I started to practice this by taking pictures of this things me and my friends can do. Here they are below:

I wanted it to be broader than funny weird things i wanted to show hand stands cartwheels the spilt to show all abilities the body can do to show a spectacle. I thoroughly thought about it and felt to capture this it would be better presented through moving image to really get this reaction effect i was going for.

Problems that occurred where that many people didn’t want to be filmed and others did the same things as everybody else. When i tried to get people to dance for me they would get shy so my piece didn’t convey the broad abilities i initially wanted it to.

Here is the video:

I also came across this video on a guy doing shadows with his hands and have bome very interested in the ablity and what other things people can do with there hands. I remember seein an advert many eyears back and it consisted of someone making a face out of there hand and having a convo with another. I thought i was a cleaver idea and shows a two spectacles, the ability and what were watching. I cannot find this picture but will show the hand show clip.

]]> http://greenc7.wordpress.com/2008/11/30/other-media-texts/feed/ 0 greenc7 http://greenc7.wordpress.com/2008/11/29/adverts/ http://greenc7.wordpress.com/2008/11/29/adverts/#comments Sat, 29 Nov 2008 12:08:52 +0000 greenc7 http://greenc7.wordpress.com/?p=626 ]]> Looking closely at idents it has made my awareness of advertisements being related to this theme spectacle in a huge way. They both work in the same way and convey this remarkable appearance whereby audiences are amazed or mezmorised. They are many advertisements which I feel fit this theme very well and in some way hypnotise the audience making them focus on the glitsyness of the advert than the actually product. In many cases this is a beneficial because eventually they will feel the eurge to tell someone and would have to think back on what advert they were watching so the brand or product is remembered and the spectacle of the advert has worked.

Here are some adverts that I feel are very effective which us spectacle in very different ways:

I feel this adverts conveys a fun appeal which lets out a child-like quality, we associate water slides to children, and can see this advert has taken the water slide out of its original context therefore the juxtapositioning used has indeed created a spectacle. For me it portrays a lighter appeal to banking, takes away the seriousness of banks and money yet i was still able to recall that the advert was for Barclays so the spectacle worked on me.

I thought this advert was cleaver in the sense it used animation to illustrate what the product actually does, it keep the viewer watching and content and for me perpetuated the selling of the product, outlining the seven effects it holds on the consumer. I feel using this spectacle was a great way of achieving its goal.

The sound is the strongest spectacle in this advert and feel it really emphasises on the issues and does what adverts don’t usually do which it directly repeating it self. This for me made it more effected and make the viewers want to find out what the advert is trying to inform the audience about. The way it is edited also reinforces this achievement and effect with quick cuts in sync with every repetition. From watching this it reminds me of my spectacle research on the sculpture of the rabbit with the repetition of the parents words. Repetition is key in these to scenarios and feel it’s something i will take into account when producing my piece.

I really like the way they used enlarged analogies of cigarettes it really makes the advert a spectacle and seeing accross a city shows the intensity of this. It shows audiences amazement and for me its something i look out for when saying i like and advert.

The Sony Balls advert is something you don’t expect to see, so its a shock to audiences and keeps you guessing what product is being sold to you. This is a good thing because the audience is left knowing the company or product. I feel using bouncy balls opened the range of audiences they are targeting to, especially children because they are attracted to colourful moving thins yet it still makes relation to the product at the end with the slogan ‘Colour Like No Other’. The video above discusses a little more on the angle they wer going for for this advert.

I like this guines advert because it uses stop motion which is a technique i love to use, i feel it’s very much so a spectacle on its own and adds humour and fun to the product guiness. I also like to use of hands alone because it gives the viewers a focal point.

This advert has been on of my favourite think adverts ever becasue I like the intense unexpected notion used which really hit me as a viewer i want this feeling to happen to my audiecnes yet not so brutally.

This last advert was another favourite think advert because it uses the reverse notion, everything going backwards.  I spoke about this briefly in my memory research sections, i feel it really grasps audience and it does work on myself i really have fort of this and how i could implement this is my work.

]]> http://greenc7.wordpress.com/2008/11/29/adverts/feed/ 0 greenc7 http://greenc7.wordpress.com/2008/11/28/more/ http://greenc7.wordpress.com/2008/11/28/more/#comments Fri, 28 Nov 2008 14:45:37 +0000 greenc7 http://greenc7.wordpress.com/?p=618 ]]> Spectacles are memorable, this sprung to mind whilst watching TV when I kept seeing the idents which are very prominent in our televisual lives more so than they were many years ago. I feel this is due to the Internet and other means of technology putting a strain on television broadcasters thus they have to make idents. This increases the viewer’s awareness that they are watching a particular channel and that the channel they are watching is the best, therefore the idents must be spectacular to catch the eye of consumers and also relate to the broadcasting channel as a means of advertising in a sense because it’s representing and selling the channel.

