How this things actually work?

For the last few weeks i was developing my reimagine work with lots of new inspirations from john kaldar exhibition and Sydney Modern exhibition with numerous videos. I found it extremely difficult to interpret an art into a structured shape. That’s something i wish to get by practice and i am very happy that i am struggling. I have chosen Sol Lewitt’s work as a beginning point and is planning to use my own wall art as wallpaper for the house i’s exterior. I named the house House i. As it is my first ever concept house model specially designed for me.

My initial rough model was cut into two volumes and one shrunk due to it’s usability issue. So two volumes represent two different functionality. Then i opened up the whole space with lots of openings. Interesting thing to notice that i left one volume with no door at all. this will create the continuity in the whole circulation and push the idea of individualism. This house won’t pretend to be anything else. So here is the note that wrote to keep myself on track in terms of design and materials

Problem in this house iii model is the opening. Cut out from wall is important to bring the clarity and stability in the model.
Synchornised movement in the house due to the opening of the roof slab in between two volumes. SO during midday residents will not stay in this space and this space can be used to create circulation.

Materials needed for this house iii in rhino are :
cardboard slabs for roof and floor
balsa wood for walls
plastic mirror for openings in the windows and roof

Related articles

• Can you reimagine? (syedzaman90.wordpress.com)
• Incomplete Open Cubes (1974). Sol LeWitt /where it looks out-of-whack/ (rgable.typepad.com)
• Report on Sydney Modern (syedzaman90.wordpress.com)

Report on Sydney Modern

Modern Sydney has a long story of trial and error with lots of blood sweat and tears. Sydney started to embrace its big brother’s vision for a better industrialized city in early 1930s. It all began with a master plan by engineer Bradley john Bradfield. He wanted to connect the Northern sydney with the central district. In order to do so a total suburb had to be cleaned. Clean is a clean word but actual situation was more than chaotic. They demolished all the house even churches without any resettlement and payment to the victims and paved the way for the new beidge.

In the exhibition events like this have been presented by illustrations and photographs. Some photos are literal some are more documentary type which tells the story in a very constrained way. Personally i like landscape paintings and photography so i was inclined to that mostly however my understanding of light made me think about some of the photography works.

My personal favorite was Dorrit Black. There are many paintings i can write about but in short i like all of them. The first painting that caught my eyes was the bridge 1930. The use of multi layer colour was fascinating.

Second artists is Roy de Maistre. His colourful interpretation of domestic life and music is not only beautiful to look at but it made me think deeply about interpretation of life. To me, art is supposed to make us think about anything. It is a mean of of entertainment but an useful entertainment. Roy’s work was stunning and simplicity is there and everywhere. I think those elegant colour painting is one of the best modern works i have ever seen (I haven’t seen many modern works anyway)

Last is photography. Although i can write at least a thousand word for the photography i have noticed but only one made me stop and analyse it for more than a minute. So what is with this photographs? Its light. My reading has enabled me to understand light in both painting and photographs. In that photo one can easily see the light from the direction it was coming from. The window and the table is perfectly placed as if it was in one of our houses. This originality and ordinary look make it more close to our lives thus it touches our heart. 

Can you reimagine?

What is a re-imagine work? I did not know at first either. But after going through at least 500 art works in both digital and real versions i have figured out how to re-imagine an existing work. This is basically a process which shows the understanding of various techniques in arts. A re-imagine work will have the reference to art works but will also show the new works in the process. My re-imagine project is based on three type of art movements.

I have chosen Sol Lewitt’s work as my first art work. It is a series of simple grid and a frame. My understanding of this work is quite clear. I found pure simplicity and purity in this design work. This understanding came through my research about the work and artists. This is work is more like an architectural concept than pure art. My second inspiration is modernism. I did quite a bit of research in post modernism and modernism and i kind of like the modernism movement better. Although blatant copy of the modernism architectural style has paid its toll by creating boring urban neighborhood.  My final and third inspiration came from my recent visit to Sydney Modern art exhibition in NSW art Gallery. I have seen many good works that encircles the modern movement in Sydney.

