It can be said that we live in a society that is very susceptible to fear and paranoia. Creating fear always been a tactic used for centuries to keep control over people, but in the past century it’s become easier to do so world wide, and on a mass scale due to communication technologies available to us. It’s embedded and broadcasted into advertising through T.V, radio, larger than life billboards, and the internet. We are constantly warned of terrorism, rapists, pedophiles, safety of our children, ect. We are told of procedures to follow, to avoid such happenings, such as alerting someone if you suspect them to be a terrorist at an airport. Rather obvious things, but its creating a shared mind set of fear amongst people. But also the means of technology are creating fear of surveillance.
An article in the Guardian last week showed an increase of television viewing surrounding terrorism, and street crime. Viewing figures from between the time 9 until 10 showed that shows such as ‘The age of terror(1.1 million viewers), Waking the dead(revolving around a European terrorist cell. 6.8 million), Cops with cameras (3.5 million)and CSI: Crime scene investigation (2.8 million)took up 60% of audience share. It just shows how nowadays we are aware of these threats but T.V stations choose to use them as entertainment or insight.
Nowadays it is argued that there is an endless and ever growing list of things to fear or to be aware that COULD HAPPEN!! But what should we be actually afraid of, or not be a tall? The word ‘evil’ is commonly used to describe something to be feared of. For example Bush describes terrorists as evil. Evil is a broad term used to indicate a negative moral or ethical judgment, often used to describe intentional acts that are cruel, unjust, or selfish. But what is actually evil, and what is the evilness in our world? Is it what we humans have created ourselves, for instance the ‘Internet’, or in a fiction sense, ‘Frankenstein’?
I recently discovered H.P Lovecraft’s tale ‘The Call of Cthulhu.’ It’s about a creature that is a huge, octopoid sea monster, sleeping for centuries at the bottom of the ocean (either "dreaming" or "dreamless"), and destined to emerge from his slumber in an apocalyptic age. So this creature is seen as evil, as it intends to destroy humanity and end the world. This is obviously a mythical and science fiction sense of evil, but it got me thinking about it parallels in the real world. What in reality shares Cthulhu’s story?
I watched the documentary film ‘The Corporation.’ The film examines and critiques corporate practices, and draws parallels between examples of corporate malfeasance and the DSM-IV's symptoms of psychopathy. Unconcern for the feelings of others, incapacity to maintain enduring relationships, reckless disregard for the safety of others, deceitfulness (repeated lying to and deceiving of others for profit), incapacity to experience guilt and failure to conform to the social norms with respect to lawful behaviors. I found the comparison between a corporation and a psychopath really interesting yet awfully true. A pyscopath would be considered evil surely? The documentary shows how capitalists greed and disregard to humans and nature is destroying the world as well as the people. Theres not much difference to Cthulhu’s rampage of the earth, and that of which capitalism is doing to the world. The only one being that Cthulhu’s way is a lot quicker, visible and one clear direction to point our hate at.
If you asked people what are they more scared of out of; an attack on the world from a Godzilla type creature, capitalism, or the Internet? Most people would say Godzilla, but the fact is the damage from corporate businesses is a lot more real and is happening. Also the internet is a large and unknown entity, like the sea, which often creates fear or distrust.
In this project I want to explore what evil is and draw comparisons and parallels in a mythical sense, and in reality. What should would we be afraid of , or of anything at all? Is the internet a reference to Cthulhu? The internet could be seen as a large monster. Hungry and greedy for information and power. Some People have pessimistic views of the net, some don't. It offers communication and access to information in the safety and comfort of your own home. But at the same time your not sure who your actually talking to and how truthful this information is, or who’s listening in. It’s a doubled edged sword. Although it offers these great services, it can create paranoia of surveillance. Just because something is considered a monster (e.g.Frankenstein), is it actually harmful, or is it to do with how we use and provoke it. The same could be said about the internet. This is my main aim to demonstrate.
I am undecided what it is I’ll actually create, but it will be working around animation and video. Maybe some kind of interactive piece.
