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| From top, clockwise: Modigliani's Dedie. Picasso's Femme au Chapeau, and Francoise. |
See women famous as portrait subjects throughout
centuries. First they were framed. Now they've been morphed
by the gifted video artist Philip Scott Johnson.
go to Morphed Women in Great Paintings
If you enjoyed the morphed masterworks you may enjoy
seeing a superb morphing of contemporary women.
go to Morphed Women of the Silver Screen
go to Morphed Women Stars of Television
Men get morphed too!
go to Filmdom's Leading Men-- a favorite project of Philip Scott Johnson
We're obsessed with movie trailers. Who
knew? Wired magazine reports that fans have already watched more than a billion trailers on You Tube so far
this year. Many go viral. Movie studios are focusing their ad dollars online. Webs
"freak out" when the latest movie teasers go live. Sites like IGN and Vulture post shot-by-shot deconstructions.
Slate even has a movie trailer critic. And there's an "oscar" for trailer-making called the Key Art Awards. Competition is
fierce. Top
film conglomerates and producers compete for the elite 'gurus' of trailer-making. Mark Woollen
is considered a star for capturing the spirit and tone of a movie-- and getting lots of talk and Twitter buzz.
The
new 'genre' is now the wild card in a cut-throat , high-stakes business. With so many block-busters pouring out of the
movie mills, trailers are now counted on to give a film release an edge.
Go to Wired for the 'Art of the Trailer'
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| Fireball streams over Siberian skies. |
Unusual Cosmic Event On February 16, 2013, a meteorite
of about ten tons of metal and the size of an SUV entered the earth's atmosphere and exploded about 15 miles overhead
of Helyabinsk, Russia. Although it only grazed our planet countless phone cameras caught the spectacle. Such self-immolating fire-balls skim close every few years and usually land in the ocean. Coincidentally,
this event occurred the same day that astronomers were studying an asteroid passing by about 17 thousand miles away.
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more photography
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| Lautner house: Alan Weintraub. Click to enlarge. |
Mystery is the extraordinary ingredient
in a memorable photograph. The
hook is a missing piece: the explanation.
The puzzlement: wonderful.
QUOTE OF NOTE:
The painter David Hockney finds photography a hopeless medium for representing the visible world.
He often talks of its shortcomings.
"The camera can't see space. It sees surfaces. People
see space, which is much more interesting."
- David Hockney
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| "Wingbacks," Troy Paiva, 2005. |
Troy Paiva, author of "Lost America," heads out with his camera
after dark for some urban spelunking. He finds the strangest things. He came upon these wing chairs abandoned by a movie film
crew. Also abaondoned-- the Oakland train station.
go to Paiva's night photography
more photography
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| Piano Music. Photographer: Chema Madoz. |
more on Chema Madoz
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| Experience Music Project in Seattle. |
Experience
Music is dazzling eye candy.
Paul Allen's Frank Gehry-designed museum
is a must-see for fans of rock 'n' roll-- and everyone else. If you've never seen an installation made from more than 700
instruments, you'll find it here. It's full of rare guitars, electronic gadgetry, media labs, vintage recording
equipment, a shrine to Jimi Hendrix, a science fiction museum and a plethora of memorabilia of Allen's heart's desire. So
join a mogul at play.
Allen, who co-created Microsoft with Bill Gates, made a vast fortune when the company went public in 1986.
He then used his stock holdings to start one of the world's largest collections of fine art.
His "Experience Music Museum" is billed as a leading edge, non-profit museum dedicated to the ideas and risk-taking
that fuel contemporary culture.
more on Experience Music
go to the EMP Museum
The British Museum is awesome
to visit and see the great treasures of the world. Best of all, admission is free.
go to the British Museum
These women were framed and morphed!
Mad Men is Back
It's been a long wait since the summer of 2010. But Don Draper and
the gang are back and all is right (or maybe not) with their world.
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| "In Thought," oil painting. Ronald Freeman 2009 |
How's your timing?