So how this is going to work?

I am planning to create a open space with slightly higher volume. So the ceiling would be higher than usual domestic using ceilings. This idea came across while i was reading about japanese housing style and philosophy. I look at this space as a place to calm down and live a life. This is an open plan house or villa? i am not really sure about its use other than living by myself. It may not be a family house.

Sole lewitt’s work will be referenced as windows and his simplicity will be interpreted in the striped wooden facade. Lights will penetrate the faceade in some places and create a light and shadow. Modernism is the foundation of the house. The structure, the style is modern with a flat roof.

And the site is Sydney Modern inspired site. Where green lawn and backyard dominates the whole site.

My first mock up will be a cardboard model. The photos will be published soon.

So I watched a movie

 

This week my learning process was somewhat entertaining, less reading and more observing a film. i have watched a film name “Battleship Potemkin” in this film i had to cover many fundamental aspect of a film. Then i had to read some theory to understand the frames and their significance in the movie. I have made a nice summary of the film and at the end of the page i have attached the link of the movie.

 

Because of its filming structure great grammatical meaning and montage skills made this film as one of the greatest film on earth. It was made in Russia in 1925 however it was funded by US government. The story of the film is about a failed soldier uprising in a naval battleship. It is structured in five episodes and introduced by titles ships and dead man. Director used photo reel in this movie. I have chosen three points about the director named Eisenstein’s background. First, He was a Russian Jewish, His father was an architect and Eisenstein himself was a red army engineer later he became a painter. Three major intellectual beliefs had affected eisenstein’s philosophy about film making, they are, Hegelian view, development intellectual montage based on kulsov, japanese ideograms. Important thing to know is pavlovian reflexology. This is known as biomechanism of a film. Pavlovian reflexology is a natural response to reality such as the the scream in the film when the cossacks were killing citizens near the dock.

Dialectical montage is good point and idea to use in many creative field mostly in visual works. Dialectical montage is known as conflict and collision of two or more images then creating another image with a different meaning. A point, counter point together can make another point. Intellectual montage is similar to tgar if dialectical montage but it slightly subtle and literal in some cases. Tonal montage, metric montage and rhythmic montage are three other types of editing techniques were used in this movie.

There were good use of multiple techniques in different scene such as the arrival of the ship . Eisenstein used crowd scene quite often in this film but he did not make a mistake to emphasize on individual shots. The scream is the famous shot that is still being used by film maker for putting importance on person.

Eisenstein, to me, was a pure artist. He overcame the commercial look from his film. His ideology was prominent and in some cases his perception to religion was exposed too. This kind of dialectical images made this film a piece of art. Eiesnstein worked in Hollywood for a brief period but did not see any major success. This crumbled his confidence and made him to return to Russia former USSR. He was not well received in Hollywood due to lack of commercial punch in his film.

One film is influenced by battleship potemkin is Godfather made in 1986 where the action scene in a train station is a replica of that of the battleship.

 

Now here is a photo montage that i have created by using three images.

 

 

 

The link for Battleship Potemkin :  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CKgH-VzQbis

Begining of my Street Photography

When i am in the sea of people

Modernism?

In this week we have been introduced to the social change that happened during the early industrial revolution in France. We have focused on the ideological changes of humans and artists and choose fashion as a method of expression.

Modernism came as a structural and intellectual support for industrial revolution. The rise of the middle class raised a question alongside “leisure”. People started to explore various area of recreation to spend their time and money. This quest of entertainment had been documented by many painters and early photographers and this period of art history is named as “Modernism.” There are many elements in modernism but in this case i will mainly focus on Baudelaire the painter of modern art and its elements.

The world had started to see beauty and fashion in a new sense. Modern fashion movement questioned all the previous fundamental dress code and sense during the industrial revolution and in early twentieth century. The sketch of manner article deals with the mass production of goods with value added service Here the extra value is art. The more art in it the pricy it gets. This section values the emerge of typography, novelist and film makers as well.