Monday, 28 April 2008
Monday, 7 April 2008
The Myth of 'Cthulhu.' H.P Lovecraft
Over Easter I was having a chat with my brother about films, conspiracies and many other randomness. We were talking about the recent film ‘Cloverfield,’ and he informed he of how it’s based on a novel "The Call of Cthulhu", written by H.P Lovecraft. Cthulhu is a creature that has been reinvented many times over. Lovecraft's creature is a huge, octopoid sea monster, sleeping for centuries at the bottom of the ocean (either "dreaming" or "dreamless"), and destined to emerge from his slumber in an apocalyptic age.
Our conversation then took a different turn around the idea of conspiracies. He showed me a page on wikipedia called Bloop, that tied in with the myth of Cthulhu. The Bloop is the name given to an ultra-low frequency underwater sound detected by the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration several times during the summer of 1997. The source of the sound remains unknown. You can listen to it by clicking the bloop link.
Apparently with the aid of scientific technology, these recordings suggests it was from a mammal, but it had to be MUCH MUCH larger than a blue whale. What made this even more interesting (coincidence or not) was that the Bloop noise originated near the location of the fictional sunken city of R'lyeh from H.P. Lovecraft's story "The Call of Cthulhu", the Bloop has been linked to Cthulhu by Lovecraft fans. Apparently the film Cloverfield used the ‘bloop’ as some kind of media advertising to stir up a debate of myth versus reality, whilst promoting their film.
It made me think about how little we know about the sea, and whats actually down there. The word is 2/3 waters, so that’s a significant amount of space that is mostly unexplorable or unexplored. It’s the closest thing to experiencing outer space. Its similar in the fact that gravity has less relevance and we just don’t now whats there, as well as a feeling of isolation and vulnerability.
Is there something down there in the depths of the oceans that man has not discovered. A creature that could possible be the largest thing on the planet, but has never been sited. This excites me a lot, but cant help but feel a slight cause for concern if Cthulhu was to rise from his sleep and cause apocalypse to the world. ARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR NO NOT ME CTHULHU!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Monday, 31 March 2008
Meshes of the Afternoon - Maya Deren
Over the easter holidays I stumbled across a short film at the Tate Modern. I found this inspiring as it had major influences on the work of David Lynch's films.
Meshes of the Afternoon (1943) is a short experimental film directed by wife and husband team, Maya Deren and Alexander Hammid. The film's narrative is circular, and repeats a number of psychologically symbolic images, including a flower on a long driveway, a key falling, a door unlocked, a knife in a loaf of bread, a mysterious Grim Reaper-like cloaked figure with a mirror for a face, a phone off the hook and an ocean.
In 1990, Meshes of the Afternoon was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant", going into the registry in the second year of voting.
The film was the product of Deren's and Hammid's desire to create an avant garde personal film that dealt with devastating psychological problems, like the French avant-garde films of the 1920s such as Salvador Dalí and Luis Buñuel's Un Chien Andalou.[citation needed] Deren's use of symbolism in her films relates to her father's preoccupation with psychology and her desire to appeal to her father's interests.[citation needed]
Deren and Hammid wrote, directed and performed in the film. Although Deren is usually credited as its principal artistic creator, filmmaker Stan Brakhage, who knew the couple, has claimed in his book Film at Wit's End that Meshes was in fact largely Hammid's creation, and that their marriage began to suffer when Deren received more credit.
The original print had no score. However, a musical score influenced by classical Japanese music was added by Deren's third husband, Teiji Ito, in 1959.
The dreamlike (or nightmarish) atmosphere of Meshes has influenced many subsequent films, notably David Lynch's Lost Highway (1997); Wendy Haslem of the University of Melbourne's Cinema Studies department wrote about the parallels:
Maya Deren was a key figure in the development of the New American Cinema. Her influence extends to contemporary filmmakers like David Lynch, whose film Lost Highway (1997) pays homage to Meshes of the Afternoon in his experimentation with narration. Lynch adopts a similar spiraling narrative pattern, sets his film within an analogous location and establishes a mood of dread and paranoia, the result of constant surveillance. Both films focus on the nightmare as it is expressed in the elusive doubling of characters and in the incorporation of the “psychogenic fugue,” the evacuation and replacement of identities, something that was also central to the voodoo ritual.
