio.
Has fluidity and great use of negative space and image.
Resonance
A short animation by Tomas Jech. Some music performed by Kevin Woodland. Done using Maya 7.0.
Shit sound but i like its simplicity and minimalism.
It also illustrates emotion through animation techniques.
Obscure and of no real reference, just tweaked me out a bit.
After effects . . .. . . . ... . . .
Good syncopation of sound and visual.
Pastal pop colours.
Textured layered images.
Pop Garden
A computer animated loop that was created for Images Fest 07 in Toronto and projected as a large-scale environmental 'wallpaper'. No audio.
Has fluidity and great use of negative space and image.
Resonance
A short animation by Tomas Jech. Some music performed by Kevin Woodland. Done using Maya 7.0.
Tuesday 1 December 2009
Monday 30 November 2009
Research - Movement in Objects
Cubes
Different methods of expressing emotion through movement.
Spheres
A starting point for thinking about animating my characters.
I want to use the exaggerated squash and stretch with my sphere.
For the cube, it needs to be lazy and dopey, and it will have beveled edges so movement will need to be emphasized throughan almost 'over animation.'
this last video illustrates different weights of sphere. From this it has given me an indication of how to promote emotive energy within an object.
I feel that a sphere with erratic, light, bold movement will define the sphere as excitable and hopefully curious.
Different methods of expressing emotion through movement.
Spheres
A starting point for thinking about animating my characters.
I want to use the exaggerated squash and stretch with my sphere.
For the cube, it needs to be lazy and dopey, and it will have beveled edges so movement will need to be emphasized throughan almost 'over animation.'
this last video illustrates different weights of sphere. From this it has given me an indication of how to promote emotive energy within an object.
I feel that a sphere with erratic, light, bold movement will define the sphere as excitable and hopefully curious.
Wednesday 18 November 2009
Tuesday 17 November 2009
Archetypal Superhero - Research
Looking at descriptions, my idea of an archetype may be different. Longer publication series also have the potential to fall into more than one archetype. For example, the green lantern evolved from being a gimmick and a gageteer, to being a superman and a gageteer. Batman has been most of these.
2 Fisted Vigilante – He has a mask, his wits and a desire to do good, usually with his fists. He fights crime in the most literal sense, shooting it, punching it ect. Examples: Zorro, the Phantom, sometimes Batman.
The Vigilante Detective – He doesn't fight crime, he solves crime. He looks for clues, elicits confessions, and does everything we expect cops to do, but instead of a gun and a badge he has his mask and his wits. Examples: The Sandman, Batman, Sherlock Holmes.
Hero From the Past – One of King Arthur's knights, an Amazon princess, or a wizard. They may not actually be from the past, but their methods and morals usually harkens back to a better time "when justice ruled." Examples: Thor, Wonder Woman, Vigilante, Captain America (Lately, when he was introduced he was quite hip.)
The Superman – The guy with all the power, faster than a speeding bullet, more powerful than a locomotive. He doesn't always have a lot of powers, but even the one power separated him so far from humanity that he can laugh off attempts by the local police force or even the army that tries to stop him. Examples: Superman, Green Lantern, Wonder Woman, the Martian Manhunter, The Flash.
The Outsider – An alien or a member of an ancient race, a mutant, ex-con or sometimes just a foreigner. This character just doesn't fit in. He is the one people society looks down on or is afraid of. But he wants to make the world better so he fights crime. He is often a Superman or a Gimmick as well. Examples: Martian Manhunter, the X-Men, The Hulk (sometimes), just about any alien super hero who is not a hot chick.
The Gageteer – Whether by his own invention, a powerful patron or just dumb luck, this guy has the right tool for the job. Power armor, sleep guns, a utility belt or a magic sword. Without his special weapons he is just a guy like everyone else, but when he has them he can take on the dark forces that threaten men. Examples: Iron Man, The Sandman, Starman,
The Gimmick: This guy only does one thing or has a very limited range of abilities. They are almost always tied to a limited theme. He flies or turns invisible. He can read minds or he is a super computer genius. The specialist of the super hero world. Sometimes he is so powerful even with the one ability that he is also a superman, but there is (mostly) just the one ability. Example: The Flash, Hawkman (mostly early years), Oracle, Spiderman, any of the Fantastic 4.
