Strange Attractors is a showcase of short films by 12 Victoria (Australia) animation artists sponsored by the Australian Broadcasting Corp. It looks very promising, in that “utter absence of commercial pressure=trippier than normal animation” kind of way.
Surfing through the offerings, bios and highly particular technical/instructional articles, the first film I decided to watch was Qing Huang’s The Way.
The Way is a beautiful 3-d cgi transformation of traditional Chinese painting that explores the Taoist’s view of art and nature. Although it’s all done in Maya, not actual stop action animation, it reminds me of the best aspects of William Kentridge’s work (i.e., the unification of technique and aesthetic, drawing/erasing and brushstroke, not the heavy-handed political melodrama.)
Watch it before reading Qing’s meticulously conceived philosophical approach to the project, if only to realize how, unlike so many of Kentrige’s works, the Big Message doesn’t overwhelm the film’s expert, enjoyable lyricism.
Strange Attractor [lo-band entry, easier than flash, via MeFi]
Painterly Effects in Maya, by Qing Huang [Strange Attractor, ABC]
Author: greg
Almost like TiVO for Public Radio
I just assume that everyone knows about PublicRadioFan.com, Kevin A. Kelly’s up-to-the-minute online programming guide for public radio stations.
The more I listen to radio online, the more frequently I find myself crafting my own programming schedule; I’ll listen to All Things Considered on Pacific Time, and This American Life and other weekend programs whenever I want by finding a fresh stream from some station, somewhere. The only problem is when you get in the car, and the local station is playing a show you’ve already heard.
Scott Sforza’s The Passion
Cross? Check. Jew? Check. Gavel? Check. via NYT
“President Bush’s chief political strategist, Karl Rove, told CNN he did not think the podium’s decorative woodwork looked like a cross.
“‘My God, where do they come up with this stuff?’ he said. ‘Does it look to you like it’s a cross? I don’t think so.'”
– Jewish Groups Irked by Cross on Republican Podium [Reuters, 9/1/04]
And he said, Unto you it is given to know the mysteries of the kingdom of God: but to others in parables; that seeing they might not see, and hearing they might not understand.
– Luke 8:10, KJV
“Beside the podium is the gavel stand [which holds a gavel, the symbol of judgment, oh, and by the way, Jesus is the Judge. -g] constructed of wood panels, with lighter shades in the center in the shape of a cross — the Christian symbol of the crucifixion of Jesus.” [Reuters]
Not to be all nit-picky, but since Jesus Himself makes the distinction: if that gavel stand symbolizes Christ The Judge, then the speaker is on His Left Hand.
[via The Revealer]
Scott Sforza’s The Passion
Cross? Check. Jew? Check. Gavel? Check. via NYT
“President Bush’s chief political strategist, Karl Rove, told CNN he did not think the podium’s decorative woodwork looked like a cross.
“‘My God, where do they come up with this stuff?’ he said. ‘Does it look to you like it’s a cross? I don’t think so.'”
– Jewish Groups Irked by Cross on Republican Podium [Reuters, 9/1/04]
And he said, Unto you it is given to know the mysteries of the kingdom of God: but to others in parables; that seeing they might not see, and hearing they might not understand.
– Luke 8:10, KJV
“Beside the podium is the gavel stand [which holds a gavel, the symbol of judgment, oh, and by the way, Jesus is the Judge. -g] constructed of wood panels, with lighter shades in the center in the shape of a cross — the Christian symbol of the crucifixion of Jesus.” [Reuters]
Not to be all nit-picky, but since Jesus Himself makes the distinction: if that gavel stand symbolizes Christ The Judge, then the speaker is on His Left Hand.
[via The Revealer]
Zen Lawn
Driving up the foothills to my mother’s house in Salt Lake City, you pass a nearly unbroken carpet of lawn, with the thickened, careful edges at the sidewalks that only result from successive generations of earnest teenage entrepreneurs. A couple of segments may be slightly paler than others, whether from mild chintziness, drought guilt, or extended vacation, but the pride everyone takes in their expensive land and expansive valley views is apparent.