Perfectly-timed motion shots are often happy accidents--
or the result of endless staged rehearsals. Even with ubiquitous camera phones, point-on timing is random luck-- but a chance
worth taking.
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| Salud! |
go to "perfectly timed photos to see a wild array of random happenings in the moment
Enter the mind
of David
Levine:
The caricature artistry of David Levine is nuanced, erudite, and decidedly unexpected. The kicker is his surreal
imagination and deep psychological insight.
He illustrated "The New York Review of Books" for 45 years, and leaves a treasure of images
that found life in his magic pen and incisive brain. In memoriam, 1926-2009.
go to gallery of 2,500 Levine creations and search by subject or year.
Coffe cup Mona Lisa.
If you said cofee cups, you're right. The portrait was created with
3,604 cups of variegated amounts of black, creamed, and mocha coffee at an Aroma Festival in Sydney, Australia.
Wonderments:
The inherent fun of people being people together in great
public places can transform space into spontaneous theater.
The group Improv Everywhere has the slogan "We Make Scenes." Their 'scenes'
range from ingenious to imaginative to goofy. Many entertain. It's a new wave video throw-back to"Candid Camera," since the
fun is watching bystander reactions to surprising, inexplicable behavior.
Time Lapse at Grand Central Station
Art gallery opening at 23d Street subway platform in NYC.
Have an eye for color?
Do you know your color I.Q.?
go take the color test
Play in Tag Galaxy
Write in a key word (tag) and create a mesmerizing galaxy of visual
connotations. Enjoyment guaranteed.
go to Tag Galaxy
TROMPE-L'OIL beguiles
senses, especially when it surprises us on a busy street.
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| Chalk drawings of Julian Beever. Click to enlarge. |
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| These are illusions. The sidewalks are flat. |
What you see is not always what you get.
Julian Beever has bedazzled pedestrians
with his pavement chalk art throughout Great Britain, Europe, the U.S., and Australia. To see it is not to believe it. People
walk around his "pot-holes" and swerve away from his "roadwork" for fear of falling.
He'll put a sailboat in a little pond in the middle of a street-- all
to wash away in the next rain. He drew cats and dogs and dragons "running" around the streets of Birmingham's Chinatown.
Of his illusionary optics, he says, "Once I realized
you could make things appear to go down, I realized you could make them appear to go up."
His "projections" are distorted to appear natural. Called anamorphoses,
they seem to defy the laws of perspective. The full experience is seen from a particular spot-- the place where he sets up
his lens on a tripod. He runs between the camera and the drawing to be sure he's getting the effect he wants. Then he watches
passers-by laugh at their own bewilderment.
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| Julian Beever at work. |
go to Julian Beever
go to the Sidewalk Picasso on YouTube
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| Feeding a "chalk seal" on a busy sidewalk. |
Tale of the ‘crooked cross’
The hakenkreuz is an ancient emblem
used for at least ten-thousand years. It was found in the ruins of Troy and of Egypt and China– and prevalent in Hindu
and Buddist ritualistic relics in India.
Adolph Hitler added it to the colors
of the Weimar Republic. "A symbol it really is," he wrote in Mein Kampf. "In red we see the social idea of the movement; in
the black swastika the mission of the struggle for the victory of the Aryan man."
The emblem went on standards that were
carried in massive parades and adorned the stages of mass meetings. Borrowed from classic Roman designs, they consisted of
a black metal swastika on top with a silver wreath surmounted by an eagle. It was an emblematic design of propaganda of the
highest order– a symbol that no other party could match.
Hitler knew that the hooked cross had
a force of mystic power that possessed timeless human magnetism. The floundering middle classes soon flocked under his banner,
and the advent of the "Fueher" went into full speed. Such is the emotional clout of the transcendental image.
CINEMA:
"Movie Love in the Fifties:"
from author James Harvey.
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| Day and Hudson in "Pillow Talk." |
Finding the Fantastic in Ourselves:
review by Anthony Giardina...
"James Harvey's 'Movie Love in the 50's
is the best movie book I've ever read. He's the Samuel Johnson of film writing and reveals not just what the movies were
doing half a century ago, but what they were doing to us.
Just as Bonnie and Clyde and The Graduate touched the fantastic in
ourselves,"so did the long stream of delicious melodramas that ran through the 50s: Imitation of Life, Rebel Without a Cause,
East of Eden, A Place in the Sun... films that now make that supposedly conformist decade seem like a long pleasurable dream
in which we were acting out new, darker, more sensitive versions of ourselves.
The pleasure of reading Harvey is to see how many of the images
from that decade-- the bra Janet Leigh wore in the opening scenes of "Psycho," the way Doris Day sang "It All Depends on You"
in "Love Me or Leave Me" — spoke to the way films were trying to push a new, more brazen sexuality, even into domestic
roles.
It seems we're always somebody in the movies before we become that
somebody in real life. We see a part of ourselves reflected in the boldest films. We seize on it and allow it to inhabit us.
Even in a season of overstuffed blockbusters we hold out hope for the movie that will touch the fantastic in ourselves."
go to 'In Praise of Drive-Ins and Doris Day, on NPR
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| George Steinmetz for National Geographic |
Steinmetz took
this photo directly above
the camels in the desert at sunset. The camels are the little white lines. The black silhouettes
are their shadows.
Lost in shadows
Where are the zebras?
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| Click to enlarge. |
Where it's fun to stumble...
To discover great websites in categories of your
choice-- try "Stumble Upon." There is a quick and free sign-up process- (250,000 avant-
garde types have done it). Each time you use "Stumble Upon," site suggestions
will be more precisely attuned to your liking and interests. On you own it could take thousands of hours to find such remarkable
pages from the billions on the World Wide Web.
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For example, here is a site we found on "Stumble Upon" that lets
you "click" a flower garden in seconds-- no need for digging and weeding. Ingenious artists have created it for you. See for
yourself. Dive in and enjoy the surf.
go to your own flower garden and start clicking
 Stumble It!
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Philadelphia has more murals than any city in the world.
As for graffiti, the emphasis is on art.
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| Muraist David McShane in Philadelphia. |
Prolific muralist David McShane has more than 25 to his credit.
With more than 2500 murals Philadelphia is the world's
mural capital. Lush and imaginative visions surprise in unexpected places. The superior level of art is driving out graffiti
gang wars and boosting property values.
Jane Golden
is the founder and director of the program, which she spun off from the Anti-Graffiti Network-- inspired by Roosevelt's
WPA. She holds neighborhood meetings to discuss and decide on each subject. Her view of 'mural-as-peacemaker'
has proven its worth.
Says Golden, "Race, crime, violence-- it's our responsibility
to help people grapple with these difficult issues."
go to Philadelphia's Mural Arts Program
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| Malcolm X mural in Philadelphia. |
Mural text: "Education is our passport to the future--
for tomorrow belongs to the people who prepare for it today."
- Malcolm X
Self-propelled rock in Death Valley National Park-- Wouldn't this be a strange thing to witness?
FILMS:
The 1935 classic SHE is reborn in color.
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Roger Ebert and ten thousand
reviews. For intelligent discourse about films, Roger Ebert set the bar.
His educated opinions enriched our appreciation for the best in cinema and sharpened our own critical sensibilities. He spent 46 of his 70 years as film critic for the
Chicago Sun-Times. But he was more than a leading critic-- he was a journalist, screenwriter, film historian, and author. About the movie experience, he said "Your intellect may be confused, but your emotions never lie to you."
Here are his remarks reflecting on his love of movies: "Movies
take us inside the lives of other people. When a movie is really working we have an out-of-body experience and only care about
what's going to happen next. "When
that happens, it gives us an empathy for other people-- who are there on the screen-- that is sharper and effectively more
powerful than any other art form. And I'm speaking as someone who loves to read. But good/great movies touch us, I do believe,
more than any other art form." The loss of Roger Ebert touched many hearts. Shortly before his death
he wrote "I will pass away before most people who read this, but that doesn't shake my sense of wonder and joy." Ebert's last published books are: "Life Itself: A Memoir" and "The Great Movies III."
go to Roger Ebert on Wikipedia
Earth without art is just "eh."