The Million Dollar Man – He is not a Superman, but he is better than most men. Olympic level athlete, smarter than the average bear, rich beyond compare or a master martial artist. He may or may not be supernaturally powered, but he is no so far above the curve that a couple of thugs with pistols aren't a threat. Examples: Batman, the Green Arrow, Nightwing, Captain America (although he has also been a superman.)
Meta Archetypes- Most heroes also fall into these archtypes in addition to one or more of the archtypes above:
* The Avenger – He doesn't want justice, he wants blood. Criminals are subhuman and need to pay. Ex. Punisher, Wolverine.
* The Protector – Some people fall through the cracks and need looking after. This guy watches out for them. Sometimes because the system has failed. Ex Zorro.
* The Boy Scout – Truth, Justice and the American way. Even criminals have lives worth saving, and you should eat brush your teeth three times a day. Basically, this hero is good to the point where it borders on stupid. Ex. Superfriends version of any superhero.
* The Champion – This hero upholds ideas, but not to the extreme of the Boy Scout. The ideals change, but are generally considered noble and upstanding ideals. Superman
2 Fisted Vigilante – He has a mask, his wits and a desire to do good, usually with his fists. He fights crime in the most literal sense, shooting it, punching it ect. Examples: Zorro, the Phantom, sometimes Batman.
The Vigilante Detective – He doesn't fight crime, he solves crime. He looks for clues, elicits confessions, and does everything we expect cops to do, but instead of a gun and a badge he has his mask and his wits. Examples: The Sandman, Batman, Sherlock Holmes.
Hero From the Past – One of King Arthur's knights, an Amazon princess, or a wizard. They may not actually be from the past, but their methods and morals usually harkens back to a better time "when justice ruled." Examples: Thor, Wonder Woman, Vigilante, Captain America (Lately, when he was introduced he was quite hip.)
The Superman – The guy with all the power, faster than a speeding bullet, more powerful than a locomotive. He doesn't always have a lot of powers, but even the one power separated him so far from humanity that he can laugh off attempts by the local police force or even the army that tries to stop him. Examples: Superman, Green Lantern, Wonder Woman, the Martian Manhunter, The Flash.
The Outsider – An alien or a member of an ancient race, a mutant, ex-con or sometimes just a foreigner. This character just doesn't fit in. He is the one people society looks down on or is afraid of. But he wants to make the world better so he fights crime. He is often a Superman or a Gimmick as well. Examples: Martian Manhunter, the X-Men, The Hulk (sometimes), just about any alien super hero who is not a hot chick.
The Gageteer – Whether by his own invention, a powerful patron or just dumb luck, this guy has the right tool for the job. Power armor, sleep guns, a utility belt or a magic sword. Without his special weapons he is just a guy like everyone else, but when he has them he can take on the dark forces that threaten men. Examples: Iron Man, The Sandman, Starman,
The Gimmick: This guy only does one thing or has a very limited range of abilities. They are almost always tied to a limited theme. He flies or turns invisible. He can read minds or he is a super computer genius. The specialist of the super hero world. Sometimes he is so powerful even with the one ability that he is also a superman, but there is (mostly) just the one ability. Example: The Flash, Hawkman (mostly early years), Oracle, Spiderman, any of the Fantastic 4.
The Million Dollar Man – He is not a Superman, but he is better than most men. Olympic level athlete, smarter than the average bear, rich beyond compare or a master martial artist. He may or may not be supernaturally powered, but he is no so far above the curve that a couple of thugs with pistols aren't a threat. Examples: Batman, the Green Arrow, Nightwing, Captain America (although he has also been a superman.)
Meta Archetypes- Most heroes also fall into these archtypes in addition to one or more of the archtypes above:
* The Avenger – He doesn't want justice, he wants blood. Criminals are subhuman and need to pay. Ex. Punisher, Wolverine.
* The Protector – Some people fall through the cracks and need looking after. This guy watches out for them. Sometimes because the system has failed. Ex Zorro.
* The Boy Scout – Truth, Justice and the American way. Even criminals have lives worth saving, and you should eat brush your teeth three times a day. Basically, this hero is good to the point where it borders on stupid. Ex. Superfriends version of any superhero.
* The Champion – This hero upholds ideas, but not to the extreme of the Boy Scout. The ideals change, but are generally considered noble and upstanding ideals. Superman
Baf/No Baf - Not a review - One Aspect of the negative side of gaming.
This last week we were invited to a games conference in Bradford that i opted not miss out on. After the event i have been thinking about the pros and cons of making the decision i made.
