Graphical Music

Exp. graphisme sonore from Marc-Antoine Locatelli on Vimeo.

This week, I found a video relating to what we did in class. I found this video on my Tumblr feed and I was totally fascinated by it. The artist uses shapes and motion picture to express the sound. He uses geometric shapes in his video and the shapes changes according to the beat. It is titled Audio Research, created in 2012. It is a graphic experimentation around music with images. This video reminds me of the Synaesthesia exercise we did in class and I was really inspired that I came across this video.

Check out his other videos. Totally worth the few minutes of your life.

Marc-Antoine Locatelli

Vimeo  Tumblr

 

Lonely Houses.

These photographs were taken in the eastern seaboard of the U.S. is the solo row house. Standing alone, in some of the worst neighborhoods, these nineteenth century structures were once attached to similar row houses that made up entire city blocks. Due to time and major demographic changes, it resulted in the decay and demolition of many such blocks of row houses. Occasionally, one house is left and it is literally cut off from its neighbors. I find this series very interesting as it shows the emphasis of this lonely buildings left with nothing but the elements of nature surrounding it. The composition and the color of the picture and building plays a part in showing its loneliness.

My interest in these solitary buildings is not only in their ghostly beauty but in their odd placement in the urban landscape. Often three stories high, they were clearly not designed to stand alone like this. Many details that might not be noticed in a homogenous row of twenty attached row houses become apparent when everything else has been torn down. And then there's the lingering question of why a single row house was allowed to remain upright. Still retaining traces of its former glory, the last house standing is often still occupied. - Ben Marcin, The photographer

Check out his other series on his website. It's work the look. 

Ben Marcin

Photographer

 

Ropes in the Air.

The installations in this post are all made of ropes. The artist creates his installments with raw elements that can be found in our daily lives. His works are very simple but they have a meaning. The kind of art he is developing suggests an investigation on pureness and simplicity of life. His vision considers the rejection of speed, pollution, and all contemporary hurries in order to replace our attention on the purity of thought. Teo has been exhibiting his works in various galleries, walls, natural and abandoned spots all over the world. 

“My shapes are reduced to the minimum, at the same time they carry some kind of an intense tension, an invisible movement; most of my patterns hide multiple visions and different perspectives. I think my art now speaks through geometry”.

Moneyless' art is characterized by an investigation on the rawest elements of life and takes for granted a process of continuous evolution. He certainly owes his graphical mark to the street, where he was born as an artist and where he grounded his roots in the '90s graffiti/writing scene. 

Source: Moneyless

Time is a dimension.

It's amazing how we can capture moments and a slice of life with photographs. Day to night comes with changes of colours in the skies and the sun and moon switching places. These images give me an inspiration to take photographs to create a blend of an image that will show people the wonders of the world. I found Fong's photographs to be so beautifully spliced together and it is just a perfect way to showcase Singapore's beauty through images. The artist/photographer's photographs look so amazing that it just left me in awe viewing all of it. What makes it even more amazing is that the photographs were all taken in sunny Singapore.

Fong Qi Wei is an artist and photographer that “strives to make images which touches both the feeling part and the thinking part of your mind.” He wants to get your attention and hopefully engage you on a deeper level as you look at it for longer.

On his site he states,

“Photography is a medium that is famous for freezing time. The word snapshot suggests that a tiny slice of time is recorded for posterity… A photographic print is flat, and essentially is made of 2 dimensions: length and width. Yet through composition and lens focus we give a print depth… The best images are the ones which let you feel like you can step directly into the frame into a world which is on the other side.

But the print is still an instance. Most paintings and photographs are an instance of time. That’s not the way the world works. We experience a sequence of time, and that’s why a video is somehow more compelling than a freeze frame…

Photographic prints are great because they don’t need power to be displayed. They are more or less permanent. Videos are great because they record a sequence of time which shows reality almost like how we experience. Is it possible to combine the two? And not via long exposure photography where often details are lost from motion.

So I played around with the tools of digital photography and post processing to give you this series: Time is a dimension."

FONG QI WEI | fqwimages

Website| Facebook | Twitter | Tumblr

Photographer of Paris.

Charles Marville – Photographer of Paris

Charles Marville was born in the year 1816, and died at the age of 55 in 1879. He was originally trained as a painter, engraver, and illustrator, later on in his life, he became known as a landscape and architecture photographer. He traveled to Italy, Germany, and Algeria and used both paper and glass plate negatives. In the late 1850s the city of Paris commissioned Marville to document the ancient quarters of the city before encroaching urban modernization changed them forever. He photographed renovations and new construction, including the new Paris Opéra. Marville was also commissioned by the Musée du Louvreto make reproductions of artworks in their collection. He was named official photographer of Paris in 1862.

Unfortunately, there is not much information on his life other than the impressive body of work he left behind. Sometime in the 1850s Charles Marville was asked to document the old quarters of the French capital by the government's Commission for Monumental Historical Monuments. He purposely took the photographs of Paris's architecture and streets scenes when it was raining, so that the soft diffused light mixed with the rain on the cobblestone produced a picturesque image that elicited a feeling of perfection. One of Charles Marville's good friends was Blanquart-Evrard and through the years he published many of Charles Marville's images, including a group of his negatives of France and Germany in the album Art Religieux in 1854.