Roger Ebert has also noted the influence of Meshes within David Lynch's new feature-film release, INLAND EMPIRE.
In 1993, two different videos were made for Milla Jovovich's song "Gentleman Who Fell." The second, filmed in black-and-white, is an obvious pastiche of Meshes of the Afternoon.
The music video Your Ghost by Kristin Hersh contains several details from this video short, including the key in the mouth, the winding staircase and the phone off the hook.
Meshes of the Afternoon (1943) is a short experimental film directed by wife and husband team, Maya Deren and Alexander Hammid. The film's narrative is circular, and repeats a number of psychologically symbolic images, including a flower on a long driveway, a key falling, a door unlocked, a knife in a loaf of bread, a mysterious Grim Reaper-like cloaked figure with a mirror for a face, a phone off the hook and an ocean.
In 1990, Meshes of the Afternoon was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant", going into the registry in the second year of voting.
The film was the product of Deren's and Hammid's desire to create an avant garde personal film that dealt with devastating psychological problems, like the French avant-garde films of the 1920s such as Salvador Dalí and Luis Buñuel's Un Chien Andalou.[citation needed] Deren's use of symbolism in her films relates to her father's preoccupation with psychology and her desire to appeal to her father's interests.[citation needed]
Deren and Hammid wrote, directed and performed in the film. Although Deren is usually credited as its principal artistic creator, filmmaker Stan Brakhage, who knew the couple, has claimed in his book Film at Wit's End that Meshes was in fact largely Hammid's creation, and that their marriage began to suffer when Deren received more credit.
The original print had no score. However, a musical score influenced by classical Japanese music was added by Deren's third husband, Teiji Ito, in 1959.
The dreamlike (or nightmarish) atmosphere of Meshes has influenced many subsequent films, notably David Lynch's Lost Highway (1997); Wendy Haslem of the University of Melbourne's Cinema Studies department wrote about the parallels:
Maya Deren was a key figure in the development of the New American Cinema. Her influence extends to contemporary filmmakers like David Lynch, whose film Lost Highway (1997) pays homage to Meshes of the Afternoon in his experimentation with narration. Lynch adopts a similar spiraling narrative pattern, sets his film within an analogous location and establishes a mood of dread and paranoia, the result of constant surveillance. Both films focus on the nightmare as it is expressed in the elusive doubling of characters and in the incorporation of the “psychogenic fugue,” the evacuation and replacement of identities, something that was also central to the voodoo ritual.
Roger Ebert has also noted the influence of Meshes within David Lynch's new feature-film release, INLAND EMPIRE.
In 1993, two different videos were made for Milla Jovovich's song "Gentleman Who Fell." The second, filmed in black-and-white, is an obvious pastiche of Meshes of the Afternoon.
The music video Your Ghost by Kristin Hersh contains several details from this video short, including the key in the mouth, the winding staircase and the phone off the hook.
Saturday, 8 March 2008
Freedom of speech
A highly interesting situation has occurred recently. we had a guest speaker in uni (Seraphina Samet, a digital artist) who wanted to come in of her on request. i wont talk about her work as that is not of importance of what im concerned about, but i will say that most peoples opinions of her work seemed to be hitting consistent notes.
self indulgent, disengaging to the viewer, cliched techniques, and rather boring unless you personally know her as she was rather reluctant to talk about why she was stuck in this narrow alley of her own mentallity. these were the occurring themes amongst peoples blogs. ooops, did i just say those things? are the thought police coming for me?
i myslef did not actually update my blog about her, but since this reaction to others i feel inclined to. me and my course peers were not intentionally trying to demean her, but our course encourages us to write about guest speakers and anything of interest, and try to be critical as well as just talking about all the things we find interesting. as in this case, being critical can also be areas of interest. should we have just not bothered to write anything, or instead lie to ourself and say we thought she was great? are we not entitled to express our views?