Having been doing this course for a couple of months now, i am beginning to notice definite divides in approach and outlook amongst the people i am surrounded by. The weighting, as far as i can tell, is far more game and fantasy orientated than i expected, with care and attention being taken over doodles, character design, cartoons and comic book imagery.
I have no interest in this anymore. I stopped playing games properly a few years ago and have no inclination to go back to them. Not saying that i didn't enjoy my time with video games, the motivation to have them envelop me just isn't there anymore. Time for this, as far as i'm concerned, is not expendable. Having just played Res 5, to my mind in present context, playing a video games is metaphorical masturbation. There is no greater purpose. It is similar to the guitarist that only plays in his bedroom. It only benefits short term, and it only benefits the gamer. Its not giving back or enhancing peoples lives (in the hunter/gather sense of existence), seemingly the suits at the top operate on ego, games operate on ego, who can be one better than the rest, who has the most MONEY and who has the slickest presentation. I used to love it, but its all based on something that means nothing.
Take The Burning Man Festival for example. The concept of a progressive modern society that is created in the desert for a week or so each year... This also is an exercise in similar technological fallacy, however there this sense that its bringing people together to enrich and shape their existence for the better. Not to see which sweaty pizza fiend can create the best warlock or gremlin, but a synthesis of technology and humanity, people coming together to make machines and ideas something so much more than circuitry and plastic. People/humanity breath life into machines/mechanics, almost creating progressive, spiritual commune in which this ideology is given meaning and context.
I consider myself a dreamer, and a geek, my reality is fantasy (its all the same anyway) but i fail to see any benefit in this aspect off escapism any more. Its surely about being able to bring these ideas back from imagination land and using them to help progress humanity in reality. How many people can you aid playing a video game, how many lives are actually aided by war simulators, gore and violence?
The only positive i can see is that video games are a platform for people with quirky personalities to act out there twisted little fantasies, ensuring that slightly fewer people don't actually go out and buy a WW2 costume and a rifle and start shooting Germans or in a GTA sense, become a vigilante.......
All of this imagery combines in the collective unconscious or noosphere, as well as conscious being, clogging up space using the time/resources for ideas that help people, positive vibrations and global progression.
Having said all that i will be playing Mario Kart tonight and wasting some time with my freinds, but we will be together, enjoying each others company and enjoying shared experience, not holed up in a bedroom on my own basking in my own ego climbing to the top of some pathetic, unimportant score board just so i can say to myself
"Yes, Im the king of my own castle, in a kingdom that consisting of me, me and me."
Happiness is only real when shared!
(A train of thought that became more exaggerated as i wrote and got more frustrated with the topic.)
Having been doing this course for a couple of months now, i am beginning to notice definite divides in approach and outlook amongst the people i am surrounded by. The weighting, as far as i can tell, is far more game and fantasy orientated than i expected, with care and attention being taken over doodles, character design, cartoons and comic book imagery.
I have no interest in this anymore. I stopped playing games properly a few years ago and have no inclination to go back to them. Not saying that i didn't enjoy my time with video games, the motivation to have them envelop me just isn't there anymore. Time for this, as far as i'm concerned, is not expendable. Having just played Res 5, to my mind in present context, playing a video games is metaphorical masturbation. There is no greater purpose. It is similar to the guitarist that only plays in his bedroom. It only benefits short term, and it only benefits the gamer. Its not giving back or enhancing peoples lives (in the hunter/gather sense of existence), seemingly the suits at the top operate on ego, games operate on ego, who can be one better than the rest, who has the most MONEY and who has the slickest presentation. I used to love it, but its all based on something that means nothing.
Take The Burning Man Festival for example. The concept of a progressive modern society that is created in the desert for a week or so each year... This also is an exercise in similar technological fallacy, however there this sense that its bringing people together to enrich and shape their existence for the better. Not to see which sweaty pizza fiend can create the best warlock or gremlin, but a synthesis of technology and humanity, people coming together to make machines and ideas something so much more than circuitry and plastic. People/humanity breath life into machines/mechanics, almost creating progressive, spiritual commune in which this ideology is given meaning and context.
I consider myself a dreamer, and a geek, my reality is fantasy (its all the same anyway) but i fail to see any benefit in this aspect off escapism any more. Its surely about being able to bring these ideas back from imagination land and using them to help progress humanity in reality. How many people can you aid playing a video game, how many lives are actually aided by war simulators, gore and violence?