Right before the turn, though, is an anomaly. A stunning–but not harsh, not at all–break in the manicured monotony. Technically, it’s in front of a house, so it’s a yard, but in place of the grass, there’s a riot of wildflowers and waist-high plants. A couple of old fir trees tower over the field, and yes, there’s a house, a driveway, a garage, all well-kept. There’s a feeling of wildness, randomness–and beauty, sure, amazing beauty, but dubiously uncontrollable–it looks, well, natural, which is unsettling.
And understandably so. Lawns–especially front lawns–are the verdant metric for judging your suburban neighbor’s wealth, values, community spirit, their character, their worth. And how are you supposed do to that if they don’t even have one?
Clearly, I had to ask my mom. Turns out the elderly couple had lived in that house for years. They were still listed as members of the Church (i.e., the one on the corner, to which well over half the neighborhood belongs), but they hadn’t been in years.
“Someone said she’d become a Zen Buddhist, or was studying Zen or something. They’re both in their eighties. She would be out there, working in that yard all the time,” my mom said. “Pulling out trees, digging out roots, rocks, I mean she worked to clear that soil.
“She was out there almost every day for more than two years. This is the first year it’s finally looked like that.”
“Wow,” I said.
“Then in April, she died.”
Laying up treasures on earth vs. treasures in heaven, etc. The Mormon in me recognized the sad lesson to be learned. But to a Buddhist, I thought, it’d be just fine.
The Woman in the Hefty Bag Speaks
“We are starting to go buggy, just getting on one another’s nerves,” Mrs Mildred Mauney, 81, told The New York Times, after spending the night with some strangers in a classroom-turned-shelter in Palm Beach Gardens, Florida.
Whatever, Millie. Join the club. Mrs. Mauney’s must-have accessory for evacuating their mobile home, an inflated trash bag, reminded me of a Bill Cunningham snap of hard-core fashion muse Isabella Blow that was used to illustrate a NYT street photography story in 2002.
I can’t believe that just two years ago, I would’ve mused so hard on Walter Benjamin, Jean Paul Gaultier, “accidental” street photography, and documentary film staging.
“Well, you have to be a nut, kid.” [greg.org, oct. 2002]
Triumph of the W.
So you’re saying, if you suspend habeas corpus and pre-emptively arrest hundreds of pedestrians, I’ll be able to drive my Mercedes [sic] to the Upper East Side from the Holland Tunnel in 10 minutes every day? I have to confess, it’s a seductive proposition.
[First they came for the carless, yet I did nothing…]
And while I’m watching the giant flag behind George Patton Pataki–It’s rippling!– I’m thinking, “gots to get me one of those 3-story high monitors.”
[Then, they came for the flatscreenless, yet I did nothing…]
Then, when the guy who plays the Giuliani-style right-wing DA on L&O starts narrating a Bush video–I’m all, ah, a slide show; the resolution on that monitor probably can’t handle full motion–the photographs seem strangely alive, with an intensified depth of field. And movement? Naw…
Oh my hell, talk about seductive. This full-blown cult of personality film is using a more sophisticated version of the entrancing photo-animation technique developed for The Kid Stays in The Picture, the ultimate self-deluded, “so seductive who care’s how much of it’s true” Hollywood insider documentary. They’ve turned Robert Evans and Graydon Carter against themselves–and the whole celebrity-worshipping country–and made them bow to George W. and His Will.
[Then they came for the DVD-less, yet I did nothing…]
Scott Sforza, you are truly worthy to be called the Leni Riefenstahl of your generation.
[And then they came for me, and there was no one left.]
Dude, I really wish you’d skip right to making movies about fish.
Film Directors ‘Discover’ Opera?
Irene Lacher writes in the NYT about the influx of film directors to the operatic stage. Lacher likes her movie directos old and in hollywood; she mentions Garry Marshall, William Friedkin, Robert Altman. Sure, Julie Taymor, who was directing operas long before Disney got her to direct Lion King…on Broadway, which was before she directed an actual film. And Scorsese, who’s repeatedly told the Met the opera can wait as he heeds the camera’s call.
And she likes her opera small and local. Baz Luhrman gets a parenthetical, but then, he only directed La Boheme, TWICE. Zhang Yimou’s mentioned in passing, but, oddly, not for either of his spectacular Turandot stagings.