Two important character mentioned in the article are Monsieur G and Jean-Jacques. Monsieur G is a shy artist who predicted the scorn in water colour and had traveled the world to gather experience in art around different places.  He had a great sense of fashion and beauty and well aware of global matters. Monsieur G worked in a English illustrated journal for few years where he used to publish his sketches (in those days, hand generated illustration was equivalent to today’s photographs.”

Dandy- Dandy is the word used for very unusual type of people in a society  from fashion and lifestyle’s perspective. They are not part of the crowd, they stand out of the box very easily and by one look anyone can spot them. In early modernism time, dandy were the people

Flaneurs- They are the elements or particles of the crowd. They are like single birds or a leaves and become the flesh of a single uni-body. It is a joy to be part of something immensely common. In this articles, author said,  “the spectator is the prince who rejoices everywhere”

Jeff Wall’s work

Jeff wall is a Canadian artist and photographer who is known for his large scale back-lit photography. He started his photography career in 1970s. In his early work he explored native Canadian beauty and life of ordinary Canadian through his lens. He published his works in many art and photography magazines and had run numerous exhibition throughout the world.

I had the opportunity to visit some of his work in Modern contemporary art museum in Sydney. I had looked at some of his best photographs and wondered about the techniques both in illustration and composition. He took almost all of his photo with films even during the surge of digital cameras. The key learning point for me was his composition. The photos did not need any kind of description. They were speaking for themselves. Placing the foreground and background in most images were absolutely stunning and effective. One particular point to note is that his photos had negative space, where our eyes could rest on. This is very important for any visual work and as an avid photographer i understood the necessity of this negative space. He did not use any artificial lighting or colour in production which helped him to render the very genuine experience of the photographs.

One photo that i was completely fell in love with was “A Sudden Gust of Wind” 1993.

The composition of the photo is mesmerizing. It tells the whole story by one single frame. The colour and space was blended perfectly in the photo.

In this week we have been introduced to the social change that happened during the early industrial revolution in France. We have focused on the ideological changes of humans and artists and choose fashion as a method of expression.

Modernism came as a structural and intellectual support for industrial revolution. The rise of the middle class raised a question alongside “leisure”. People started to explore various area of recreation to spend their time and money. This quest of entertainment had been documented by many painters and early photographers and this period of art history is named as “Modernism.” There are many elements in modernism but in this case i will mainly focus on Baudelaire the painter of modern art and its elements.

The world had started to see beauty and fashion in a new sense. Modern fashion movement questioned all the previous fundamental dress code and sense during the industrial revolution and in early twentieth century. The sketch of manner article deals with the mass production of goods with value added service Here the extra value is art. The more art in it the pricy it gets. This section values the emerge of typography, novelist and film makers as well.

Two important character mentioned in the article are Monsieur G and Jean-Jacques. Monsieur G is a shy artist who predicted the scorn in water colour and had traveled the world to gather experience in art around different places.  He had a great sense of fashion and beauty and well aware of global matters. Monsieur G worked in a English illustrated journal for few years where he used to publish his sketches (in those days, hand generated illustration was equivalent to today’s photographs.”

Dandy- Dandy is the word used for very unusual type of people in a society  from fashion and lifestyle’s perspective. They are not part of the crowd, they stand out of the box very easily and by one look anyone can spot them. In early modernism time, dandy were the people

Flaneurs- They are the elements or particles of the crowd. They are like single birds or a leaves and become the flesh of a single uni-body. It is a joy to be part of something immensely common. In this articles, author said,  “the spectator is the prince who rejoices everywhere”

Jeff Wall’s work

Jeff wall is a Canadian artist and photographer who is known for his large scale back-lit photography. He started his photography career in 1970s. In his early work he explored native Canadian beauty and life of ordinary Canadian through his lens. He published his works in many art and photography magazines and had run numerous exhibition throughout the world.