The only positive i can see is that video games are a platform for people with quirky personalities to act out there twisted little fantasies, ensuring that slightly fewer people don't actually go out and buy a WW2 costume and a rifle and start shooting Germans or in a GTA sense, become a vigilante.......
All of this imagery combines in the collective unconscious or noosphere, as well as conscious being, clogging up space using the time/resources for ideas that help people, positive vibrations and global progression.
Having said all that i will be playing Mario Kart tonight and wasting some time with my freinds, but we will be together, enjoying each others company and enjoying shared experience, not holed up in a bedroom on my own basking in my own ego climbing to the top of some pathetic, unimportant score board just so i can say to myself
"Yes, Im the king of my own castle, in a kingdom that consisting of me, me and me."
Happiness is only real when shared!
(A train of thought that became more exaggerated as i wrote and got more frustrated with the topic.)
Thursday 12 November 2009
Influence and context
Modernity
by Cameron Chamberlain
Heavily influenced by Mondrian, modernism and expansion. Simple colours and geometric's provide a minimalist context within which expansion is still apparent.
Also in recent thoughts on expansive communication networks and connectivity, it depicts a "growth of a city, and its daunting nature."
Interesting use of audio.
In thinking about animating in 3d, im realizing careful attention needs to be taken over action and reaction. The physics of objects needs to be carefully considered and how one object interacts with another. Everything must have elasticity and move at speeds in context.
by Cameron Chamberlain
Modernity from Cameron Chamberlain on Vimeo.
Heavily influenced by Mondrian, modernism and expansion. Simple colours and geometric's provide a minimalist context within which expansion is still apparent.
Also in recent thoughts on expansive communication networks and connectivity, it depicts a "growth of a city, and its daunting nature."
Interesting use of audio.
Normal Block & Ball animation from Nick Amlag on Vimeo.
In thinking about animating in 3d, im realizing careful attention needs to be taken over action and reaction. The physics of objects needs to be carefully considered and how one object interacts with another. Everything must have elasticity and move at speeds in context.
Wednesday 11 November 2009
Research - Bouncing ball
Illustrates fundamentals of time-line in animation
+ Ease in, ease out technique in Pencil.
+ Ease in, ease out technique in Pencil.
Research - ease in ease out
Frames eased in and out over time!
Beginning to see the potential in Pencil. Really for 2d animation you need little else.
Still having difficulty being able to use tablets. Its an unnatural motion i feel.
Finally progress is beginning to emerge from confusion and perseverance.
Beginning to see the potential in Pencil. Really for 2d animation you need little else.
Still having difficulty being able to use tablets. Its an unnatural motion i feel.
Finally progress is beginning to emerge from confusion and perseverance.
MOVE! - Reworked concept and characters... In fact, new everything!
This feels better and hopefully simpler to create. I like the concept as its closer to what i want to be getting into further down the like.
Influence and research into colour theory and the psychological response to colour. This will hopefully allow me to translate emotion through colour as well as animation techniques emphasizing any specific feeling.
Research into symbiosis of sound and visual - John Cage....
.....
Monday 9 November 2009
Move! - Characters - Thoughts After Maya
In creating these characters and attempting to recreate them 3d, the realization that they are still too complex to work with in Maya. I want to get rid of facial expressions, simplify forms and create a more abstract concept of narrative through action. concept is sound and will write it into context and research at a later date.
Downloaded the Maya demo to cover the rest of the time till deadline so progress can be made around the clock.
Downloaded the Maya demo to cover the rest of the time till deadline so progress can be made around the clock.
Sunday 8 November 2009
Disconnect
Western Mystery Tradition
Part of the magic and mystery of western earth-based traditions is a belief in the inner temples and teachings of Spirit and evolved humanity that exist within and beyond all time and space. Some of the western traditions include mystic Christianity, Druidism, Egyptian mystery, western magic, Qabala, Sufism, alchemy and the Knights Templar, etc. Shamanism Vs. Religion
Over the last three hundred years, westerners have become disconnected from nature, community, family and spirituality with the advents of the Age of Reason (thinking disconnected from being) and the Industrial Revolution. Religion, for most people, has become a mechanical and external process, a passive process, like television in which the seeker watches a priest, a ritual, and waits for something to be done to or for him or her. This dysfunction is a relatively new phenomenon, only about three hundred years old.
Western mystery traditions tend to value visualization over words. Our current model for culture and education is limited and biased to modes of talk and intellect. Up to 90% of our consciousness, such as body awareness, intuitive awareness and emotional intelligence is not being fully exercised under the regime.