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| Film critic Roger Ebert. 1942-2013 |
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| Willem deKooning |
New York's Guggenheim tunnels back in time to survey avant-garde
art of the 1950's. Enjoy.
"Art of Another Kind: International
Abstraction, 1949-1960."
go to Art of Another Kind
In sculpture, we've traveled light years. Bernini has
lost his edge. Now pertinence trumps permanence.
Michael Kalish's portrait sculpture of Mohammad
Ali in Los Angeles is a knock-out. If you walk around to the sides you'll see intriguing punching bags and
steel cables. But step to center front and you'll get the full 'wow' effect of the 3-time heavyweight champion Ali's face.
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| Side view of the installation. |
It's a fitting kinetic monument to 'the greatest.' At the 'unveiling'
at Nokia Plaza, Ali hung the final bag.
With all its interlocking legs and curving pipes the resulting image
from the custom-made teardrop-shaped speed bags suspended in 'mid-air,' is, from one vantage point, aligned like pixels into
the image of Ali. Isn't that the greatest?
go to Michael Kalish and visuALIze
Kalish had the big idea.
But it was so big that he engaged the architectual firm of Oyler Wu
to design the structure from which he would hang 1300 punching bags, 6.5 miles of stainless steel cable, and 2500 pounds of
aluminum pipe to construct the 22-foot high installation.
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| Greek Gallery, Photo: Sara Krulwich. |
Check out the Met. Recent renovations poduced the popular new Greek and Roman galleries. Much was hauled out of storage to put on display. The idea is "show rather
than hoard." The result is terrific.
go hear about the new galleries at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
go to the Metropolitan
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| Black Ceremony. Photo: Hiro Ihara. |
This spectacular art explosion event, staged by artist Cai Guo-Qiang, was commisioned by Mathaf: the Arab
Museum of Modern Art in Doha, Qatar.
Cai says "my art is a time-space tunnel through which the visible world communicates with the energy of the
unseen world."
go to Cai Guo-Qiang
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| Computer game store in Paris. Floor is flat. Click to enlarge. |
Amazing Paths
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| Traffic Between Walls of Snow. Click to enlarge. |
more amazing paths
Art in the Streets
go to new murals at the West Hollywood Library
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| "Movie Stars" at Russell and Vermont, Los Angeles |
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| Monte Thrasher at Kingswell and Vermont in Hollywood |
go to public art in Los Angeles
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| New York's Guggenheim. |
New
urbanism invites walking-- captivates the senses with
personal paths in public spaces, intrigues, whims, faces, noise and stillness, new stops, old haunts, people, energy, eateries,
parks, fountains, crowds, skylines, art, sights and delights. Walkability
means multiple routes, diversions, scenery, benches, and good transit.
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| Yellow-Red-Blue,1923. Vasily Kandinsky |
The Guggenheim in New York celebrated its 50th
anniversary with an exhibit of paintings by Vasily Kandinsky-- aesthetic theorist and pioneer of abstract painting
(his first was in 1910). It's a fitting choice because Kandinskys consituted the core of its collection when the museum, designed
by architect Frank Lloyd Wright, was completed in 1959.
go to Kandinsky at the Guggenheim
"I always decide in favor of feeling rather than
calculation."
- Vasily Kandinsky
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Neon exhilarates the urban landscape. Admit it. You'd
miss the glow if someone pulled the plug.
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| Entry tunnel on John Street, New York City. |
Discovered at the dawn
of the 20th century, neon soon became the glitzy iconic imagery of urban America. The word comes from the Greek "neos"
for new. How did millions of years of generations ever live without it? Vegas was born with it but doesn't have an 'exclusive.'
In neon signage is written the excitement and zing of life throughout the history of all our cities.
