Blog #6: Looking at Light

Light Observation #1
    It is about 7pm and I am sitting on the South End of Wrightsville beach. The sun is low in the sky over the mainland but is still very bright. The harsh light is creating very dramatic shadows when it hits any structure or standing object. Since the beach is flat with no overgrown trees the light hits the sand gives it a warm glow. There is a very bright reflection of the sun over the water making it the mainland seem dark because the high exposure of the sun. The shadows created by the low sun make for good dramatic lighting.

Light Observation #2
     Its early. Around 6:30am. I am at my parents house overlooking the intracoastal waterway. The sun has not risen yet but there is an rich fiery glow on the horizon. The light has not really hit directly yet so if you are not looking directly at he horizon it seems to be dark. As I sit on the dock the light quickly intensifies as the sunlight spills over the ocean. The glassy morning water reflects the suns light as it illuminates the clouds. Like the first light observation, there is a lot of contrast in the environment because the sun is unable to provide even lighting from such a low angle.

Blog #5: Think Differently

   This sound project really opened my eyes to the vision of sound. Instead of thinking about sound as something that is produced by a visible object, we had to think of sound as the visible object, even though there is nothing to see. Since my brain already works in very obscure ways, I found this project to be quite fun. Although I have a lot of experience with music and instruments, I have never made a film with only sound. We wanted our piece to portray a feeling, so we used sounds that we felt brought out certain emotions in people. The feelings of uneasiness and grotesqueness seemed most fitting for our term "A nastiness when she drank".

   Lynne Sach has a very unique perspective on things. She has the ability to look at something normal and come up with a totally different use or meaning for it. In the interview, one thing I found very interesting was her point on drawing from others opinions. When Sach was interviewing the people living in the shared beds, she was expecting to get some pretty generic answers, but instead she got very personal and powerful stories. In my opinion this is one of the most important facets of filmmaking. Actually delving into the world you are attempting to create with no predetermined conceptions allows you to generate an entirely new perspective.

     Lynne Sach's films seem to be deeply rooted in patterns. She seems to want to create a relationship that is entirely visual with no story or underlying meaning. For instance, in Same Stream Twice, she films her daughter running in a circle around her. The first video is of her as a young child and the second is her as an early teen. The film shows how although her daughter obviously looked different, there were still things that were very similar to her as a child. This use of pattern and repetition could also be her way of directing the audiences eyes to a specific visual element.

Blog Post #4: Inspired

   I have to say Matt's presentation on Jonas Mekas was awesome I was very intrigued the entire time. One thing that really stood out to me about Mekas was his connection with the pop art culture in New York. I have always been fascinated by the works of Andy Warhol but have never heard of Jonas Mekas until now. It is very apparent they both had an influence on one another in their on respective art mediums.

   In Melody-Fayth's presentation on Eggeling and Richter I was blown away at the amount of detail that these artists put into each and every frame of their films. The use of film for its plasticity is an entirely new idea to me, but it seems very fitting. Films are much more malleable than other art mediums in the physical and non-physical form.

   Len Lye seems like a very unique individual. I would be very interested to see what kind of work he would be doing now if he was still alive. His film 'Colour Box' is quite a trip. His use of sound with specific movements and colors definitely seems to fit into the absolute cinema.

   I feel like if I was alive the same time as Harry Smith we would be best friends. His use of actual popular music in his films rather that a compilation of sounds brings a sort of new attractiveness. I also really like how he talked about the interconnectedness of art and culture, which becomes very apparent during his time.

  Unfortunately I could not find the article on absolute cinema anywhere online of in my email, but I do know it talks about absolute cinema being purely the sound and visuals being looked at just for their form. There are no people or stories involved, it is all about looking at the art as a form of art.

Blog Post #3: Forgot about 2

     It was a Tuesday evening at 6pm. The humidity was low, the wind was light, and the bustling energy of the ending work day lingered throughout campus. Our team of elite sound recorders set out on a creative mission to capture unique and captivating sounds. This was my first mission with sound and I was quite uncertain as to what sounds we were going to record. My first impulse was to just start hitting stuff. Then I began to hit stuff with other stuff. Slowly the world around me became a living, breathing instrument. Sounds make an inanimate object come to life and have a voice.

    I didn't realize that I had synesthesia until we watched that video on it. While we were watching and she talked about painting Superstition the colors she was using were actually the colors that I was thinking about. Ever since watching that video, I have begun to realize my synesthesia more and more in my daily life and it has become more conscious than subconscious. I have always been really drawn to the sounds of certain songs because of the objects/emotions/colors they portray to me. I just thought that was how everyone experienced music.The cymatics video was very entertaining because it gave you a physical representation of sound, essentially combining your sense of sight and sound.  Cymatics gives a completely new meaning to music. Instead of creating a song that sounds good, you can technically make a song that LOOKS good. Cymatics almost seems like it is forced synesthesia in the physical world. You are seeing sound, which is what synesthetes do internally, but having an external real representation means sound can be seen by everyone, synesthete or not. Although what your seeing is not what synesthesia looks like, it is as close as we can get in the physical form.