Methods for participating.... meditations, guided journeys, shamanic journeying, breathing work, chanting, psycho-drama, spiritual theatre, ritual, dream work (including acting-out dreams), creative processes such as drumming, art, crafts, literature, music and poetry, dance and movement.
One must develop all three - mind, body and spirit and exist in all three - ultimately, they are one.
Part of the magic and mystery of western earth-based traditions is a belief in the inner temples and teachings of Spirit and evolved humanity that exist within and beyond all time and space. Some of the western traditions include mystic Christianity, Druidism, Egyptian mystery, western magic, Qabala, Sufism, alchemy and the Knights Templar, etc. Shamanism Vs. Religion
Over the last three hundred years, westerners have become disconnected from nature, community, family and spirituality with the advents of the Age of Reason (thinking disconnected from being) and the Industrial Revolution. Religion, for most people, has become a mechanical and external process, a passive process, like television in which the seeker watches a priest, a ritual, and waits for something to be done to or for him or her. This dysfunction is a relatively new phenomenon, only about three hundred years old.
Western mystery traditions tend to value visualization over words. Our current model for culture and education is limited and biased to modes of talk and intellect. Up to 90% of our consciousness, such as body awareness, intuitive awareness and emotional intelligence is not being fully exercised under the regime.
Methods for participating.... meditations, guided journeys, shamanic journeying, breathing work, chanting, psycho-drama, spiritual theatre, ritual, dream work (including acting-out dreams), creative processes such as drumming, art, crafts, literature, music and poetry, dance and movement.
One must develop all three - mind, body and spirit and exist in all three - ultimately, they are one.
Move project - 1 - Time - Deconstructing a process.
Just finished off the initial stages of creating characters and story boarding for the MOVE project, trying to fathom how a traveled from point 0.0 - 0.1. Seemingly i have no concept of time or action from when i started my creative process. Time, in a materialistic, modern context, is linear construct that allows me to document this process, and yet somehow, this illusive concept escapes me whenever i enter a creative cycle. Throughout creating music, thinking in an abstract manner, faith, art... life, design, time takes on an archetypal image. Sand flooding between my fingers. More volatile than any river rapid terrain. An irretrievable zen that offers no sympathy.
However, if time is thought of as cyclical and infinite, there are infinite variables of potential that can manifest themselves in reality, if the right motivation is in place.
Working from a subconscious flow, i believe, a more natural, authentic outcome can be constructed, free from the restraints of day to day activity and thought cycles. These actions obviously still influence, but using alternative methods, it will influence at the balenced level its supposed to, not because your mind is flooded.
Calming the mind, whether it be through music, art, creative action, meditation, martial arts, drugs, prayer or/and faith.... allows the mind to work as one. Reducing thinking to a singularity or (zen), opens up these realms, free from time and ego, filled with cosmological signals, perfect syncratic geometry, patterns and foreign information. A realm where you stop questioning and thinking, because you already know... and start just being, existing, as one, mind in harmony with the soul, free to roam and digest all the beautiful information you are observing.
The important bit, in attaining these valuable bites of knowledge, is that after the experience, these should be documented and exposed for all to see. Whether this is in writing and telling stories, art work, songs, dance, a devolution of ones ego is needed in order to share this information to benefit other people. There are many similarities between the artist and the shaman.
Alternatively, Its the comic book adaptation of using your powers, (knowledge gained) for good instead of evil.
Round full circle - during this project i had no concept of time due to this creative process, and now i come to document it, i find myself working backwards from 0.1 - 0.0.
One other observation to do with time and the sensation felt through the creative process - promoting the positives in stories, myth and legend.... 'methods alternative cultures'..... Is.....
Ive noticed that if you do something, anything, and its a SHARED, positive, happy experience at the time, time as your 'doing' is reduced to what feels like nothing (an acceleration). However the MEMORY of that event lasts for a lifetime.
If your doing something you don't enjoy, the time appears to take forever, and your memory of it fades rapidly.
Its an obvious ratio. But when thought about, actually means something. Lessons can be learned without physical evidence. Myth can teach values that would take science and rational decades to arrive at.... If only a harmony could be reached???
"This is not necessarily the truth,
this is what Wittgenstein would have called
an exercise in searching for that which is true enough."
The Great Timestream Bifurcation
Terence Mckenna
However, if time is thought of as cyclical and infinite, there are infinite variables of potential that can manifest themselves in reality, if the right motivation is in place.