NEON, atomic
number 10, glows reddish orange in a vacuum discharge tube,
In all its glory it can be glamorous, stimulating, dramatic, eerie, gorgeous, or garrish. From Times Square to the Vegas strip
and beyond, it adds unmistakable vitality to our streetscenes and our experience of urban sophistication.
more on neon
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| Pilgrimage, Scott Gelo. |
"Film is...
an offspring
not of literature,
but of painting."
- Federico Fellini
Synaesthesia:
Blending our senses
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| From Samadhi, Jordan Belson, 1966 |
Sensory perception of one kind may manifest itself as sensory experience
of another. Music can be visual-- like seeing colors along with sounds-- sounds along with colors.
Unlike anesthesia, which renders us insensitive, it makes us acutely, deeply alive and awake.
Adventurous painters who explore this phenomenon make kinetic
art as if it were "color music." See it in Jordan Belson's painting above. You know it. You feel it.
more on synaesthesia
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| Chinese Music, Arthur Dove, 1923. Click to enlarge. |
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| George Gerswin with his paints |
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| Permutations, John Whitney, 1968 |
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| Joshua Light Show at the Mineola, 1967 |
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| Joshua Light Show at the Fillmore, 1969 |
"Humility
constitutes the best point of departure in the search for truth."
- Michaelangelo Antonioni, film director.
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| Jatin Kampani, photographer |
go to Jatin Kampani portfolio
go to the spiral gallery
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| Ceiling, Chapel of Thanksgiving, Dallas. |
Make a face. Really. Make a face. It's fun and relaxing. You can
choose from head shapes, hair, eyebrows, nose, lips, chin, and more. The best thing is that you can move the parts around
until you find a face you like. Try it.
go to Flash Face
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| "Tiger in Tropical Storm," 1891 |
JUNGLES IN PARIS.
For a customs clerk who never left France,
Henri Rousseau painted a slew of tropical jungle fantasies.
go to National Gallery of Art
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| Jackson Pollock, painting in 1950. |
"It is only when I lose contact with the painting
that the result is a mess."
- Jackson Pollock
Pollock worked with deep concentration. But you can "paint like Pollock"
and just have fun. Try it.
go to Paint like Pollock. It's marvelous fun.
Imaginative images and playful camera
work:
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| Open Zag VIII, Louise Nevelson, 1974. |
"When you are doing a piece you are with it. You don't want to wait until next week, when experience will have given you something else."
- Louise Nevelson
"Beauty
is truth, truth beauty... that is all ye know on earth, and all ye need to know." -
from 'Ode on a Grecian Urn.'
- John Keats
Try National Geographic's new interactive website:
go to National Geographic
Make an image of mystery.
go get your wet paint
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go to Museo Jumex images
"The Dinner Party" had a sensational debut
in the press and seemed to cap off the many advances in the women’s movement of the 1970's.
It became a milestone of 20th-century
art and an iconic celebration of women.
Hard to believe that after it made its world tour in 1978 it
spent 25 years in storage. Happily it is now a permanent installation at the new Elizabeth Sackler Center For Feminist Art
at the Brooklyn Museum, and it remains a mesmerizing attraction.
The table is huge-- a massive ceremonial banquet with
place settings for 39 women, 13 on each side of the triangle which is equilateral to represent equality. (The triangle has
long been a symbol of the female).
On the floor there are names of another 999 women of
great distinction inscribed in gold on the white tiles below the table, therefore honoring a total of 1,038.
Judy Chicago spent two years on the project and when
it became so expansive (and expensive) she needed lots of help– which she got. During the next four years more than
400 people contributed to the creation– most of them volunteers. It cost 250 thousand dollars to complete.
About 125 artisans were called ‘members of the
project,’ suggesting long-term efforts, and a small group was closely involved for the final three years, including
ceramicists, needle-workers, and researchers. Chicago designed most aspects of the work and made the final decisions.
The settings consist of embroidered runners, gold chalices
and utensils– spoons and forks– and china-painted plates with raised central motifs that are based on vulvar and
butterfly forms and rendered in style appropriate to the individual women honored.
