Here are some pictures that I took while living in Taiwan. Festivals were a great feast of lights, especially the lantern festival, which livened up the colder months of the year with bright red, strange creatures, and old traditional stories embodied in larger than life lanterns…
You Tube
a random moment
Self portrait
4) And the final result became this three layered composite, of original background, filtered and painted background duplicate layer, and the self portrait. Each of the added layers had its opacity adjusted, while the back layer was left with original density.
3) The background seemed to be in need of a little playfulness, or abstraction so I decided to apply some white paint, streaking the cement background with the paint bucket… But first a duplicate image was made, creating a new layer, so that I could play with opacity later on. Then I decided to apply the blurring filter, creating the somewhat random flow of colors amidst the grey/blue scale of the picture.
2) The first thing I did was work on the self portrait, transforming it to grey scale, and then adjusting the grain and heightening the contrast. After trying various filters I settled for a dramatic film grain, creating a softer image.
1) The creative process began with two images, my own photos, one taken in slightly dramatic reverie this past spring, and one which came to be while traveling across Russia this past July. Since I have been working on a series of color photographs of water reflections for the past years, I thought I might play with that idea…
Espace Sono
Finally an effective jaunt across town to Espace Sono, after two attempts which only resulted in my expressions of self frustration, standing in front of the locked door. But there was no regret after such a prolonged build up, as I lost myself in strange worlds of sound, amidst vacillating voices and mechanical sounds.
Sitting in the well designed space, white square cushioned seats, ears covered and sounds vibrating. The slow motion of sounds evolving through Anna Friz’s wander through Toronto streets, the common sounds forming a background to spoken word, about weather and passing sights. Or the recoded sounds of a street, which pervade our everyday wanders through a city, gently outlined in this conscious auditory space, juxtaposed to the comfortable home environment.
Katarina Zdjelar spoken piece, undulating in waves of distant and approaching speech, first person experience, spoken in present continuous, an expression of struggle, the tension of home, obstructed by borders, visas, potential threats and desires to be at rest.
The wide breadth of sound spaces to be entered, the solitary nature of the experience, the comfort of sitting while outside the sounds of city business continue, the different physical spaces created an interesting space to exit from my day, and in re-entering, heightened my auditory experience. I will be returning for further moments of cushioned sounds.
- “Anna Friz.” 19 Sep. 2007 <http://www.kunstradio.at/BIOS/frizbio.html>
- “Heavyside Jamie Allen » Binaural Architecture.” 19 Sep. 2007 <http://heavyside.net/jamie/works/binaural-architecture/>
- “Piet Zwart Institute - Katarina Zdjelar.” 19 Sep. 2007 <http://pzwart.wdka.hro.nl/fama/studentwork/katarinazdjelar/>
- “S o u n d L A B » Interview: Anna Friz.” 19 Sep. 2007 <http://soundlab.newmediafest.org/blog/?p=88>
brief note…
At times checking gallery schedules can help save useless metro rides across town, but today my oversight merely led to the discovery of my mistake. And so, Espace Sono will have to be visited tomorrow.
Mois de la Photo
Mois de la Photo…
Perhaps Cote-des-Neiges being across and behind the vast flanks of Mont Royal has its benefits, as a Sunday afternoon allowed me to spend time alone amidst the striking, clean composed lines of Shao Yinong & Mu Chen. So as not to get lost, and for fear of being incarcerated for violating copyright with my camera in a photo exhibit, I proceeded to find a delightfully uncontroversial picture in the elevator, tucked away beside the entrance of Maison de la Culture de Cote-des-Neiges, next to the constant flow of library visitors.
After spending last Thursday perusing the various vernissage events between Darling Foundry, Parisian Laundry, and the damaged bus with holographic images of near death experiences, I decided to wander through a part of the world I travelled to this past summer, and enjoy the still speech of carefully delineated and well balanced still photographs taken in China.
The third floor was beautifully lit by a wall of windows screened with light grey blinds. Along the right hand wall, two series of nine images, portraits in the dark of night, lit by bright white light. The two series entitled Fuxi Fuxi 1, eight be-headed stone statues of traditional guardians or laozhe, and Fuxi Fuxi 3, a series of mythical animal guardians, seated, lying, protecting from imminent attack, their etched stone sides starkly contrasting the dark night around them. These two series, made just last year, were positioned across from 7 still images of buildings, silent memories of structural eras.
Most striking is the photographer’s eye, which is the combined effort of this couple’s artistic endeavours, using the classical form of perspective drawings to draw the viewer inevitably into the center of the image, a firm geometric space. Since the gallery attendant was sitting watchfully behind the desk on the third floor, I did not attempt to take a photograph under her surveillance. Perhaps the most striking of these architectural photographs was one entitled Haixinsha, Guangzhou, China, January 2005. Straight down the middle, a still grey canal, flanked by the uniformly rectangular structures of modern high-rises to the right, and the long single floored traditional wharf house with white star shaped window lattices on the left. The monotone pallet dictated by the pervading smog of pollution.
Having checked the perspective of security cameras on the second floor, I proceeded down to a room, without natural source of light, but well lit with studio lights, and a series of nine theater/gathering halls, photographed in various states of destruction and opulent red adornment, silent testimonies of lost cultural heritage, and charred memories of artistic expression.
Each of these images used the traditional perspective grid, perfectly drawn towards the center, into the distance, gently lifted above the sooty, flour bag filled, chair lined, random object strewn floors… The ceilings, at time mere wooden rafters, or strangely hanging remnants of roofing, as well as the intense traditionally red painted panels of a Chinese meeting room. Each image displayed a prevalent tone, using a dominant colour to unify an already precisely calculated composition. Standing there amidst forgotten creative spaces, these saturated pixels create a gentle memories, despite the distance from which the viewer perceives this physical documentation of cultural heritage…
- copyright 1998-2007 the-artists.org / m@the-artists.net. “Shao Yinong and Mu Chen artist and art…the-artists.org.” 19 Sep. 2007 <http://www.the-artists.org/ArtistView.cfm?id=BE6178AF-D625-4459-E939ECADFDD64AA9>
- “Shao Yinong and Mu Chen on artnet.” 19 Sep. 2007 <http://www.artnet.com/artist/95191/shao-yinong-and-mu-chen.html>
- “Shao Yinong and Mu Chen | Goedhuis Contemporary.” 19 Sep. 2007 <http://www.goedhuiscontemporary.com/artists/symc/sy.mc.html>
