Experimentalskeleton.com

Experimentalskeleton.com is a really very interesting site to explore and look around on. First of all, the website is very simple to use, with clear display names that contain links, and a clean well organized structure. I first began to explore the past projects the site contains. Some of the most interesting ones I saw were the ES Toy show exhibit, and the lotus flower installation that included pyrotechnics and grand beautiful flowers.  My favorite parts about these pieces are that they have a meaning and message. My favorite “past project” is the Take Your Breath Away piece that showed how much CO2 emissions we give off, how they are reabsorbed, and how the same amount of area for one parking space could equal a plot of land in the rainforest that would absorb 3,500 Lbs of CO2 per acre per year.

This seems like a very fascinating group of artists who, despite the money driven world we live in, continue to create art that serves a purpose, and can help people to learn about our existence and how we can improve it. These projects were sometimes inspiring, thought provoking and shed a new light on what can be considered art, and how we can create art out of anything we want.

The War of the Worlds

Performed as a Halloween episode of the American radio show Mercury Theatre on the Air, the 1938 broadcast of Orson Welles the War of the Worlds create chaos and pandemonium to the public. The story, originally adapted from the novel The War of the Worlds by H. G. Welles, was about a group of alien life forms that come to Earth and disturb the people. While when many read the novel with no ideas of panic or reason to freak out, the fact that this version of the story was done over radio involved many reasons for it to be misunderstood and misinterpreted.

After the show aired, not only were many people outraged about the entire incident, many public figures spoke out about the broadcast, and newspapers and other radio news labeled it “cruelly deceptive”. But despite the bad press, and confusion among Americans, this single air time allowed Orson Welles to become very well-known.

Napoleon by Abel Gance

Napoleon is a silent film from 1927 directed by French man Abel Gance. The film was revolutionary in many ways, despite being a silent epic during a period where talking pictures were close on the horizon. A story of the famous rulers life, the way this movie was created was in many ways ahead of its time.  During filming, the crew used new techniques like hand held cameras shooting in action, along with new age editing techniques such as creating color by painting right on the film strip.

This movie was very important for the time where crucial big steps were being taken in the film-making industry, and all directors, producers, writers and so on were concerned with creating films that captured audience’s attention, and held it. It was a race to create the most beautiful and epic films so far in the history of movies.  This movie was created to show new developments in cinematography, and create a project that incorporated many of the new developments.

Frame by Frame Animation

This frame by frame animation is one of the coolest I’ve seen. Similar to the street art frame by frame animation we watched in class, this video is great because it is brought to life by the movement which is perfectly put together and runs smoothly like the materials take on a life of their own. My favorite parts about this animation were the computer screen and spilt coffee number count, and the staple-shark. It’s interesting how these everyday objects become characters in the story the artist is telling with movement.

I chose this frame by frame animation because my friends found it on YouTube and became obsessed with it. Its pretty funny because of the way Marcel speaks, but also because of the way they developed her character, and use the filming like an interview with her. My favorite part in this video is when she uses a piece of lint as a dog. Hahaha

I love the way this animation begins with the artist using his touch to look like he’s manipulating the character and drawing it with his fingers right there. I like the way he not only uses frame by frame techniques with the post it notes and the story there, but adds to it by also using the space around the post it notes to have physical items in play as well as drawings. My favorite part however is the very end where he piles up the used post-it notes and brings the story backwards so we see where he started and how he developed the images.

Singin' in the Rain

During the 50s many great advances in the film industry came about. The movie Singin’ in the Rain 1952 was one of the first motion pictures with sound both recorded along with the acting, and also added to the background of the taped footage. The most famous song performed of course is what the movie is named after. In class we took a look at this number performed in the original version of the movie from 1952, and later we saw the same song performed in a dramatically different light. “Singin’ in the Rain” appeared again nineteen years later in an almost scarily unique movie named “A Clockwork Orange” directed by Stanley Kubrick. Singing in the Rain and A Clockwork Orange were created during two drastically different points in our country’s history. One could even argue that during the almost twenty years between the releases of both, the United States went through the most significant change of our country’s past.

                The 1950’s was still a decade that was full of rules, church views, family values and hardworking American’s with one view morals. During this time our country was involved both in Korea during the war and also in the Space race with the soviet’s launch of Sputnik. Because of all of these things the government was trying to put out media that only soothed tensions and ideas at home. Not a lot about the war or soviet relations was released, and the main focus of many directors was to make movies that will keep focus here, and also make people happy, with entertainers such as Elizabeth Taylor, James Dean and Marlon Brando. The version of “singin’ in the rain” performed in the original movie was a happy number sung solely by the main character as he dances around tapping his feet and swinging on lampposts. This shows a happy go lucky attitude that the film industry aimed to put across in hopes of easing the public’s nerves.

                From the beginning on the 1960’s to the beginning of the 1970’s when A Clockwork Orange was released (1971) the United States took an immense turn and has never gone back to its conservative ways since.  Many social revolutions occurred during this time which was nicknamed the “cultural age”.  Sexism and racism both relaxed, and radical and new trends emerged. Many think our nation was reversing their rigid culture of the previous decade with unattainable demands, and break free of these social constraints through drastic digression from the norm. This explains why the second time “singing in the Rain” was performed in a movie that was made almost twenty years later; the delivery was on the opposite end of the spectrum. Acted out while abusing a tied up man, and going to rape his wife, the new message was not joyfulness, but rather an image with a deeper and more intense message.

Art and Technology

While discussing popular entertainment and how it played a major role in shaping the culure of America, s a class we examined some U.S. history to get a better grasp on how entertainment evolved in our own history not just in that of the world. A major part of American culture in the 20th century was the beginning of the Jazz music era. This was a defining segway into defining our own sense of unity. The origin of jazz music is by African American musicians in the south during the early 20th century. At this time many black musicians were trying very hard to get into the music game, and took musical traditions from both Africa and Europe to develope this popular style of music which consisted of notes from "blue's" songs along with polyrythms and improvised playing as well. The most interesting link I found while researching this topic is named "A Passion for Jazz" http://www.apassion4jazz.net/ and has links discussing everything about jazz music from milestones in the history of this genre, to a timeline, to musician tips and a photo gallery.

While still discussing American culture and how it was shaped by not only entertainment, but by many other major factors in our country's history, there is no way to skip over the stock market crash. The "stock market crash" of 1929 was when all the stocks on Wall Street crashed leading to a major downfall that lasted an entire month. This was preceeded by a period of decline in industrialized nations and also by declining real estate values. During these days, a majority of the population of Americans decided to sell or trade shares from the stock market, or to try and liquidate their funds from the bank. When this happened  all at once in a big panic, the market could no longer keep up and inevitably crash. The loss during this single week in 1929 was $30 billion.

The eonomic crisis we are currently in today is said to be the worst fincancial crisis since the great depression of the 1930's. Triggered by a shortfall of liquidity in the U.S. banking system, the effects have been grand and significant. These include the need for some national banks to be bailed out, the failure of several large financial institutions, suffering of housing markets, and even risidual effects that have caused downturns in stockmarkets across the world. With so much new technology and banking systems, much more seems to be at stake during this crisis (which could cause a tidal wave of crashing markets across the world).

Madama Butterfly

I really liked the beginning of this video. The combination of the opera playing in the background paired well with the happy, light feeling that the first part of this short was trying to express. At this point the music and singing going with the visual was happy and uplifting during the part where the butterfly finds this young woman, and the young woman falls in love with the captain. It was a "pretty" setting, and I found it interesting the way they used doll-like figures as the characters. While the two were making love the music was soft, slow yet powerul which was a perfect soundtrack to what was going on in the video. I couldn't really figure out what the meaning of the butterfly was, until she became pregnant I thought "oh, maybe the baby will connect to the butterfly in the way that it emerges from something and is beautiful". However, then the baby was represented like a fish in a bowl, which was a little bit bizzare, which then turned into a young girl still atached to her mother by the ambilical chord, which was also quite bizzare and a little gross.

I like that the entire time, the opera music is coming from an old music player, it makes it sound authentic and more personal as Madama carries it around with her. When the "barbie's" came back to take away the young girl I anticipated a dramatic change in the music correlating to Madama's feelings about being torn away from her child, but the music instead was sad and soft rather than angry. My favorite part of this short video is when Madama begins to dismemer herself. As the music builds we see this young woman tear away her outer shell and severs her insides.I think its a cool way of showing that this inanimate characters no longer wants to live. However, the end confuses me. I'm not sure whether Madama was the butterfly the whole time, dies and becomes the butterfly, or comes back to life with the butterfly's help. It was an interesting movie, but im not sure I got the message clearly...possibly that no matter what happens in life we all have the potential to find peace in ourselves, and even be our own butterfly, or perhaps the writer is trying to express their belief in reincarnation. Either message seems like an important one to express.