Plates are about 14 inches across in dimension. They
start flat and begin to emerge in higher relief towards the very end of the chronology, meant to represent modern woman’s
gradual independence and autonomy.
The best word to describe the results is ‘beautiful.’
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| Dinner plate for Sojourner Truth (1797-1883) |
Judy Chicago created "The Dinner Party," which conjures up the wonder
of getting significant women from throughout the ages to come together for a visit with amazing interactions and conversations
at a dinner party. Such inventive imagery.
more plates at The Dinner Party"
go to Judy Chicago
go to the Brooklyn Museum of Art
Great silent movies are immediate and timeless.
Kudos for "The Artist" prove that the lure remains.
With the Oscar-winning "The Artist" and
Martin Scorces’s homage to Georges Méliès in "Hugo," movie lovers are re-discovering the
art of silents.
Sadly, most reels have long been beyond repair and lost to the ages.
But there is still plenty to enjoy– and the best have migrated to DVD and Blu-ray.
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| The art of George Melies in "A Trip to the Moon." |
2012 was
the centennial of the first full-length movie, the legendary "Quo Vadis." Though only a few stills have survived, they
display a new standard: a heightened art form that dwarfs anything shot before.
Two years later D. W. Griffith’s
"Birth of a Nation" was the benchmark for the spectacles that followed– and spurred seventeen
years of robust film-making.
Here are some silent
classics:
The first wizard of cinema, George Méliès,
created hand-colored fantasies like psychedelic art imbued with humor and whimsy.
Most of his films didn’t survive,
but snippets of his 17-minute film "A Trip to the Moon" (Flicker Alley) in 1902, "Kingdom
of Fairies" in 1903, and "An Impossible Voyage" in 1904 were shown in Martin Scorsese’s
movie "Hugo."
"The Man
With a Movie Camera," (Image), written and directed by Dziga Vertov, is famous for defying standard camera work. It
runs at 24 frames per second, and has jump cuts, divided screens, frozen moments, and double exposures. It goes forwards and
backwards– and practically sideways. It remains influential for its experimental camera techniques.
"Pandora’s
Box," (Criterion), written and directed by G. W. Pabst, marked the end of the German experimental era. The film stars
Louise Brooks as Lulu, the tempestuous hedonist-- and remains a cult favorite.
"Flesh
and the Devil," introduced the incandescenct presence of Greta Garbo, who out-shown the star, John Gilbert, and sent
her on the way to command lead roles.
Most movie buffs know the genius of
actor-director Buster Keaton. "The General," (Kino), in particular,
is profoundly cinematic in its jaw-dropping stunts and sight gags– and remains the greatest of runaway train (or runaway
anything) pictures yet.
"The Passion
of Joan of Arc," by writer-director Carl Dreyer, is a favorite of many film critics. The script in drawn from the Latin
text of the heresy trial. Joan is portrayed in her cell, at her trial, and going to the stake. Numerous close-ups capture
strong emotions.
"Metropolis,"
(Kino), from writer-director Fritz Lang in 1926, is a fantasy of future technology, mass mentality, and mechanized society.
An original print was found in Argentina in 2007 and was released as the complete version in 2010. The film’s towering
architecture and cast of thousands depict a dehumanized world. It’s still considered one of the hippest films
in Sci-fi.
"The Cabinet
of Dr. Caligari," (Image), directed by Robert Wiene, has a sinister hypnotist as the central character amid
a series of murders, and is a nightmarish departure from a literal script. Its lighting foreshadows the dark world of
1940's crime drams. And the jagged imagery, chopped-up narrative, and multiple identities set the path for future directors
like Alfred Hitchcock and Tim Burton.
"City Lights,"
(Warner), in 1931, was Charlie Chaplin’s last silent film. His keen balance between comedy and tragedy made it one of
the most eloquent movies ever filmed. Along with "Modern Times" and "The Gold Rush" Chaplin became the first superstar and
colossus of the silent era.