Working from a subconscious flow, i believe, a more natural, authentic outcome can be constructed, free from the restraints of day to day activity and thought cycles. These actions obviously still influence, but using alternative methods, it will influence at the balenced level its supposed to, not because your mind is flooded.
Calming the mind, whether it be through music, art, creative action, meditation, martial arts, drugs, prayer or/and faith.... allows the mind to work as one. Reducing thinking to a singularity or (zen), opens up these realms, free from time and ego, filled with cosmological signals, perfect syncratic geometry, patterns and foreign information. A realm where you stop questioning and thinking, because you already know... and start just being, existing, as one, mind in harmony with the soul, free to roam and digest all the beautiful information you are observing.
The important bit, in attaining these valuable bites of knowledge, is that after the experience, these should be documented and exposed for all to see. Whether this is in writing and telling stories, art work, songs, dance, a devolution of ones ego is needed in order to share this information to benefit other people. There are many similarities between the artist and the shaman.
Alternatively, Its the comic book adaptation of using your powers, (knowledge gained) for good instead of evil.
Round full circle - during this project i had no concept of time due to this creative process, and now i come to document it, i find myself working backwards from 0.1 - 0.0.
One other observation to do with time and the sensation felt through the creative process - promoting the positives in stories, myth and legend.... 'methods alternative cultures'..... Is.....
Ive noticed that if you do something, anything, and its a SHARED, positive, happy experience at the time, time as your 'doing' is reduced to what feels like nothing (an acceleration). However the MEMORY of that event lasts for a lifetime.
If your doing something you don't enjoy, the time appears to take forever, and your memory of it fades rapidly.
Its an obvious ratio. But when thought about, actually means something. Lessons can be learned without physical evidence. Myth can teach values that would take science and rational decades to arrive at.... If only a harmony could be reached???
"This is not necessarily the truth,
this is what Wittgenstein would have called
an exercise in searching for that which is true enough."
The Great Timestream Bifurcation
Terence Mckenna
Tuesday 3 November 2009
Hofemann (Inventor of LSD) Letter - Steve Jobs of apple!
Steve Jobs has never been shy about his use of psychedelics, famously calling his LSD experience "one of the two or three most important things I have done in my life." So, toward the end of his life, LSD inventor Albert Hofmann decided to write to the iPhone creator to see if he'd be interested in putting some money where the tip of his tongue had been.
Hofmann penned a never-before-disclosed letter in 2007 to Jobs at the behest of his friend Rick Doblin, who runs an organization dedicated to studying the medical and psychiatric benefits of psychedelic drugs. Hofmann, a Swiss chemist, died in April 2008 at the age of 102.
He specifically asks Jobs to fund research being proposed by Swiss psychiatrist Peter Gasser and directs Jobs to Doblin's Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies.
Doblin and Hofmann were close; Doblin gave the doctor his first tab of ecstasy in the '80s when it was still legal, he says, and Hofmann loved it, saying that finally he'd found a drug he could enjoy with his wife, no fan of LSD.
That Jobs used LSD and values the contribution it made to his thinking is far from unusual in the world of computer technology. Psychedelic drugs have influenced some of America's foremost computer scientists. The history of this connection is well documented in a number of books, the best probably being "What the Dormouse Said: How the 60s Counterculture Shaped the Pers..., by New York Times technology reporter John Markoff.
Psychedelic drugs, Markoff argues, pushed the computer and Internet revolutions forward by showing folks that reality can be profoundly altered through unconventional, highly intuitive thinking. Douglas Engelbart is one example of a psychonaut who did just that: he helped invent the mouse. Apple's Jobs has said that Microsoft's Bill Gates, would "be a broader guy if he had dropped acid once." In a 1994 interview with Playboy, however, Gates coyly didn't deny having dosed as a young man.
Thinking differently -- or learning to Think Different, as a Jobs slogan has it -- is a hallmark of the acid experience. "When I'm on LSD and hearing something that's pure rhythm, it takes me to another world and into anther brain state where I've stopped thinking and started knowing," Kevin Herbert told Wired magazine at a symposium commemorating Hofmann's one hundredth birthday. Herbert, an early employee of Cisco Systems who successfully banned drug testing of technologists at the company, reportedly "solved his toughest technical problems while tripping to drum solos by the Grateful Dead."
"It must be changing something about the internal communication in my brain," said Herbert. "Whatever my inner process is that lets me solve problems, it works differently, or maybe different parts of my brain are used.".........................
