Samurai SLICE!

SAMURAI! This video is really cool. The slow motion cinematographer, and the amazing quality of picture is truly a fascinating insight to the death of the tomato. The high contrast in color allows the visual to be powerful, impact-full and make a lasting impression. The water and juice flying out of the tomato is a mesmerizing moment. The samurai slice is soooo sweet! I had a bit of fear that the camera was too close to the tomato and it was about to get sliced. I think that very tension is what fuels this picture to be effective and exciting. The egg slice is just as awesome, seeing it split and slide open like that. Having the high speed camera allow the viewer to witness something like this is such a technological opportunity for opening a new perspective being that this event is nearly impossible to discern in real time. SCHOOOooooooo.

KiKi Smith, Jewel

This is a 3 minute excerpt from the 62 minute original cinema, Jewel, by Kiki Smith in the year 1997. I was originally searching for a sort of documentary film on Kiki Smith's sculpture, but instead found this cinema that I found to be really engaging. At first glance, the composition seemed to depict bloomed dandy-lions drifting through the air. But as I stayed with the footage longer, I realized I wasn't sure what the drifting forms were, amoeba's of sorts with long thin wrapping tentacles, or jellyfish. The mood comes across as a sort of nostalgia for me and the gentle movement of the forms conveys some kind of peace. Yet the mystery of what the picture is actually abstracted from, remains as an evoking and inquisitive thought that engages the viewer, allowing the seemingly simple composition to not loose its power and sustain its integrity. The colors are greatly contrasted. The pattern of movement and forms establishes unity. The lack of audio seems to actually work for this cinema, rather than lacking sensory stimulus, it serves the piece better than some other examples of silent cinema.

Antony Gormley Process

Antony Gormley, British sculptor, castes his own body out of plaster. He then takes that caste and layers it in fiberglass, then a layer of wax. From which a lead or iron scuplture is made, leaving the space inside the scuplture, open- a vessel for the memory of the body that used to be there. Witnessing the artist's creative process, for me, can be sometimes more engaging than the product, or makes the product that much more layered with detail that stimulates my creative energy. I appreciate this films breif window into the proceess of Antony Gormley and appreciate its time to release the verbal narrative allowing the silence and essence of the picture to speak for itself.
(photo, Antony Gormley, Three Calls: Pass, Cast and Plumb, 1984)