These silents are immediate and timeless.
Academy Awared winner "The Artist" is the first silent prize winner since "Wings"
in 1927. A revival is due. Silents, please.
more on Silent Films
go to The Silent Era
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| A view camera 'under construction.' |
Art News has a digital edition and a website
with a vast collection of resources: exhibits, collections, news, critics, and searches.
go to Art News Online
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| "Stillness," illustrator Vivienne Flesher. |
Vivienne Flesher is a prodigious illustrator
for books, fashion, newspapers, magazines, even U.S. stamps. Her constant travels to collaborate with clients demonstrates
her interpretive versatility.
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| Vivienne Flesher's Love Stamp |
go to Flesher's blog
go to Flesher interview
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| Chuck Close at work. |
AOL is celebrating its 25th anniversary with "The
Project on Creativity" to salute contemporary artists. Chuck Close is featured in the year-long
show at the New Museum.
Chuck
Close is best known for monumental heads painted in thousands
of tiny airbrush bursts, thumbprints, or looping multi-color brushstrokes. (He says he needs 150 dots to make something recognizable.)
His methodical reconfiguration of the human face has
radically changed the definition of modern portraiture.
The AOL project shows the full spectrum of his career
with 90 paintings, drawings, and photographs.
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| Artists at show opening at the New Museum. |
Avant-guarde artists possess innate creative sparks that
can inspire and shape our vision.
go to AOL show artists
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| Chuck Close |
"Painting
is the most magical of mediums. The transcendence
is truly amazing to me every time I go to a museum and I see how somebody figured another way to rub colored dirt on a flat
surface and make space where there is no space or make you think of a life experience."
"Part of the joy of looking at art is getting in sync
in some ways with the decision-making process that the artist used and the record that's embedded in the work."
- Chuck Close
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Theaters are upgrading to accommodate HiFi 3D film making. New TV's
are available in 3D mode. Is it all worth the price?
Although our vision is binocular, movie screens are flat.
But new 3-D film technology fools the brain into seeing images in their full dimensions-- as if the screen had disappeared.
We can hold James Cameron
responsible for starting the 'new tech hoopla.'
For him, seeing "Star Wars'
was a life-bending event. He spent the next thirty years planning his own space epic– one that would ‘out-Lucas'
George Lucas. With the 75 million he earned from ‘Titanic,’ he had the time and money to work on it.
He fiddled with hi-def video and developed
virtual cameras with a ‘brain bar,’ the ultimate control mechanism with multiple screens that register
digital strings on the actors and set.
Cameron's team of animators worked from head-rig
videos that supplied a complete visual record for mapping each character’s face. Twin lenses mimiced the vision of the
human eye. The result was 'Avatar' in 2009. Since then, simulcam software is transmuting ever-growing data bases
and the film industry has bet big on a steady stream of pricey extravaganzas.
Going up?
Stairs are transportive and essential to the enjoyment
of the urban experience.
Going
up? Stairs await, invite, and challenge. Functional or fabulous, static or moving, they jar awareness -- and rattle
consciousness.
Not a level playing field.
Stairs are aptly described as flights. Trips are grueling or fanciful,
difficult or smooth. We take-off and land. We wait and accelerate.
Scene and space modulate with configurations
of treads, risers, and handrails. Speed ranges. Twists and turns induce guesswork.
Destinations are known or unpredicted. Climbs
change physicality– hearts pound, legs, ache. We travel up and down as routine or adventure. Maiden voyages can intrigue.
What lies ahead? Artful construction
can bring a rush of pleasure.
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| Stairs to Victor Hugo's apartment, Place des Vosges, Paris. |
more terrific stairs
|
| "Piece of an Infinite Whole." Jen Stark. |
Sculptor
Jen Stark is carving her niche-- to say the least.
Viewing her wide-ranging work you might suspect she uses CAD
software or trickd-out hand-held lasers. But no. She just sketches a design, grabs her X-Acto knife, and starts to slice.