Marville’s most accomplished work was the album of 400 images of roads condemned by Baron Georges-Eugène Haussmann’s restructuring of Paris, for example Rue des Prêtres-St-Séverin (5e Arrondissement). At the request of the municipality, he took a systematic census of them before their demolition . Ten years later, he returned to the same sites where he was again commissioned to photograph the new main roads in order to present Haussmann’s Paris at the Exposition Universelle of 1878.

  

                 

Pile on the layers!

Sunset Spectrum

Browsing through Flickr, I came across this images and it caught my eye. At first glance on my screen I thought it was a painting of some sort of the clouds. Upon clicking on the enlarged picture I was surprised to find that it was actually an image. The clouds make it seem like the image is a painting its lines and strokes. It just looks amazing. I feel like the optical illusion worked on me.

Upon further research, I wondered how the images were created and I found my answer on the artist's page. He took over 200 shots of the same scenery with a time-lapse and then he compiles them together with the layering and blending technique on Photoshop. I was shocked at how easy the images took to compile and it amazed me to see that the techniques can be utilized to create astonishing images like these.

I would definitely try this technique the next time and I'll sure to try and create wonderful images like these.

By Matt Maloy. 

(A photographer who has been sharing his inspiring and awesome photographs since 2009)

Scribble away.

While browsing through a site, I came across these pictures and I was inclined to click on it. Lo and behold, I found these wonderful illustrations by a Malaysian Artist called Vince Low. This post is mostly inspired by the fundamental classes we had last week where we had to use lines to create images. I was awed by the illustrations as the strokes and lines looks wonderful. It amazes me how just different strokes and lines can form such a detailed image and that makes me appreciate the lessons taught earlier a bit more. There are so many ways for lines to be used in an illustration and just by looking at these I realized that even scribbles can make a detailed image.

Vince Low is an artist and illustrator from Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. In a recent personal project entitled Faces, he uses hundreds of scribble lines to create detailed portraits of famous celebrities. The works are fascinating to study to me, with a very clear and detailed portrait emerging from a chaotic series of scribbled lines both large and small. Looking through it all inspires me to be more creative with my lines. Lines are not just structured and straight. Different lines emit different emotions and looking and this made me understand the concept a little bit more.

Beauty of Vandalism.

Taken in Prague June 2013 on a long wall filled with graffitis.

Side of a building in the Paris streets, June 2013.

Underpass in Munich, October 2011.

I've always thought that graffitis were vandalism when in Singapore but as I travel and opened my eyes to the beauties of street graffitis, I've learnt to appreciate the art in them. The past few years as I've travelled across a few countries in Europe and United Kingdom and I've walked past many walls that were spray painted with vibrant colors. Some may have meaning to them and some may not but the colors and designs come together with the neighborhood and sometimes enhances the walking experience. These burst of colors and meaning on plain sidewalk walls are not just vandalism anymore, instead it feels like they're  painting a story or giving meaning to just a simple road picture and I find that amazing. These spur of the moment works that are on walls inspire me to be more creative. The colors, shapes and movement in them go well together to create a story. Some may be really just be plain vandalism but when on a wall with many other graffitis or spray paint works, it can tell a story or just be a mere wall with names on it and that to me is something interesting and wonderful.

I've heard about 2 notable graffiti artist that were involved in a "Graffiti War" - Banksy and King Robbo - with each other. The 'war' started back in  1985 on a tunnel in Camden, London and the original artist being King Robbo. They have never met but they would paint over each other's work to prove a point. Since then they have painted over each other's work notably and fans have started to anticipate what the next artist would spray paint next. Since the fights, their fan base grew. Seeing their works and reading the story made me realize the beauty of graffitis and how it can depict a story with colors and spray paint on a plan wall.

In 2011, King Robbo sustained a head injury that induced him into a coma. An as an ode to King Robbo, Banksy decided to end the graffiti war with a copy of somewhat the original graffiti spray painted by King Robbo, 28 years ago. The war has not stopped and it is still ongoing. I find these 2 artists' history with each other interesting and from just one piece of work, it sparked a slew of creative spray paintings to one-up one another and thats gives me a surge a creativity just by reading and looking at the art. I feel that by looking at graffitis, it is a way to express our creative side on a different less conventional media but even if the government or general public may find them unsightly there are still others that can appreciate the beauty in them.

This article sheds a clear light on the ongoing feud and the progress of the 2 artists:


King Robbo Exclusive Interview: My Graffiti War With Banksy by Jo Fuertes-Knight

Some pictures of their works:

Original graffity by King Robbo

Enter Banksy painting over it.

King Robbo's rebuttal.

Final art by Banksy for King Robbo while he was in the coma.

Mercedes' Secret.

A quote taken in the Mercedes Showroom 

located in Germany Oct' 11.

This was taken while I was in Germany 2 years ago. It was on display in the Mercedes showroom around the old and new models of the brand. The quote did not display the original writer. The bigger fonts are in German language and the translation is underneath it. This quote was a representation of the brands' innovation and motto to create newer better cars that are meant for the people. Sometimes when looking into the future, we have to be creative and ask the right questions to stay in the industry.

'To stay fit for the future,

You have to ask the right questions - 

sometimes unusual ones.'

This quote inspires me to think of the future; to be more creative and to ask questions. At a point where I was in a rut with my creativity and what I was doing, this quote helped motivate me to ask questions and be rather optimistic with the state I was in. It proved to be a helpful quote and it one that I cherish and remember when my creative juices are run dry.