And film’s biggest opera divas, meanwhile, are left talking to the hand: Lars von Trier’s high profile abandonment of Bayreuth (doesn’t Wagner still count as opera? I mean, come on, Viking chicks? Hello?) gets nothing. And a movie/opera article without even a hint of Peter Greenaway, whose movie-opera-website-installation art synesthesia made him the tiresome eminence grise of the genre? As W. says, we’ve turned a corner.
The Camera Can Wait: Directors Hear Opera’s Call [NYT]
[update: Barry/Bloggy also points out another director who’s operatic dabblings don’t register in Hollywood never heard of in Hollywood: Luchino Visconti. So he revived Donizetti at La Scala with Maria Callas. What’s he done lately?]
The Cattle Guards of Box Elder County
So how did there come to be street signs for the Spiral Jetty?
For years, the only way to see Robert Smithson’s Spiral Jetty was from the air, or in a photograph, or in the artist’s own making-of film, which was plenty for 99.9% of art worlders and normals alike.
When the Jetty first re-emerged from the Great Salt Lake in 1994, only a few people knew about it, and even fewer actually took the trouble to drive out and see it. But appetites were whetted, and conceptual art was intersecting with an Easy Rider-meets-Wild, Wild West road trip in just the right slightly adventurous, hip enough way that when it resurfaced again in 2002, visiting the Jetty quickly went from curator-esoteric to art-world-must-see to mainstream.
Artforum’s Number One Top Ten
Whoa. Choire Sicha has gone all Kit Carruthers on Artforum’s monthly Top Ten list; it’s truly a site to behold. Usually, even the brainiest people have a hard time coming up with ten relevant things to say, and they pack it with esoteric crap or their friend’s website or something.
Choire doesn’t–um, actually, he does. There’s esoteric crap (“Remember that awesome Amy Globus video shown last winter at Gorney Bravin + Lee, with two octopuses sucking their way through some weird see-through aquarium tubing while Emmylou Harris and Neil Young sang ‘Wrecking Ball’?”) and his friend’s website (Paul Ford’s Ftrain). Just this time, it’s good.
2004-09-06 , This Week in The New Yorker
Issue of 2004-09-06
Posted 2004-08-30
THE TALK OF THE TOWN
COMMENT/ UNDER FIRE/ Hendrik Hertzberg on Republican attacks.
THE BIG SHOW/ SCOOPS/ Ben McGrath on the tricks of the news cycle.
DEPT. OF IMPERSONATION/ REPORTING FOR DUTY/ Tad Friend meets a copycat Kerry.
ON THE MOUND/ BITTERNESS/ Michael Shapiro on the curveball career of Jae Weong Seo.
THE FINANCIAL PAGE/ COME ONE, COME ALL/ James Surowiecki on how cities sell themselves to conventions.
TASTE TECHNOLOGIES/ Malcolm Gladwell/ The Ketchup Conundrum/Mustard now comes in dozens of varieties. Why has ketchup stayed the same? /[read a draft at Gladwell.com]
THE POLITICAL SCENE/ John Cassidy/ Tax Code/ The President gives hints of a radical agenda.
LETTER FROM SOUTH AFRICA/ Calvin Trillin/ Dissed Fish/ Confessions of a snoek lover.
FICTION/ Yoko Ogawa/ “The Cafeteria in the Evening and a Pool in the Rain”
THE CRITICS
A CRITIC AT LARGE/ Adam Gopnik/ Through a Glass Darkly/ What do we talk about when we talk about wine?
MUSICAL EVENTS/ Alex Ross/ Unauthorized/ The final betrayal of Dmitri Shostakovich.
ON TELEVISION/ Nancy Franklin/ City of Glutes/ An Olympic homecoming.
THE CURRENT CINEMA/ Anthony Lane/ Power Plays/ “Vanity Fair” and “Hero.”
FROM THE ARCHIVE
U.S. JOURNAL: BREAUX BRIDGE, LOUISIANA/ Calvin Trillin/ Eating Crawfish/ Issue of 1972-05-20
U.S. JOURNAL: KENTUCKY/ Calvin Trillin/ Stalking the Barbecued Mutton/ Issue of 1977-02-07
How to get to Spiral Jetty? It’s never been easier.