Here are some examples of idents that I found quite spectacular:

I like these two idents because they are memorable with the colourful and wackey disco guy in the second one and the film like drama BBC2 ident in the first one.  I feel both ident represents the channel for example the Channel 4 ident plays on entertainment which is the first aspect Channel 4 connotes whereas the BBC ident conveys a total different look of inform, then educate then entertaining.

‘Gone Too Far’ was a play I went to see over the summer at Hackney Empire in London. This has come to mind in terms of spectacle because of the reoccurring shock value in the storyline that keeps the viewers content and watching. The play was about multicultural Britain and how it’s easy to forgot or be embarrassed of where you come from in terms of background. The play addresses stereotypes which is a significant with the theme spectacle and does just that by over exaggerating the stereotype along with attributes of extrovert behaviour (shouting, loud robust remarks, embellishing clothing and appearance and constant fidgety movement which are all things the audience can acknowledge.

Moreover the emphasis of the play was the protagonist being mixed race and stressing her belief that shes black (Caribbean) yet makes negative remark s to Black Africans and doesn’t know her history. This is a very stereotypical view nonetheless reality which can be a spectacle within itself however the way it was acted out it my eyes increased this spectacle and created a reaction from the audience. One loud spectacle shone to be which was a comment made in the play about ”all mixed race people are confused” for me this was okay for the play however the positive reaction the audience made turned it into a spectacle which then made me who is mixed race and the minority in the audience feel uncomfortable.

Thus this example of reaction from audiences is good and beneficial for my work yet it was negative in my eyes it work in the sense because it still amazed me as most spectacles do. For my piece i hope to hit a majority and maybe stem away from race, and stereotypes, trying not to focus on the controversial topics in today’s world.

Personally I love adverts, i get enjoyment from them, especially those that keep you guessing, have a strong message or just looks so amazing that you have to keep watching. I think advertisements have become my favourite when looking at spectacle, I feel how it looks visually is really engages the audience . Stop motion is used in a lot of adverts and feel its a great way to get people watching, in addition to this graphical images, slow motion, backward motion techniques are all important in terms of spectacle. I would like to implement these techniques in my artefact piece because want to go for an angle where the viewer wants to keep watching.

Moreover I watched the Cassette Boy you tube clip, who edited Gordon Brown’s speech turning it into something controversial yet amusing. I life the effect i had on the class and myself and want to achieve this effect from my own piece as i feel it linked to spectacle very well also. However I’m not sure if i want to go down the comical route because i feel if it’s done bad it would not give off the same message thus the reaction element is what i want to go for.

More on Cassette Boy, i thought about using the same idea yet with the different adverts I liked and chopped them up creating a peculiar spectacle. This was just a quick idea, I though about the time that I had and felt I wouldn’t be able to finish so soon so the idea just faded away.

When I mention reaction I mean the instant comments, smiles, remarks made whilst watching it, something you do without thinking twice about it, something you don’t realise doing. When I see something i get a reaction from I would say ‘Wow’, or ‘Ahh’ like I’m shocked yet informed and amused and can’t wait to tell someone.

When I was introduced to the word spectacle everything I watched, saw and heard that I felt a reaction from I made a note of it. Here are some of the things I came across:

Some spectacle I found are:

Olympics Opening Ceremony- It consisted of fireworks some which shaped like footprints, performances and singing.  This was all the positive spectacles however the negative spectacles were that the footprint fireworks were said to be fake and the girl singing was lip syncing .  This caused the press to go wild causing a spectacle something to read, watch, listen to, it also created a negative spectacle of china, they intially wanted to paint a pretty spectacle of their country however due to speculation they created  a negative spectacle of the country.

This links to sport being a spectacle much sport opens in the same way or consists of spectacles during the event however less spectacular but can be positive or negative.   An example of this can be at a football match they say the national anthem, chant, mexican wave, fight, swear, associate hooligan behaviour, and dance (cheerleaders in American football).

There are many other sporting activities that appear to be spectacles such as synchronised swimming, Dancing on Ice – the sport and show are both spectacles, some viewer watch it because it a spectacular sport other watch it because it’s a competition.  More dance programmes such as MTV’s ‘Americas Best Dance Crew is a spectacle- Dance is a spectacle on it’s own yet producing a show on the performances adds the competition element to it making it more entertaining thus increasing viewers.  Spectacles impress us and engage us playing on our emotions, making us feel we have participated however this participation is included litterally in most competition shows because you vote for who you want to keep.

With this particular group from ‘America’s Best Dance Crew’  called the ‘JabbaWockeez’ fits the explanation of spectacle through their moves, co-ordination, style and analogy.  They say “they are the Jabbawokeez because we are a pigment of your imagination” .  This ties in nicely with the surrealist angle on art and they are some what using there subconscious mind to explain who the are and what they represent.  They also got their name from a mysterious poem and try to implement a mysteries attribute through themselves and their dance moves. This is agina something that many artist did when developina vision for their work.  There are more than one spectacle present in this case.