She's intrigued by fractals, wormholes, and MRI scans-- and creates
brilliant "paper work" that is mathematical yet exuberantly organic. Pictured above is a 4-foot-deep backlit recess based
on her fascination with space.
go to Stark's paperwork
Ouch!
Gianfranco Ferre's shoe at the Milan fashion show won't make it far
past the runway.
go to America's most walkable cities
go to Run the Planet
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| Top: Northern Summer on Mars. Bottom: Io, Moon of Jupiter. Images: Michael Benson. |
"Beyond," large-format photos by Michael Benson, will be on exhibit at the American Museum of Natural History until April 2008. Benson
uses the robotic camera archives from Galileo and Voyager explorations. You can see raw photos on NASA's website, but the
rich detail doesn't really come through on a monitor or newspaper page.
Benson transforms the data into huge prints. He also has a collection
in a book: "Beyond: Visions of Interplanetary Probes." View the hothouse Venus, the desertlike Mars, and
the otherworldly moons of Jupiter.
go to "Beyond" at the American Museum of Natural History
go to NASA
"Have nothing in your house which you do not know to
be useful or believe to be beautiful."
- William Morris
Along came a spider:
An American myth of primal power. You can be whatever
you desire.
Stan Lee created Spider-Man for Marvel Comics in 1962, with the premise
that a meek boy is bitten by a spider at a science fair, and, as a result, acquires spider-like strength, ESP, and the ability
to scale skyscrapers.
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| Team Spiderman |
Turn off the Dark.
Stan Lees’ arachnid is a fixture in our collective imaginations
and owns a place in the pop-culture pantheon. Who cannot relate to a challenged teenager?
"It doesn’t matter who you are," says Lee.
"Once that mask goes on it could be you inside that suit."
The red-suited savior has moved from the comic pages, drawn by Steve
Ditko, to boffo success on the wide screen... and now to a rock musical "Spider-Man: Turn off the Dark""
on Broadway.
Spectabular visuals:
Production costs of past Broadway musicals pale when compared
with Spider’s infamous $65-million investment in hallucinatory costumes, insane and genetically modified super-villains,
eye-popping colors, tactile dreamscapes, eight-legged arachno-chorus girls, jolts in perspective, and 37 scenes with our vigilant
Spiderman in aerial-rigging to the balcony fighting evil-- and cast-members trips to the hospital.
It’s immersive 3D fantasy and danger pushed
to the max. Original writer-director July Taymor, who pulled out all the stops and wouldn’t
want it to be a $30-million show, said "If you don’t want to do something ambitious that’s never been seen before–
then why do it?"
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| Reeve Carney as Peter; Jennifer Damiano as Mary Jane. Photo: Annie Leibovitz. |
Bono and the Edge, who wrote the musical score
and lyrics, share her attitude. Says Bono, "The difference between very good and great is huge. Getting to great requires
putting yourself out of your depth."
That they have done. The project is a wildly imaginative leap without
a safety net.
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| Julie Taymor. Photo: Aik Gilboa. |
"Theater has it all over film because it's tactile, immersive... in
the moment."
- Julie Taymor
Taymore likes to get into things when she doesn't know whether she'll
be able to pull it off. She says "I hate the comfort zone. Nothing that's really creative can be done
without danger and risk.
" If you don't have fear then you're not taking a chance. But
if you have great collaborators who are as passionate as you and believe in the project, your fear is mitigated."
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| One of Spider-Man's incarnations. |
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| Pit and proscenium removed to unite audience with action with web-like crawling theater constructs. |
Caution: Art Pad may be just too much
fun.
Go there anyway. Destroy stress. Just grab your brush and
paint your heart out. Frame it and hang it in a gallery. Send it to friends.
go paint on Art Pad
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| Snowflakes, photo: Kenneth Libbrecht |
Snowflakes can link up and fall from the sky in shapes of ten
inches or more. Kenneth Libbrecht captures the wonderment in "The Snowflake," from Voyageur
Press.
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| It's a mystery. Figure it out. |
Visit our film festival links:
more film festival links
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