so, the controversy that has occured is Seraphina's friends have read these posts and have left comments, or rather "qoutes", from really really clever people. you cant argue with quotes. she has also contacted our tutor and expressed her distress at these posts, and asked for them to be removed and have formal apologies from a selected few. i can totally understand that it must have been painful for her to read these views about her work, but wanting to take legal action against two students is a complete joke, if not verging on total stupidity. ok, let me get this straight, she is going to sue a few students for expressing their opinions on her work , but she gave us that right when she contacted our course to come and show us her work. i could be wrong, but what difference is there to a review from art critics and magazines ect.
ok, we are not accomplished employed critics but she gave us the opportunity to make our minds up about her the day she agreed to come in. also, if we are not employed accomplished critics, are our views less important and insignificant. and if they are, why make a deal about it? would this whole legal spiel have arisen if these views was written by a professional? i think not.. you would have to take it on the chin, try to take the criticism on board and move on! or just ignore them! the same should apply to our comments.
if she's this sensitive about her work , a suggestion to her is to maybe to not make her work so personal, maybe about something outside her own four walls. being an artist you work is always going to be criticized, and is something you should use to your advantage to gain views. i think Seraphina took this all very personally as her work is personal, due to it all being about her. in contrast, i went to see my tutors exhibition the other night (Micheal O'Conner). he was exploring an issue with his work that i believe he wanted to be open to criticism. it was a subject that people could relate to and peoples views would be of a huge range, but thats what made it interesting to observe.
if she wants to continue what she's doing, and take this incident to make her stronger, fair play to her. i really do wish her the best, and hope she can take some positives out of this incident and better her work. i truly hope this does not make her bitter. we did not mean any harm, but felt no wrong in expressing what we thought. or am i wrong in thinking that????
self indulgent, disengaging to the viewer, cliched techniques, and rather boring unless you personally know her as she was rather reluctant to talk about why she was stuck in this narrow alley of her own mentallity. these were the occurring themes amongst peoples blogs. ooops, did i just say those things? are the thought police coming for me?
i myslef did not actually update my blog about her, but since this reaction to others i feel inclined to. me and my course peers were not intentionally trying to demean her, but our course encourages us to write about guest speakers and anything of interest, and try to be critical as well as just talking about all the things we find interesting. as in this case, being critical can also be areas of interest. should we have just not bothered to write anything, or instead lie to ourself and say we thought she was great? are we not entitled to express our views?
so, the controversy that has occured is Seraphina's friends have read these posts and have left comments, or rather "qoutes", from really really clever people. you cant argue with quotes. she has also contacted our tutor and expressed her distress at these posts, and asked for them to be removed and have formal apologies from a selected few. i can totally understand that it must have been painful for her to read these views about her work, but wanting to take legal action against two students is a complete joke, if not verging on total stupidity. ok, let me get this straight, she is going to sue a few students for expressing their opinions on her work , but she gave us that right when she contacted our course to come and show us her work. i could be wrong, but what difference is there to a review from art critics and magazines ect.
ok, we are not accomplished employed critics but she gave us the opportunity to make our minds up about her the day she agreed to come in. also, if we are not employed accomplished critics, are our views less important and insignificant. and if they are, why make a deal about it? would this whole legal spiel have arisen if these views was written by a professional? i think not.. you would have to take it on the chin, try to take the criticism on board and move on! or just ignore them! the same should apply to our comments.
if she's this sensitive about her work , a suggestion to her is to maybe to not make her work so personal, maybe about something outside her own four walls. being an artist you work is always going to be criticized, and is something you should use to your advantage to gain views. i think Seraphina took this all very personally as her work is personal, due to it all being about her. in contrast, i went to see my tutors exhibition the other night (Micheal O'Conner). he was exploring an issue with his work that i believe he wanted to be open to criticism. it was a subject that people could relate to and peoples views would be of a huge range, but thats what made it interesting to observe.
if she wants to continue what she's doing, and take this incident to make her stronger, fair play to her. i really do wish her the best, and hope she can take some positives out of this incident and better her work. i truly hope this does not make her bitter. we did not mean any harm, but felt no wrong in expressing what we thought. or am i wrong in thinking that????