The Jabbawokeez

There are also spectacle in music videos this is quite a popular areas for spectacle because it can boost the sales of the song if the video is good. An example of a two differnt music video i find spectacular are Michel Gondry’s video for The White Stripes song ‘I Fell In Love With a Girl’  and T-pain ‘Chopped and Screwed’.

This video uses stop motion in the most difficult way ever with lego, it shows the creativity of the film maker and watching keeps audiences attention throughout the whole song which is what music video are suppose to do.  The lego gives of this child- like feel although the song is about falling in love it still child friendly by the amazing spectacle.

The T-pain video ‘Chopped and Screwed’ caught my eye because it gives of this wonderland feel, like your inside your imagination or dream world again something that many surrealist artist take inspiration from.  I also like how the image changes in sync with the song, this adds to the spectacle that is already evident.

 Festivals and carnivals are also spectacles yet they hold other meaning behind it, it is usually celebrating something e.g. Notting Hill Carnival in London was a reponse to the race relations going back to 1950′s.  Now it’s very Carribean driven, yet celebrating the diversity we have in London.  Therefore it’s a spectacle because it is a carnival and it’s a spectacle because it represents something. It aslo has become a spectacle from the riots in 1976 up to the present day with much links to gun and knife crime amoungst youth.

 I still wanted to better my understanding of art to use as inspiration for the three themes so I went to the Tate Modern in London.  I felt this was my favourite gallery out of all because there was just so much to look at and felt that the exhibitions were sectioned very well.  This helped me think about a certain theme prominantly depending on the section I was in.  In terms of Spectacle most of the art I liked was in the poetry and dream sections.  Referring back to my research I know poetry is a prominant basis for ideas on art, and dreams link back to surrealism thus going to the Tate around this time gave me a head start in reseach for spectacle that my 300MC lectures are now covering e.g. Dadaism, situationist etc. 

Jackson Pollock – ‘Summertime’

Pollack worked from his unconscious mind to produce this piece or artwork above.  He called the process of painting this expressionism,  it’s how he produced it, pouring paint onto canvases using energy, movement and emotion which are all characteristics of art. In my opinion it’s a spectacle because you will look at it and instantly think how is this art? then if you actually look at the way the paint has hit canvas you can get a sense of how much emotion went into the piece therefore the art becomes a spectacle of the artist by portraying their vision and angle so simply.

I’ve noticed that this explanation of the artists vision has arisen to my attention often.  Understanding artists inspiration is significant because I am now thinking like an artist and will consider taking insight from poems, a muse, vision to create meanings and a story.  I feel with spectacle the story is less the angle I want to go for and its more about the impact and vision I want to create thus, will try focus on this.

More Art

Jannis Kounellis – ‘Untitled’

I really liked this piece because of the level of peculiarity, the stuffed crows with arrows pinning them to the image really emphasized this.  This was the first piece of work when I enter the poetry and dream section thus the instant reaction was overwhelming which i guess is a good thing because all surreal art wants to give of this effect.  For me me it’s like a little imaginative vision of someone mind, quite cartoon like with the great juxtapositioning of the 3D stuffed crows against the 2D factories.  The actual explanation of the photo was hard for me to grasp but feel its something to do with the unanswered questions of the unsconscious mind.

Jean Arp – ‘Contellation According to The Laws of Chance’

Jean Arp had a passion for abstract compositions and after he joined the Dada group in Zurich he focused his work around automatic composition with random and chance elements.  In the piece above he centered around nature because the was no reason behind it as with much of the modern world.  He wanted to “…develop an art that consciously evoked forms and laws of nature without copying them”. Clearly with this piece his angle on art is evident with the shapes, position and colour evoking total randomness and chance. The wood used was also up to the craftsman’s disgresion.

This is something  I would certainly consider because it can be beneficial by helping ideas fall into place and therefore having greater means because it cancels out everything that we believe made it come together and leaving it all down to the subconscious.  On the other hand, I feel the piece may not be easily understood by the audience if  I produce a spectacle artefact on these elements of chance and random and subconsciously.  How do you use your subconscious? is the question I would be asking myself, for me it’s the thoughts we have in dreams maybe taking a little from that and piecing it together could create a great spectacle.

Joan Miro – ‘ The Tightrope Walker’

This piece was found in another section of the Tate Modern called Objects and materials.  Joan Miro made this  sculpture peculiar which follows the work of surrealism angle which many artists who create spectacles portray.  Miro’s angle was the ‘unlikely marriage of recognisable objects’ showing violence and humour by the use of a doll and nails, leaving the piece unattractive.  This piece has similarities to other art work i described earlier, Nicko Straniero used the same angle of using discarded objects to create his mural however it was an attractive, colourful spectacle of London. Thus this object idea can work achieving different results, which comething I will bear in mind.