Gilmore...... doubts, that a strict cause-and-effect relationship between drugs and the Internet can be proved. The type of person who's inspired by the possibility of creating new ways of storing and sharing knowledge, he said, is often the same kind interested in consciousness exploration. At a basic level, both endeavors are a search for something outside of everyday reality--but so are many creative and spiritual undertakings, many of them strictly drug-free. But it's true, Gilmore noted, that people do come to conclusions and experience revelations while tripping. Perhaps some of those revelations have turned up in programming code.
And perhaps in other scientific areas, too. According to Gilmore, the maverick surfer/chemist Kary Mullis, a well-known LSD enthusiast, told him that acid helped him develop the polymerase chain reaction, a crucial breakthrough for biochemistry. The advance won him the Nobel Prize in 1993. And according to reporter Alun Reese, Francis Crick, who discovered DNA along with James Watson, told friends that he first saw the double-helix structure while tripping on LSD.
Sunday 1 November 2009
Define and outline positions within a company of interest
HUM
-
Hum is a music production company based in central London.
Wherever you are in the world, you are sure to have heard some of their award-winning scores. They have created music for global commercials campaigns featuring the world's biggest brands, TV On screen identities and worldwide news stations, as well as incidental TV and film music.
Co-founded in 1989 by composer Joe Glasman, Hum continues to be a vehicle for his musical output.
On this site you can not only hear examples of scoring to picture, but also explore audio showreels by genre: from Abstract textures to World music.
Positions.
Joe Glasman - MD, Composer
Aston Brooks - Music, web and IT technologist
Rob Mac - Research and music licensing
Bridging the gap between music and sound effects to startling effect, they are specialists in building 'sound worlds' - where projects acquire a unique character and life through sound texture.
www.hum.co.uk
-
Hum is a music production company based in central London.
Wherever you are in the world, you are sure to have heard some of their award-winning scores. They have created music for global commercials campaigns featuring the world's biggest brands, TV On screen identities and worldwide news stations, as well as incidental TV and film music.
Co-founded in 1989 by composer Joe Glasman, Hum continues to be a vehicle for his musical output.
On this site you can not only hear examples of scoring to picture, but also explore audio showreels by genre: from Abstract textures to World music.
Positions.
Joe Glasman - MD, Composer
Aston Brooks - Music, web and IT technologist
Rob Mac - Research and music licensing
Bridging the gap between music and sound effects to startling effect, they are specialists in building 'sound worlds' - where projects acquire a unique character and life through sound texture.
www.hum.co.uk
Friday 30 October 2009
Finished About Me Poster + Analysis
Futurism, technology, inner and outer space, sound, noise, clarity, abstraction, pop, Adobe, nature, city, ego, perseverance through confusion.
I understand that the project is introducing us to new tools and software, but i found defining myself through material objects to be just a bit dirty. Redeeming features were being able to use a camera, adding at least one level of filtration between me and this acute, difficult subject, using CS4 and applying compositional values learned throughout foundation to present day.....
xx
Analysis after Hand in date.
Comments:
Images organized and integrated.
Contrast and colour used to place more emphasis on certain images.
Love of the abstract and sublime, science and other universes.
Clean, neat, clever use of space.
Hinting at golden age cinema.
Music, album art, space.
My Poster appears to have fulfilled the brief. The comments received indicate that the objects i chose, and the collation of them, have managed to emit the right sort of information defining aspects of my world. However the poster is missing key things that i neglected to think about at the time. The idea of a dreamer, spirituality + consciousness and altered states, electronic / abstract music - dancing - an idea of the infinite, minimalism...
I feel that i took the brief far to literally. Thinking time was reduced due to an inability to digest the brief and think laterally. Also having material objects that convey the right message and also have good aesthetic and compositional values is almost none existent. I.e. How do you convey spirituality without defining yourself as one thing or another. Eastern traditions = buddah, dali lama..., Cristian values = jesus, cross, wreath.... Either way, the signal is confused or too specific. I wanted to leave this sort of thing alone as it would project things i don't want to project.
x
Wednesday 28 October 2009
About Me Poster demo
Rough mock ups in Photoshop.
Having just received CS4 through the post, hurriedly installed everything late wednesday evening and i wanted to have a play. I picked up some free, hi-res images of some sample cd i found and entered a session of patience. After a few minutes re-adjusting to Photoshop, these mock ups formulated, trialing some abstractions from the recording studio and those free images i mentoned before.