On the 10-year anniversary of the re-emergence of Spiral Jetty and my first visit, and in keeping with our family tradition of visiting the Jetty whenever we attend a wedding in Salt Lake City, we popped on over Saturday in a rented Camry.
These new signs made finding the Jetty so easy, even Artforum could do it.
Benesse Art Site Naoshima, the Marfa of Japan
While we were in Japan, we made a detour to see the growing collection of contemporary art on Naoshima, a tiny island near Okayama, and within spitting distance of the massive Seto Inland Sea Bridge.
In explaining Naoshima, I’ve taken to calling it the Marfa of Japan, but that’s only partly accurate. Benesse represents one collector’s–not an artist’s–increasingly significant attempt to create an internationally recognized destination for contemporary art pilgrims and to revitalize/transform a dying town in the process. I think it’s mostly successful, and definitely worth the trip.
Benesse Art Site is the new umbrella moniker for four separate art projects: the just-opened Chichu Museum; Benesse House, a small museum/hotel; Seaside Park, a campground surrounded by outdoor sculptures; and Art House, permanent artist installations in abandoned 18th century buildings.
When we arrived on Naoshima, we headed first to Benesse House, which was designed by Tadao Ando. The staff was extremely helpful, even though we knew we couldn’t stay overnight (the hotel fills up a year in advance). The building was impressive, with two or three of the sublime moments Ando’s Fort Worth Museum has dozens of.
The work was all over the place; there’s stuff from a collecting phase where money outstripped sense, then from the “let’s open a museum” phase where sense caught up. Exquisite siting was a recurring theme. Hiroshi Sugimoto’s Time Exposed seascape photos, installed in a courtyard overlooking the sea; Yoshihiro Suda’s invisible Weeds, and Bruce Nauman’s neon 100 Live or Die, which, by restrictions on how frequently it would be turned on, was transformed from sculpture to eagerly awaited performance spectacle.
A businessman on the ferry had boasted, “There’s a $6 million Monet up there.” [A Water Lilies diptych, which was probably more than that.] Meanwhile, the locals remain unimpressed by the $10 million early Johns hanging next to the Zen-like Pollock.
I’ve mentioned it before, but I’ll post more on the Art House Project later.
Benesse Art Site Naoshima, the Marfa of Japan
While we were in Japan, we made a detour to see the growing collection of contemporary art on Naoshima, a tiny island near Okayama, and within spitting distance of the massive Seto Inland Sea Bridge.
In explaining Naoshima, I’ve taken to calling it the Marfa of Japan, but that’s only partly accurate. Benesse represents one collector’s–not an artist’s–increasingly significant attempt to create an internationally recognized destination for contemporary art pilgrims and to revitalize/transform a dying town in the process. I think it’s mostly successful, and definitely worth the trip.
Benesse Art Site is the new umbrella moniker for four separate art projects: the just-opened Chichu Museum; Benesse House, a small museum/hotel; Seaside Park, a campground surrounded by outdoor sculptures; and Art House, permanent artist installations in abandoned 18th century buildings.
When we arrived on Naoshima, we headed first to Benesse House, which was designed by Tadao Ando. The staff was extremely helpful, even though we knew we couldn’t stay overnight (the hotel fills up a year in advance). The building was impressive, with two or three of the sublime moments Ando’s Fort Worth Museum has dozens of.
The work was all over the place; there’s stuff from a collecting phase where money outstripped sense, then from the “let’s open a museum” phase where sense caught up. Exquisite siting was a recurring theme. Hiroshi Sugimoto’s Time Exposed seascape photos, installed in a courtyard overlooking the sea; Yoshihiro Suda’s invisible Weeds, and Bruce Nauman’s neon 100 Live or Die, which, by restrictions on how frequently it would be turned on, was transformed from sculpture to eagerly awaited performance spectacle.
A businessman on the ferry had boasted, “There’s a $6 million Monet up there.” [A Water Lilies diptych, which was probably more than that.] Meanwhile, the locals remain unimpressed by the $10 million early Johns hanging next to the Zen-like Pollock.
I’ve mentioned it before, but I’ll post more on the Art House Project later.
On the road again
greg and the rest of the .org gang are on a bit of a trip this week, back on Monday. You can stare at the screen all you want, but there are no bloopers, and there’s no silly coda after the Kodak credit fades.