Martin Creed – Work no. 232 ,  ‘the world + the work = the whole world’

This was another piece in the ideas and objects section which I found quite fascinating, even more so because whilst there I watched a video where he explained his love for art with a unique angle at addressing art.  He explains art in an mathematical equation trying to show the viewers we live in a world of art and shouldn’t need to be defined as something separate. This is what is equation piece illustrates by the outcome being the same as the initially being.  I feel this links to spectacle because of  the use of lights and the cleaver mathematical analogy behind it.

Robert Morris – ‘Untitled’

This was an installation and I feel they have an immense effect on the viewer because they are positioned in the art as opposed to just gazing at it.  This piece specifically plays with this spectactor /art notion and challenges the importance of spectator’s awareness and the gallery. The mirrors play a huge part in this awareness, as the spectator walks around it they can see motion of themselves in each situation which clearly enforces this interaction with the art,  making the viewer aware of themselves and the art at the same time. 

I wanted to find out more on art and tried to use this to hopefully receive more insight in my three themes.  Most art links to spectacle directly so will discuss the spectacle sides to things I saw.  I researched for more up coming exhibitions and found a small gallery called tender pixel where artist exhibit their innovative, contemporary and experimental work. This ranges from art, sculpture,  media, new media, design and painting. 

Exhibitions

Nicko Straniero - ‘Phototoxins and Protoplastic Accumulation’ Installation.

I started to look at previous work on the website and found the work of Nicko Straniero exhibited his vision of London through space installation in the Tenderpixel gallery. He created a mural covering the whole gallery in a stamp like effect using materials which he feel creates spectacular shapes.  Throughout researching this and watching the video of it, I was so upset that I hadn’t actually gone down to the gallery on this day because I would love to get a feel of being surrounded by such a spectacle, I could imagine the colours being so moving and creating an imaginative atmosphere.  This was Straniero’s vision of London, for me I would agree from anaylsis of the different shapes and colours depicted which shows London’s diversity full of multicultures, people/buildings of different shapes and sizes in the congested capital city which is shown through the closely printed shapes.

Below is a clip about Nicko’s journey through this piece of work:

Sungeyon Park and Trevor Kiernander

The installation I actually went to see was the work by Sungeyon Park and Trevor Kiernander.  It consisted of a inflating apple in the middle of the room with paintings of rural urban landscapes. The apple was representing a post modern signifier of femininity in a patriarchal society.  I really didn’t understand this piece however I understood the link to spectacle yet I did get the imaginative feel whilst standing in the space between the two art forms as the piece was support to give of a Alice and Wonderland feel.  This was my first installation I have seen and was still getting used to the art world.

 Below is a clip of the process:

Evaluating on both pieces I feel it was beneficial because it introduced to be to a different way of looking and presenting art without thinking about boundaries and concentrating on a vision or feeling you want to achieve.  When i say art it’s not only paint art, I could produce moving image in a spectacular way, this is something I will take into account for the future.

I never really went to galleries before because i never really understood it or was just not introduced it enough. Not realising i actually found it quite pleasing, informative and enjoyable.  I feel art is great way for inspiration on all the themes, however I felt spectacle was easiest for me to tackle, which initially I thought was the hardest.   

I went to the National Gallery in London over the summer and had a look at paintings and sculpture that stood out to be made me want to read more on it.  The first painting I came accross was David Hockney’s ‘We Two Boys Live Together Clinging’, 1961.  I found it looked like a child done it, very abstract, however this is what makes it a spectacle, you want to have a look because it’s not something you would expect to see.  It also carries strong connotations, the there is change in society and homosexuality exist. During the time of this painting it was an outrage to be homosexual and between 1940 and 1970 the media reinforced this by referring to it as ‘flith’ and ‘perversity’.  Even the law saw it as unjust was illegal in the UK until 1969 and there were also medical and psychiatrical treatment to try to cure it.

Hockney himself was homosexual therefore this may have influenced him to paint the picture. In my opinion it connotes his emotions on the subject and how he feels strong about the personal opinion of the relationships.  I noticed that inbetween the lips of the two boys in the picture it says ‘never’ and for me this confirms the era or restrictions. The title of the picture derived from a poem by 19th Century American poet Walt Whittman. The poem was about how two boys being inseperable because they were so strongly in love no matter what the law says.

Some else that caught my eye was a sculpture by Grayson Perry called ‘God Please Keep My Safe’.  It had child like qualities, design of a rabbit with the repetition of title written all over it.  This repetition really stands out to me as a viewer and feel it’s a spectacle and the repetition reinforces this.