I had the opportunity to visit some of his work in Modern contemporary art museum in Sydney. I had looked at some of his best photographs and wondered about the techniques both in illustration and composition. He took almost all of his photo with films even during the surge of digital cameras. The key learning point for me was his composition. The photos did not need any kind of description. They were speaking for themselves. Placing the foreground and background in most images were absolutely stunning and effective. One particular point to note is that his photos had negative space, where our eyes could rest on. This is very important for any visual work and as an avid photographer i understood the necessity of this negative space. He did not use any artificial lighting or colour in production which helped him to render the very genuine experience of the photographs.

One photo that i was completely fell in love with was “A Sudden Gust of Wind” 1993.

The composition of the photo is mesmerizing. It tells the whole story by one single frame. The colour and space was blended perfectly in the photo.

Art reading and photography

Walter Benjamin (1936) The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction

In this article author explains the force of mechanical tools to reproduce art works. Although art works were present by many means such as stamp and bronze but to mass produce an existing art work was beyond imagination. However, from early 1900 mechanical reproduction of art had allowed people to experience art through a completely different way. One work can be seen by many people from another part of the world.

Human perceives art in a slightly different way than they do to other objects. It is because of both natural instinct and historical facts. People are comfortable to see things that they feel related to them. The idea of aura can be useful in this context. Aura represents the contemporary objects that derived from the historical circumstances.

There are two planes for receiving arts. One is the cult idea which means one will value an art work because of the spirit and other one is more financial value of the exhibition. And the reproduction of art work has imposed us to measure works by quality rather than quantity.

However, new art media such as photography and cinema have been replacing the cult value by its exhibition value. Since these new forms are more functional than a traditional art work so their value is higher in terms of engagement with humans. Besides that, the idea of cult beliefs in photography is important. People love memory and love to keep them. So portrait photography being the most popular one is no surprise.

The shooting of sound film brought the greatest change in the art form. The process of a sound film created a new reality for audiences where they can have the autonomous power to drive their own emotions. This notion of illusion had rendered the brief impact. This and mechanical reproduction of art changes the reaction of the masses towards art. This article defined that reaction as progressive reaction. Comparing the chaplin movie and a picasso paintings would shed some light into this matter. People would have the progressive reaction to a chaplin movie which is due to the fusion of reproduction of art and soul new form of art which is in this case the movie.

At this stage i have developed a better understanding of my photography skills. I have previously shoot landscape photography but haven’t dealt with people  This reshooting session i have taken the challenge to show my improved compositional skills and better story telling method. I have chosen the theme of working people which reflects people either at work or retired or in a break from work. I have mainly read blogs about street photography and have personal inspirations from many great photographers.

Taking photos without permission can be daunting and there are many ways we can overcome this fear. First thing to do is smile. Always keep a smile on your face. Nobody likes a creepy person with a camera in hand. And if you want to shoot, you must shoot a scene. Don’t be afraid of getting close. In street you can do whatever you want, so hold your ground when face ugly situation. However, if somebody asks you nicely to remove any photo, the best thing to do is delete it. Although holding the right one must be respectful to others private space.

This photo was almost awarded to me. As i took my first shot of this lovely person and smiled at him; He asked me to take another one, which was a good experience as i went crazy with my camera and took many shots. This is the best image i have managed to get.

Here are some links of photographers (Artists) that i follow for inspirations.

https://plus.google.com/+FrancisGorrez/photos

http://mustafadavis.com/

http://erickimphotography.com/

And here is a blog that might get you started in good focusing.

http://dailypost.wordpress.com/2013/08/20/photography-focus/

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About this blog

This blog portrays my journey through the visual communication subject. For the last 12 weeks there were many things that i had come across for the first time and many things that i wanted to learn. In this blog all those learning outcomes and processes have been showcased. It is kind of a creative process diary for creative minds. This autonomous process of my creative journey had led me to many other ideas and concepts for my future studies.