Thursday, 28 February 2008
Developing my character
A man that used to work in marketing and data mining until he saw too far into the web of surveillance and information it scared him rotten. He becomes a recluse and cuts himself off from society. He becomes self sufficient, grows his own vegetables, keeps his own chickens. He recluses further into his own narrow alley of madness and neglects his his vegetable patch. He no longer cleans or feed his chickens to the state of rotting to death in their own faeces. He is a voyeur of technology, as he no longer interacts with it but observes how the outer world is trying to communicate to him.
After bouncing these ideas around with Zac, he wrote up a few passages to this story.
The data collector
Previously a man of marketing, he used to sell lies for a living, until he realised his life was merely exiting, he reclused away from an exaggerated reality and got lost in the narrow alley of his own mentality.
His vegetable patch hasn’t been tended to for weeks. The chickens will soon stop their clucking. Do you like the smell of rotten eggs when you sleep? Do you sleep?
The merchant of fear
For a long time he gathered a lot of information, but hard-drives of secrets aren’t easy to keep. The sins of the world seered deep into his conscious. A scared data skeleton remains.
After bouncing these ideas around with Zac, he wrote up a few passages to this story.
The data collector
Previously a man of marketing, he used to sell lies for a living, until he realised his life was merely exiting, he reclused away from an exaggerated reality and got lost in the narrow alley of his own mentality.
His vegetable patch hasn’t been tended to for weeks. The chickens will soon stop their clucking. Do you like the smell of rotten eggs when you sleep? Do you sleep?
The merchant of fear
For a long time he gathered a lot of information, but hard-drives of secrets aren’t easy to keep. The sins of the world seered deep into his conscious. A scared data skeleton remains.
Narrative
My animation will come into a story, where something big has happened. Something has made him become a recluse and paranoid.
The animation is set in my characters house, where he has locked himself away from society.
Conceptions and incidents of this character are told through other peoples view. My method to do this, is people will leave phone messages that start to piece together his story. Eg. “no ones seen you at work for weeks now, and people are becoming very worried.” People giving accounts of him.
I also intend to use radio broadcasts that talk about either his story or subjects that relate to him.
Images will show objects and memorabilia that reveal clues to this characters identity and past.
The animation is set in my characters house, where he has locked himself away from society.
Conceptions and incidents of this character are told through other peoples view. My method to do this, is people will leave phone messages that start to piece together his story. Eg. “no ones seen you at work for weeks now, and people are becoming very worried.” People giving accounts of him.
I also intend to use radio broadcasts that talk about either his story or subjects that relate to him.
Images will show objects and memorabilia that reveal clues to this characters identity and past.
Ideas - Look + Feel
- obscure looking – but just enough to tell what objects are.
- I want the visuals to potray my characters state of mind. The use of colours, speed of editing.
- A lot of darkness and shadows – blurry and jerky outlines.
- Don’t want to show my character clearly as I feel the images will provoke imagination for the viewer to envisage him. Plus, I feel his lack of appearance is more fitting for the character im building.
- Currently considering creating visuals to work with by either
: taking photos and editing in photoshop = still frame.
: hand drawings scanned and edited in photoshop.
: using models like the Quay brothers.
- I want the visuals to potray my characters state of mind. The use of colours, speed of editing.
- A lot of darkness and shadows – blurry and jerky outlines.
- Don’t want to show my character clearly as I feel the images will provoke imagination for the viewer to envisage him. Plus, I feel his lack of appearance is more fitting for the character im building.
- Currently considering creating visuals to work with by either
: taking photos and editing in photoshop = still frame.
: hand drawings scanned and edited in photoshop.
: using models like the Quay brothers.
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