With a free day tomorrow i hope, with no distractions to sit with my new adobe toys and complete this project.
Having just received CS4 through the post, hurriedly installed everything late wednesday evening and i wanted to have a play. I picked up some free, hi-res images of some sample cd i found and entered a session of patience. After a few minutes re-adjusting to Photoshop, these mock ups formulated, trialing some abstractions from the recording studio and those free images i mentoned before.
With a free day tomorrow i hope, with no distractions to sit with my new adobe toys and complete this project.
Tuesday 27 October 2009
Poster Research - Futurism and technology
Futurism....
Futurism vs technology
Futurism as a coherent and organized artistic movement is now regarded as extinct, having died out in 1944 with the death of its leader Marinetti, and Futurism was, like science fiction, in part overtaken by 'the future'.
The ideals of futurism remain as significant components of modern Western culture; the emphasis on youth, speed, power and technology finding expression in much of modern commercial cinema and culture. Ridley Scott consciously evoked the designs of Sant'Elia in Blade Runner. Echoes of Marinetti's thought, especially his "dreamt-of metallization of the human body", are still strongly prevalent in Japanese culture, and surface in manga/anime and the works of artists such as Shinya Tsukamoto, director of the "Tetsuo" (lit. "Ironman") films; Marinetti's legacy is also obvious in philosophical ingredients of transhumanism, especially in Europe.
David Daniels - Macro photography
Macro photography is close-up photography. The classical definition is that the image projected on the "film plane," is close to the same size as the subject. On 35 mm film the lens is typically optimized to focus sharply on a small area approaching the size of the film frame. Most 35mm format macro lenses achieve at least 1:2, the image on the film is 1/2 the size of the object being photographed. Many 35mm macro lenses are 1:1, meaning the image on the film is the same size as the object being photographed.
Issues - consistant lighting
- Depth of field
Futurism vs technology
Futurism as a coherent and organized artistic movement is now regarded as extinct, having died out in 1944 with the death of its leader Marinetti, and Futurism was, like science fiction, in part overtaken by 'the future'.
The ideals of futurism remain as significant components of modern Western culture; the emphasis on youth, speed, power and technology finding expression in much of modern commercial cinema and culture. Ridley Scott consciously evoked the designs of Sant'Elia in Blade Runner. Echoes of Marinetti's thought, especially his "dreamt-of metallization of the human body", are still strongly prevalent in Japanese culture, and surface in manga/anime and the works of artists such as Shinya Tsukamoto, director of the "Tetsuo" (lit. "Ironman") films; Marinetti's legacy is also obvious in philosophical ingredients of transhumanism, especially in Europe.
David Daniels - Macro photography
Macro photography is close-up photography. The classical definition is that the image projected on the "film plane," is close to the same size as the subject. On 35 mm film the lens is typically optimized to focus sharply on a small area approaching the size of the film frame. Most 35mm format macro lenses achieve at least 1:2, the image on the film is 1/2 the size of the object being photographed. Many 35mm macro lenses are 1:1, meaning the image on the film is the same size as the object being photographed.
Issues - consistant lighting
- Depth of field
Poster Research - Andreas Gursky
ANDREAS GURSKY
Before the 1990s, Gursky did not digitally manipulate his images. In the years since, Gursky has been frank about his reliance on computers to edit and enhance his pictures, creating an art of spaces larger than the subjects photographed.
"The first time I saw photographs by Andreas Gursky...I had the disorienting sensation that something was happening—happening to me, I suppose, although it felt more generalized than that. Gursky's huge, panoramic color prints—some of them up to six feet high by ten feet long—had the presence, the formal power, and in several cases the majestic aura of nineteenth-century landscape paintings, without losing any of their meticulously detailed immediacy as photographs. Their subject matter was the contemporary world, seen dispassionately and from a distance."
Before the 1990s, Gursky did not digitally manipulate his images. In the years since, Gursky has been frank about his reliance on computers to edit and enhance his pictures, creating an art of spaces larger than the subjects photographed.
"The first time I saw photographs by Andreas Gursky...I had the disorienting sensation that something was happening—happening to me, I suppose, although it felt more generalized than that. Gursky's huge, panoramic color prints—some of them up to six feet high by ten feet long—had the presence, the formal power, and in several cases the majestic aura of nineteenth-century landscape paintings, without losing any of their meticulously detailed immediacy as photographs. Their subject matter was the contemporary world, seen dispassionately and from a distance."
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