Composition through High Voltage

After lasts weeks session and the blog posts below, I looked into photography for my composition research.

I found 'Phillip Stearns' concept of 'high voltage images' very interesting as he is 'taking the idea of our camera being an extension of the eye literally to an extreme.' (Ignant 2014)

Here he manipulates film to create scratches, burns and cracks to create the effect of blood vessels in our eyes.

This concept could be applied to any type of image and even our own personal photographs to perhaps change the message behind an image through composition. Indeed this concept could also be applied to a moving image such as the ones used in 'decaysia' or an animated GIF.


http://vimeo.com/60087137

polaroid - automatic 240 land camera

I'm really intrigued by the concept of time and film, both through photographic and moving images.
In relation to the concept of film and time from my previous post on the experimental found footage film Decasia, I am presenting some of my own findings. 

I work at a graphic design and printing company, and decided to see if this polaroid camera we had as a display/archival item still worked. To my surprise, it did, and it still even had polaroid film in it. The photographs below show the polaroids taken from the camera and demonstrate the concept of film and time. This camera had clearly not been used in many years and I was really fascinated by the confusion of frame, lighting and layers of the polaroids.

The first photo

Stop motion Mozart

I recently remembered this video from a while back, the man does a rendition of Mozart's Marriage of Figaro by composing previously filmed notes on his guitar. I found this not only incredible by normal standards but I realised how much this effort uses composition. The Guitarist is man named Joe Penna.

Decasia

Bill Morrison, 2002

In reference to the curiosities of aged film, I have sourced the experimental film Decasia as an example of the relationship of film and time and the form of art it can become as a result of poor preservation and decay.

This film was composed out of a discovered stash of archival film celluloid that had been forgotten for many years. 

The composed result of images and sound is disturbingly beautiful.

Bill Morrison explores the idea of composition via sound and visual, adapting found footage to an accompanied symphony of hypnotic instrumental sounds. The timeline of footage is composed of layers of celluloid image, mould, blistering, scratches, burns, etc., as a result of film decomposition.

I personally found this film quite unsettling to watch and could not sit through the entire thing...but the further into the film, the more fascinatingly surreal the visuals become as each shot exhibits more and more signs of decay.

Watch Decasia in Entertainment  |  View More Free Videos Online at Veoh.com

figures in motion reseach

Dancers by Shinichi Maruyama: 'I tried to capture the beauty of both the human body’s figure and its motion. The figure in the image, which is formed into something similar to a sculpture, is created by combining 10,000 individual photographs of a dancer.' By putting together uninterrupted individual moments, the resulting image as a whole will appear to be something different from what actually exists. via toxel.com #Photography #Dancers # Shinichi_Maruyama

Week 2 Composition (Developments)

From Edweard Muybridge's 'Human Figure In Motion' 

Animated GIF  (Skipping)

Today several artists were introduced around the topic of composition.

Francis Bacon 

John Maybury

Leigh Bowery (Australian)

Lucien Freud

(All linked as at some points they worked with each other at some point of their careers)

The Zoetrope as a moving image projector

Edweard Muybridge

was introduced for his work in the development of photography and especially his development of sequential, serial photography as a precursor of film.

Today animated gifs from Muybridge stills were created where several approaches were introduced.
a) simple frame by frame sequential animations

b) adding secondary layers where the opacity of the new layer is altered
prior to its becoming a 100%
full strength image in the following frame.

c) adding different layer effects (dissolve, overlay, difference, screen etc.)

d) SAVE FOR WEB (selecting appropriate outputs & testing the resultant GIF in a browser).

Your mission is to now develop your own responses to the concept of COMPOSITION where you may use software to create an outcome or develop your ideas
OR
you may choose to film something (by booking a video camera out from Kevin)
OR
you may present a blended development of LIVE presentation with a projection (still or moving)
OR
you may create a series of still images exploring COMPOSITION.

GOOD LUCK 

New Year 2014

COMPOSITION Introduction

Murray McKeich

Natalie Bookchin

Steve Kardynal

Henri Chopin

Richard Wagner

(Ring de Niebelungen)

Simon Biggs

The Golden Section

Performance Art

Stan Brakhage

Len Lye

Yoko Ono

Your mission 

is to research 

& find 

relevant artists or artworks 

that stimulate 

your understanding 

of the term 

COMPOSITION 

Your mission

is to start some ideas 

that explore ideas about composition

so

that we can review, discuss & explore in more depth

what composition can be

or is 

or has been

:)(: