#but found that there's too many layers of context that can be constructively added to get into here

[astralazuli]

I had to watch What The Bleep Do We Know in a meditation class in college & discovered while trying to write an addition to this post about it, that I still have A Lot of anger about the fact that that movie exists at all, much less that it is presented as a scientific documentary. To sum up: Meditation instructor, finishing talking about the section of the film we just watched: & so you see, Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle shows that reality really is only what we think it is & that our thoughts are what creates how the world works.

Me, a physics major who did a unit on the uncertainty principle a couple of weeks ago, & who has been desperately trying not to rage quit a one credit meditation class that is responsible for keeping my health insurance: Wow, I do not think I can even begin to express how intensely incorrect that statement is. However, that very much is not going to stop me from trying to explain it to you in front of the entire class.

[potteresque-ire]

Not sure if this has circulated before, but here’s a link to Henry Jenkin’s reactions to 227, largely as responses to an interview he did with Sanlian Lifeweek magazine (三聯生活周刊), a publication modelled after TIME magazine and published under China Press Publishing group (中國出版集團), the largest and state-owned publisher in China. The magazine asked for Jenkin’s opinions on the fandom-related aspects of 227 back in March, 2020. Henry Jenkins, as many may already know, is among the most renowned scholars of (Western) fan culture ... if not the most renowned.

Personally, I find this article to be quite limited in perspective, because 227 had a significant non-fandom-oriented, sociopolitical component ~ and hence its scope, its chaos, its damage. IMO, 227 stopped being a fan war, stopped being about solos, cpfs, and even Gg the moment AO3 was shut down ~ the powerful Chinese state had intervened, and the incident necessarily became a political incident. That One Fic on AO3, the conflict between solos and cpfs about whether and where That Fic should exist was at most a lighter left at the scene of what would become the blaze; it wasn’t even responsible for igniting the first fire. Most i-turtles (i-fruits?) are probably aware too at this point: if fan wars are sufficient to start 227, then there wouldn’t have been a 227 ~ because 227 would have been every date of the year.

Fan culture is fundamentally transgressive, and what that means can only be defined in the context of the subculture’s “mainstream” sociopolitical and cultural environment. I therefore find the article’s attempt to transplant Western fan culture’s observations / theories / analysis / conclusions to the incident without explicitly comparing, addressing in depth the differences of the pre- and post-transplant environment to be ... prone to rejections (as organs are after transplantations!)—exclusion from being useful or valid. And this article was very short on such comparisons or address. Jenkins being a fandom expert aside (and he was careful about not treading outside his area of expertise), early “antis” of 227 presented themselves as crusaders for the freedom of speech and, by late March when this article was published, the heated debates surrounding the incident on Chinese social media had already led to embarrassment for multiple powerful state publications. It was probably a wise choice to not make another dive into the political aspects of the incident.

Being a new(-ish) turtle who joined the fandom a full half-year after 227, I’ve been backtracking, trying to really understand the incident, which remains very much beyond comprehension in many aspects. The discussions I’ve dug up that have most fascinated me have been those in non-fandom spaces, by non-fandomers / politics enthusiasts who barely knew who Gg was, who didn’t know That One Fic involved more than one idol and had zero knowledge about solos vs cpfs. In these discussions, “antis” are not referred to as “antis” because while the action of the so-called “227 coalition” was to kill Gg’s career, that wasn’t considered its ultimate goal ~ its ultimate goal was to warn whoever tried to clamp down the freedom of expression that their opposition was strong enough, populous to fight back and take away whatever, whoever those who attempted the clamp-down care the most about. In this case, “Gg fans”—I put this in quotes because eventually, no one would know who would lurk behind those pro-Gg Weibo IDs (and the anti-Gg ones as well)—were the perceived enemies of creative freedom. Gg, assumed to be the one, the symbol of what “GG fans” cared about the most, naturally became the target of the coalition.

Gg wasn’t special in that sense ~ and that was perhaps, the saddest thing I found about this incident as a Gg fan (without quotation marks); Gg could be any idol who achieved top fame at the moment, who had enough fans to make the point known. The coalition was therefore not “anti-Gg” in its ideological sense. It was anti the fan circle culture that had cemented Gg’s popularity, that had already been known to deal extremely poorly with dissent—complaints had been abound that c-ent was no longer fun for bystanders because the latter could issue no critique, not even doubt, about an idol without the fear of being reported, torn down by fans. The coalition eventually grew to include anti the many happenings, the many censorships and imprisonments in the past few years that had silenced the creative crowd in China, happenings people dared not speak about beyond a loud grumbling ...

The coalition tried to take down Gg, because they couldn’t take down the force that had shut down AO3, that was truly responsible for the silencing. They played the Hunger Games in the Weibo arena instead of challenging Who The Real Enemy Was, because some might not have given much thought about  The Enemy; some might have thought the Enemy too invincible to be worth the effort; some might have got too carried away by their blood thirst, the cruel schadenfreude of shredding a beautiful, successful young man into pieces, and forgot why they were there in the first place ... 

And that was only the political side of 227. 227 was also widely suspected to have a commercial component, which added another layer to the symbolism behind Gg the Idol ~ pretty much as soon as 227 happened, netizens investigated, tried to uncover the chain of capital behind Gg. With the scent of money was the memory of filth associated with it, in a country not exactly  unknown for its corrupt business practices. Much like in The Book of Exodus in the Bible, the Idol is believed to be forged with gold; it is ungodly, tainted. Whether Gg the Person was identical to Gg the Idol, Gg the Symbol mattered to few. That Gg *was* a person seemed lost to many ... 

I’ll have to dive into the non-fandom aspects of 227 with more rigour. As much as I'd love to leave 227 behind, every time I see Gg, I see its legacy on his face, in his smile, and perhaps, I’m not the only one ~ ADLAD cast him as Patient #5 because of 227′s effect on him. Put it another way, 227 is already modifying, writing Gg’s career trajectory ~ a trajectory that is undoubtedly under scrutiny by many who wish to duplicate his success but circumvent his pain. And every time I see a young idol—Gg, Dd, and anyone else—I wonder if the hurt of 227 can happen to them (again) because the crux of the incident has never been resolved; the oppression and silencing have remained strong as ever. 

Anyway (sorry for the rant) ... what I found noteworthy about this article was the quotes the magazine highlighted in its published form (in Chinese), which weren’t highlighted by Jenkins on his own website. They reflected what the magazine would like to be the take-home messages of the interview. I’ve listed them below; all of which had Jenkins as the speaker:

[Pie Note: About Real Person Fiction (RPF) in Western fandoms]

“American fans often do have some shared norms about what is and is not appropriate to write, mostly having to do with protecting the privacy of other people in the star’s life. Writing about the star is seen as fair game; writing about their family members is not.”

---

[Pie Note: About GG being “cast” as a transgender woman in The One Fic that started the incident; gender in fandom]

“We write fan fiction as a form of speculation and exploration. For some people, it may be one of the few spaces in the culture where they can express who they are, what they are feeling, what they are desiring. And for others, it is a place of “what if” where they explore in fantasy things they would not necessarily desire in reality.” 

---

[Pie Note: Whether GG should be held responsible for his fans’ behaviour]

“Under these circumstances, I would not hold a performer responsible for his fans’ behaviors but the performer is responsible for their own behavior and fans may respond negatively to performers who over-react to the existence of alternative fantasies and insult or hector their audiences.”    

---

[Pie Note: About AO3 and why fans were so upset about its closure] “Keep in mind that AO3 is a particular kind of platform. Alongside Wikipedia, AO3 is one of the greatest accomplishments of participatory culture in the digital era.”

---

[Pie Note: About the “problematic” content on AO3]

“Among my findings were that fan fiction sites can be a valuable space for young people to acquire skills (and receive feedback) on their writing from more experienced writers who share these same passions ... That said, while teens have participated in fandom, a large part of those on AO3 are adults, engaging in adult conversations on adult topics.”

---

[Pie Note: About media text in the new media era]

“First, I would stress the proliferation of media texts at the current moment ... We have access to a much broader range of media content than ever before and in this context, fans play a constructive role in curating that content, helping some shows get greater visibility ...  Second, these texts have become more malleable”

---

[Pie Note: About idols not producing “good” media texts]

“Rather, the question should be what are fans finding meaningful about these performers and the texts they generate. I start from the premise that human beings do not engage in meaningless activities. I may not immediately recognize why something is meaningful but my job as a scholar is to understand why cultural materials are meaningful to the people who cherish them.”

---

My understanding of this selection of quotes is this: this state publication (as others) was quite ready to forgive Gg, to put this incident behind. It could choose to not publish this interview; it could choose to leave out certain quotes, or not do the highlighting that cast both AO3 and Gg in a positive / innocent light. But it did all these things. This article furthers my impression that the state never intended 227 to blow up the way it did, and that it did—enough for stories about it to be found in non-China websites, and in English—was what I’m still trying to comprehend. 227 was, admittedly, how I was first introduced to Gg beyond Wei Wuxian. And as I got to know Gg, like Gg, my want to understand 227 only becomes stronger, perhaps because only through comprehension I feel I can find peace for the GG fan (again, without quotation marks) in me.

Maybe I should email Dr Jenkins and ask if he’s looking for a PhD candidate. 5 years of research and thinking ... maybe that’s what it’ll take. 

I feel I’ve already started anyway. 

[b00t-s]

We're all gossip-y bitches sometimes

this is part two

Janus xey/xem

Roman she/he

Patton he/him

Virgil he/him

See the character intros for more info

TW. Swearing, arguments, alcohol, drunk characters, the word v//mit is used once, characters being characters, past trauma mentioned, tiny tiny tiny sprinkle of angst but just a passing of it at end, and nothing to intense

Again, tell me if I'm being insensitive. Shout at me if I am.

Summary: Patton goes to talk to Janus about Roman. The group opens...'some' bottles. Virgil adds on some...interesting opinions.

Events occur few hours after this.

Janus just finished xeir nightly shift when Patton came bounding up to xem. Janus raised an eyebrow at how ecstatic he looked.

"Yes?" Xey managed out, forcing back the hundreds of snarky comments xey could of said right then.

"Can you hang out at My house later?" Patton practically beamed out.

"why would I want to 'hang out'? It's just a social construct created to give people a higher sense of being." Janus remarked, flipping to closed/open side to closed.

"So you'll be there?"

"hmm. Will doom-and-gloom be there?

"doom and---ohhh, Virge. Yeah, probably," Patton realised now that this was a bad mix of people to invite "probably-probably not for long though!"

"Fine" Janus replied, taking off xeir apron. Xey ignored the obvious lie. "I'll be there in an hour." Xey knew one way or another xey would end up there due to Patton's... effective persuading.

"Great!" Patton exclaimed "oh yeah, and...um...it's raining outside so..take my umbrella, kay?"

His tone more serious all of a sudden, Patton nodded to Janus' heavily made up face, so well done an ignorant bystander wouldn't of noticed the thick layers of foundation on xeir face.

Patton handed xem a translucent umbrella, patterned with cute frogs and flowers, to Janus. Ignoring the distasteful cartoons, Janus nodded and took the umbrella.

"See you soon, Jan!" Patton cheerily waved as he bounced off.

Janus folded xeir apron, opened Patton's umbrella and braved the outdoors.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Janus arrived at Patton's house exactly on time, bone dry, despite the heavily flowing rain. Patton expected nothing less of his friend. He invited xem inside, amazed as always by his friend's everyday fashion.

Jan was wearing a casual yellow shirt over a long sleeved black shirt. Fishnet gloves adorned xeir hands, and xeir ruffled hair was let lose.

Xeir fashionably messy hair was topped with a neatly placed black fedora, which of xey never took off. Xey even scarred persuaded Thomas to let xem wear it to work.

Patton offered xem a smile, and walked xem upstairs. "Hi Jan!" He grinned.

"Hello" xey replied mundanely.

Xey absent-mindedly glanced at Patton's outfit, which contained a violet cashmere sweater, bell bottomed jeans, circular silver glasses and a sunflower clip in his perfect curls.

It was a good look, xey had to admit.

When they both reached Patton's room, Janus stood still, taking in xeir surroundings.

Patton's room was covered with things from the 2000's; Tamagotchi's, stickers pressed up against the pastel wall, stuffed animals, wristbands, old CD's, care bears posters and butterfly clips littering the floor in a deadly trap.

A trans flag was pinned above the single bed with blue tack, right next to some inspirational and motivational quotes.

The whole place looked like it had been puked on by unicorns.

It hurt Janus' eyes.

Xey was a little overwhelmed by all the spiraling colours and nostalgia-inducing objects, so xey sat cross-legged in the middle of the pink carpet. The world slowed down.

Janus wondered, not for the first time, how a 29 year old could be this cheerful.

.

Or appear this cheerful.

"Jan?"

Janus gave a small twitch of xeir head, realising that xey had spaced out. "Hmm?" Xey replied.

"Hey, you were up with the clouds! I was just saying, I think Virge is here" Patton chirped.

"oh"

"he...might be staying for a little longer then i said"

"How wonderful." Janus muttered, knowing this would happen but hating it anyway.

"oh, don't be like that! I'm sure you guys could become friends!" Janus snorted. "Or...at least not kill at each other whenever you're in the same general area" Patton corrected.

"Anyway! I'm going to greet him at the door!" He suddenly proclaimed, skipping downstairs.

Janus was disgusted at how naïve this man was.

But that was a lie.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------

Patton slowed his happy skip to a casual walk. His grin slipped into a content smile as he reached the end of the stairs. Being so happy takes its toll on people, he thought. Soft tapping of the door interrupted his thoughts as he opened the door to reveal Virgil.

The first thing you notice about this man was his unfair tall-ness. He nearly had to duck to get inside; being too skinny didn't help. Virgil was wearing a plain black hoodie over a mcr top, completing the look with a short, pleated skirt and docs. His face was slathered in white foundation, accompanied with dark eyeshadow under his eyes.

"Virge!! I'm glad you could make it, even if you are late!!Again!" Patton hugged his friend, genuinely glad for his presence. The taller man patted Patton's curls awkwardly.

"Heyyyy Pat-" Virgil did the awkward pats on the back everyone does when they want to get out of a hug but don't want to say it in fear of hurting ones feelings. "Traffic-"

Patton withdrew from the hug and smiled. "okay! at least you're here safe! Can't control the traffic"

"Janus is waiting for us upstairs" Patton continued. He hurriedly carried on speaking before Virgil could spit out an insult about xem "say, you know what I hate about stairs? They're always up to something!" Patton laughed at his own joke, whilst Virgil pretended to face-palm, hiding a snigger.

"Alright, Alright dAd, didn't you say snake face was waiting for us?" Virgil mocked. Patton chuckled uncomfortably at the nickname, but nodded nonetheless.

"Yeah, we shouldn't leave xem waiting"

They both entered his room, having walked the short journey there in a comfortable silence. Patton noted Janus had not moved from were he left xem; xey had just shifted to read a book xey most likely found lying around. Janus looked up upon their arrival, xeir face immediately twisting into a mocking grimace upon seeing Virgil. "ah, you brought the racoon"

"Janus play nice--"

"you're one to talk, you participated in 2012 Tumblr" Virgil threw back

"must you be so wounding" Janus dramatically threw xeir hand against xeir forehead.

"okAY, that's enough guys." Patton firmly said. Janus pulled a face in reply, and Virgil returned the favour. Patton sighed. He just wanted them to get along, which was probably a high expectation by itself.

Perhaps he had booze leftover somewhere.

--------------------------------

Twelve near fist fights, two crying sessions and many, many, many bottles of alcohol later, it was nearing eleven pm and the group was drunker than a litter of catnip high kittens.

They all crowded into a close-knit circle on the bed, nearly falling off but not caring.

"ssso your telling me that flashy asss hhimbo sssssaid I wasss hot but then rude and that I wore too muchh makeup? What a *hic* bitchh" Janus hissed.

Patton giggled. "yeeeeee, be nice though! She was kindaaaa alllllllll over the place!" Patton continued bluntly, "But how would you feel if I set you guys up????~"

"oh pleassssse do, I would just love that" Janus may be trashed but xey still knew sarcasm. Unfortunately, or fortunately, depending who you are, Patton did not.

"yayyy! This is gonna be great!!"

Virgil butted in then, waving around the bottle he was holding "hold on, just holllld on a minute there, you're planning to set up that" he vaugly gestured in Janus' direction "with Princy??? Xey've known her for what, 4 minutes? Life isn't a disney movie"

"Dare I detect a hint of jealousy there emo?" Janus purred "am I that lovable?" Xey hiccuped.

"ooooooooh" Patton leaned into the circle, loving the drunk drama.

"wouldn't you like to know weather boy" Virgil droned back, finishing off the bottle.

"Honey, I would dare ssay that was a yesss"

"nO"

"oooooo, you liiiiike meeeEe"

"you disgust me"

"kinky"

Patton shook his hands excitingly at them, nearly hitting Virgil, causing them to shut up. "I can't believe you're finally open to a relationship after what happened! With my best friend no least! Boy did I try to get you to go on more dat--" Patton suddenly clasped his hands over his mouth as if he just said something nasty.

.

.

Everyone went silent. Janus stared at Patron, xeir mouth slightly parted. Virgil laughed nervously to try and break the tension. It sounded strained.

Janus began to speak to stop Patton from starting to spout drunken apologies. "Well thatssss jusst a liee, I've dated pleeenty of people over..well...that...period..of time."

Everyone went silent again, not quite sure on what to say.

Virgil's anxiety was heightening due to the social awkwardness and the influence of the alcohol.

Patton was fidgeting in his lap.

It was Janus yet again who broke the uncomfortable atmosphere.

"Sssso, *hic* you ssaid you wanted me to go out with thisss idiot?"

----------------------------------

first-previous-next

updated masterpost

tag list: @arrowthenon-binaryroyalty, @spellingwillbethedeathofme,

ask if you want to be added or removed from tag list

and we meet our boi virgil

context is for losers

i could of probably cut out unnecessary things in that but y'know I'm new and I like it

these posts will be in chronological order, unless flashback, but it's not following a set-in-stone story line, so asks are, yet again, much appreciated.

I procrastinated too much during the making of this

[daresplaining]

Daredevil Countdown: 8 Days

Trailer #1 Analysis

    We barely had time to recover from Iron Fist Season 2 before Netflix started dumping Daredevil content on us, and it’s been tough to keep up! We were away minding our own business at NYCC when this trailer dropped, and we’ve only just started to pick through it. There are some major revelations in this thing, which I’m very excited about. There are also a few scenes excerpted here that we saw in their entirety at NYCC, so while I’ll try to keep spoilers to a minimum, expect some minor ones.

    Is it geeky to get a kick out of Matt saying this? Because this makes me really happy. He has spent so much time struggling with his superhero identity that just hearing him call himself Daredevil is thrilling. Also, the background seems to suggest that he’s in the church, and may therefore be saying this to Maggie... which is good, because in one of the scenes we saw at NYCC, she called him “the Devil of Hell’s Kitchen” and I nearly pitched a fit. 

    We saw this scene, so I won’t go into details... beyond saying that it kicks off what sounds like will be an interesting (read: upsetting) relationship between Fisk and the FBI, and as well as Fisk’s manipulation of the justice system and the city as a whole this season. He is getting out of prison and aiming to reclaim  his throne, and this trailer gives us hints of some of the pawns he will be using to make that happen. 

    Hey look, it’s Rosalie Carbone!

    And we’ve mentioned it before, because it’s been in a bunch of the promos, but it’s great to finally have Fisk in his comics-accurate white suit! He looks great. 

    We’re also finally getting Sister Maggie! In the comics, of course, Maggie is Matt’s long-lost mother. In the show, we know that she works at the orphanage where Matt ended up after Jack’s death, and that she will be providing him some degree of emotional support (not to mention medical help...) following his near-death experience under Midland Circle. Their relationship is very strange, and in the comics they’ve spent a long time trying to negotiate their dynamic. They go back and forth on their degree of emotional closeness (depending on the writer), and while they will likely never have a parent/child relationship in the traditional sense, they do hold deep significance in each other’s lives. Whether that will become true in the show remains to be seen, but at the very least, Maggie will clearly act as a confidante for Matt during this difficult time. 

    This is one of several highly intriguing interactions between Matt and Fisk in this trailer. The surveillance is particularly interesting. It ties into the suggestion later in the trailer that Fisk will develop some control over media surveillance (in the comics he buys his own radio station during Chichester’s run). It also gives me a small amount of hope that we might get expert media manipulator Jonathan Powers (AKA the Jester) in the show, because that would be really cool. But why is Matt in a doctor’s office in a suit? The framing of this scene is great, and I really need to know what’s going on here. 

    Matt channeling that Stick vibe is something I never knew I needed. And this is another intriguing interaction between these two. What is the context here? For now, I love how cocky Matt sounds in this clip. Clearly, his spirit has not been broken (yet?) by this point. 

    At NYCC, there was some mention of a scene that would rival the hallway scene from Season 1. This may be it. I’m already pumped about this, because I love when Matt fights in civvies! If I were to guess what was going on here, I’d assume these are prisoners in Fisk’s pocket who have been instructed to take Matt out. This has serious “Devil in Cell Block D” (a story arc in which Matt is sent to prison) vibes, and that is very exciting. Whether or not the actual story draws from that arc, just a reference to the tone or basic concept would be awesome. 

    After two full seasons of teasing, we’re finally getting a Gladiator origin! Back in our Season 2 countdown, I wrote a post detailing Melvin Potter’s story in the comics, hoping that it would be adapted soon. The show has already laid down several key elements of his character: his vulnerability (particularly in regards to being manipulated by the people around him) and the tug-of-war between his gentle nature and his capacity for violence. In the comics, many of Melvin’s most compelling stories cover this struggle, as Matt and Betsy Beatty (Melvin’s social worker-turned-girlfriend) attempt to help him suppress the dangerous, out-of-control side of himself. As we see later in the trailer, Fisk is going to start using Melvin for his own ends again this season, thus pushing him to protect himself and Betsy by becoming the Gladiator. 

    Yet another oddly candid moment between Matt and Fisk. This is so uncanny that I almost wonder if it’s a hallucination. It’s also worth noting Matt’s lack of sunglasses in these scenes. In both the comics and the show, the glasses serve Matt as a type of mask, and his scenes are given an added layer of intimacy and exposure when he takes them off. Regardless of context, it’s clear that Fisk will be seeing Matt this season at his most vulnerable, with all facades and pretext removed. Which brings us to that quote... 

    Get excited, because it looks like we’re finally getting some big deal Daredevil Secret Identity Shenanigans(TM)! Matt having his secret identity exposed is a longtime Daredevil tradition; such a pervasive plot point that even Matt has begun joking about it. 

Daredevil vol. 3 #7 by Mark Waid, Paolo Rivera, and Javier Rodriguez

    Going all the way back to the Mike Murdock Saga in the 60s, Matt has struggled with keeping his double life hidden-- a surprisingly challenging task for a blind guy without outwardly obvious superpowers. Ben Urich figured it out through research and deduction, and while he has remained loyal in keeping Matt’s secret, a fellow reporter once nearly stole his notes and made them public. In “Born Again”, the Kingpin found out and used the information to ruin his life. Later, one of the Kingpin’s underlings sold the information to the FBI, which then made its way into the newspapers. Recently, with his secrets being used as blackmail, Matt decided to make his identity public. He has gone to extreme lengths over the years-- faking his death, lying under oath, creating various alternate personalities-- to protect his dual identity, and the thought of seeing him finally faced with this same challenge in the show is very exciting.

Melvin: “I don’t like it. I know who you work for, Felix. And the Kingpin is never up to anything good.”

Felix: “What is there not to like, Potter? You construct costumes. I am heretowith commissioning from yourself a costume. Said costume being one you are infinitely familiar with-- during such time frame as before you did renunciate your status as a prominent member of the criminal class to open this shop within which we now converse. Speaking of this most neatly custodiated establishment, we will summarily execute its premature demolition-- not to mention the removement [sic] of your most valued body parts-- should you perchance fail to render unto us a perfect duplicate of the uniform of a certain Man Without Fear.”

Daredevil vol. 1 #230 by Frank Miller, David Mazzucchelli, and Christie Scheele

    As we know, that’s going to be Bullseye’s costume. This is a combination of two plot points: one from “Born Again” (above) in which Fisk commissions a DD suit from Melvin to give to a convicted murderer, who he sends to kill Foggy, and one from Nocenti’s run in which Bullseye himself runs around causing chaos as Daredevil. 

    As indicated above (and just like he attempted in Season 1), Fisk is out to ruin Daredevil (and maaaaybe also Matt Murdock?)’s reputation, even more than Matt might manage all on his own.   

    This is a terrifying image, because it brings to mind Karen’s funeral in “Guardian Devil”. But a bunch of the people in the audience are smiling, so hopefully not...  

    ...Unfortunately, they’re still screwed. Bullseye in the church is both a “Guardian Devil” reference and (even better) a movie reference!

    We were shown this scene at NYCC, and it is awesome! I can’t wait for everyone to see it, so that I can talk about what makes it so great. It’s an absolutely killer fight scene that emphasizes just how intense Bullseye is as an opponent when handled well. And I’m not going to spoil this moment in particular... All I’ll say is that it’s something we’ve all been waiting for for two damn seasons, and when it happened at the panel, the whole room screamed. 

    *Cough* Don’t worry, that’s not Bullseye. 

    Also, there is not nearly enough Foggy and Karen in this trailer. 

Bullseye: “Yup! I’m Daredevil now. I wonder-- it’s been easy to play the bad guy-- maybe too easy. Be kinda fun to play the hero. After all, I am Daredevil!”

Daredevil vol. 1 #290 by Ann Nocenti, Kieron Dwyer, and Steve Buccellato

    As mentioned above, Bullseye will be prompted by Fisk to run around as Daredevil, ruining Matt’s reputation. Both actors have talked a little bit about Fisk’s manipulation of Dex, and the fact that this will play a large part in the latter’s turn to villainy. In the final arc of her run, Ann Nocenti penned a story in which Bullseye and Daredevil switched costumes, resulting in an intense exploration of villainy and heroism, and of their bizarre relationship as nemeses. In the show, it should be fun-- and probably a little horrifying too-- to see how this jumbling of identities affects how Matt and Dex see themselves and each other. 

    T-minus one week!

[lumionblog-blog]

Drone-to-3D workflow for architectural visualizations

Architects and designers often need to know how a design will be incorporated into its real-life location, while clients and “non-architects” turn to photorealistic visuals (images, videos and more) for a deeper, more visceral understanding of the project and the architect’s intentions.

Story by Pjotr van Schothorst, Lumion (pjotr@lumion.com).

Nesselande Project with context made from this drone-to-3D workflow.

While working in Lumion, features such as OpenStreetMap (OSM) and satellite ground planes can provide some context for your design. They are suitable options for quickly building urban or rural environments relevant to your project’s location, but they’re also limited. 

For instance, OSM only provides rough building shapes, rendered white, and the satellite maps are flat, often outdated, and the resolution is too low for client visualization.

NYC skyline with context provided by OpenStreetMap, rendered in Lumion 8.3.

This all got me thinking — there has to be a better way to improve fast context-building without having to sacrifice photorealism. I investigated several options, starting with Google Maps and Google Earth SDKs, but these services do not allow their data to be used outside the scope of Google Maps and Google Earth, such as for architectural visualization.  

One solution is to create a 3D model of the environment using a series of photographs taken by a drone. This technique is sometimes used at construction sites to monitor progress, but it is not yet widely used for architecture design and visualization.

To test its viability, we used a drone-to-3D workflow for several real-life design projects. From our experiences, we derived a workflow simple enough to be used by architects (and not only 3D specialists). Using a modern drone and the software RealityCapture, it is now possible to capture an area of 300x300m and create a textured 3D model of sufficient quality for presenting a realistic background for your Lumion visualization.

Oh, and you can do all of this in one day. 

Workflow Summary

This summary is a condensed version. Click here for the full drone-to-3D workflow story (PDF).

Step 1: Buy a Drone.

Drones are getting cheaper, smaller and increasingly powerful by the minute. For this workflow, I used the DJI Mavic Air. It costs $800, weighs less than half a kilo and it can fly for 20 minutes on one battery. The DJI Mavic Air can also cover a distance of 10km and make 4K video and 4000x3000 images with good resolution. This is adequate for our purpose of creating 3D environments as a backdrop for architecture design or visualization.

10-inch tablet and tablet holder next to the DJI Mavic Air.

Also, I’d recommend that you buy some extra drone batteries and, if needed, a 10-inch Android tablet.

Step 2: Capture Drone Images.

Using a special app on your tablet for controlling a drone, e.g., Drone Harmony, the second step is to capture images around the area of interest.

The Drone Harmony app lets you draw the area of interest on a map, and then it calculates the flight path of the drone, capturing images automatically with a 60% overlap from the previous shot. This overlap is needed for automatic 3D model construction.

Example flight path in Drone Harmony.

Do five runs of the same flight path above the desired area, but make sure you assign a different camera angle for each flight. For instance, you can fly the first run with the camera pointed down and the other four runs with the camera tilted at 45 degrees. Each run takes 7 to 15 minutes, so the entire flying will take about 1 to 1.5 hours overall.

Step 3: Enter images into RealityCapture (RC).

While there are many different software programs for compiling drone images into a 3D model, I found RealityCapture as the best option. RealityCapture automatically aligns all of the images and then it creates a 3D model, adds textures and inspects the model’s quality. This literally takes a few minutes of manual work, and a few hours at most of background processing by the RealityCapture software.

Constructed 3D model after RC aligned and processed the images from your drone flights.

Step 4: Cut out the lesser detailed areas and unwanted objects.

If the quality of the model is OK, the next step is to cut out the lesser detailed areas and unwanted objects, and then simplify the 3D model to a smaller model. Depending on the model’s size and complexity, this can be anything between 30K and 1M triangles.

Cut out a specific area where you will insert your CAD building or spaces.

Texture the model again and export it in an FBX format. Cutting and simplifying the model takes between 20 minutes and one hour.

Step 5: Import the model into Lumion.

After importing the 3D drone model into Lumion, you can dress it up with trees, cars, people, furniture, etc. You can also import your design from SketchUp or your CAD/BIM program (Revit, 3ds Max, AutoCAD, Rhino, etc) on a separate layer. Make renders and animations.

Westpoint Apeldoorn Project, rendered in Lumion 8.5 after going through the drone-to-3D workflow.

This typically takes anywhere between 15 minutes and several hours.

If you want the full story, with detailed information and tons of great images and videos, check out the full Drone-to-3D workflow (PDF).

Testing the Workflow on Real-Life Projects

I used this workflow for several projects. One is a test project of a beach and dune area featuring an existing Lumion example house. The following two are commercial design projects from local architects. These are briefly described in the next sections.

Beach and Dune Area

Test project. Existing Lumion beach bungalow added to a 500x500m captured beach area near The Hague, The Netherlands.

Animation of the Dune and Beach Project

Nesselande Project

Private house design on a small island in a new residential area near Rotterdam, The Netherlands.

Architect: Studio Aaan.

From the architect: “The house is located on a private island in a new urban development close to the city of Rotterdam. The house is oriented towards the new park located on the next island southwards. In order to be able to enjoy the views, the living areas are projected above the surrounding dike levels and the sleeping areas are located below. The lower floor is half sunk into the island and is organized around two patios. As a structuring design principle, the roof consists of expressive wooden beams in a dense pattern. The beams create a canopy on the south facade as well as a characteristic interior ceiling.”

Studio Aaan’s private home design (center right) in a 3D model of the real-life neighborhood of Nesselande, The Netherlands.

Nesselande project detail

Nesselande project interior

Nesselande project animation

Feedback from the architect, Hilbrand Wanders, of Studio Aaan: “For any architecture project, but especially a private, freestanding housing project, the interaction of the building with its surroundings is crucial. We want to study the project as an architectural object on its location, but also want to consider how the surroundings are experienced from the interiors. Only once a house is finished and the owners move in, one can precisely see how certain trees are creating shadows in the house, what objects in the surroundings are blocking views from a certain position, or how window openings are positioned relative to window openings of the surrounding buildings. These aspects are highly influential on the living qualities and are difficult and too time-consuming to model by hand completely early in the design process. It is very interesting for a designer to consider the correct 3D environment from the first moment on, to test the first design-ideas within a correct 3D surroundings, but also to communicate these to a client in a very clear and tempting format. In the case of this project, the fact that the views on the site were blocked by surrounding dikes, were the reason to place the living rooms on the first floor. All other design steps (bedrooms around patios in souterrain, the stepped garden wrapped around the house) were consequential to this notion.”

Westpoint Apeldoorn Project

Refurbishment of an existing office building into 98 apartments, each with a balcony, in Apeldoorn, The Netherlands.

Architect: Paul Spaltman

Paul Spaltman’s design of a refurbished office building in Apeldoorn, The Netherlands.

Another aerial render showing city context created from the Drone-to-3D workflow.

Front of the Westpoint Apeldoorn Project

Animation of the Westpoint Apeldoorn project:

Feedback from the architect, Paul Spaltman:

“Even though the 3D scan isn’t completely perfect, I can say that it offered an enormous additional quality and offered many new options. The fact that my design was embedded so clearly in the environment is an added value, not only during the design, but also during presentations and discussions with the customers, governments, and local citizens or whoever is involved. My client called that he is really positive about my design, and he will now discuss it with the city council (landscape, urban design, review etc.). The plan to replace the existing building is a sensitive topic with the people living in the area, so everybody is super critical. The 3D scan of the environment will play an important role in this approval process.”

Cost Overview

The following table sums up the software and hardware components I used. Other components may be needed, with additional costs, as well.

Creating your own 3D environments with drones

My experiences have shown that creating 3D environment models from drone images is very straightforward and feasible for any architecture design visualization.

The investment in time and money is relatively low, and any architect can do it without extensive training and/or the need for a 3rd-party service provider. The resulting models have value both in the design process (Lumion LiveSync) and for communicating with clients and other interest parties, like the city council and local citizens (Lumion rendered images and animations).

[siennaposts]

Molly Malware (Assignment 3) - Development

After our group was decided and we discussed our strengths and availabilities,  We went through Jase’s prototype and discussed where we could potentially improve the content and add content. Jase had a well thought out concept and storyline already so we decided to stick firmly to that but clarify and refine what our goals were with the next iteration.

Fullerton said in chapter 13 that “a developer’s goal is to produce the highest quality game within the limits of its resources and budget.” When choosing what things we wanted to change/improve/add to the original prototype, we had to consider many things that may affect the final version. This was things such as time, skills, and the engine gdevelop. After making 3+ prototypes I felt pretty confident with making a solid prototype in a few days if I worked really hard. For the video and documenting and analysing part of the report, I was a little more hesitant, however I knew I could rely on my team to help out when I needed it.

The original prototype was entertaining and intriguing for players, however it lacked enough content to really show players what the game was about. This was a narrative styled game with very little narrative context for players. We knew this was something we wanted to achieve with our new version. In the original prototype, players weren’t given firm objectives which left the players unsure of what to do and where to go. This was to be worked into the in game script so that players felt like they had a purpose and a task to fulfil. One major flaw in the original prototype was that when you fell, nothing was there to catch you, you just fell until someone restarted the game. Though this is an easy fix, without it, it can be detrimental to a play-through. The art style was already good, however we wanted to incorporate a more animated feeling to the game, so we wanted to change/add some art designs. We also wanted to add music to further develop the immersion and entertainment for the player. After going over what we thought would be good changes/additions to the game, we asked Jase to write the vision of the game as he understood the most what he wanted to see from the game after the first prototype. We then began to construct our gannt chart, deciding who was to do what parts and a guesstimate of the appropriate amount of time to be spent on each task. When making this, we had to keep in mind the deadline given to us. We had to ensure that all time was allocated wisely and we were not going to be rushed at the end due to the lack of organisation. 

Then we began.

The first thing we wanted to get sorted before actually implementing anything into the prototype, was writing a script. This script would help me understand the storyline Jase had in mind and would allow me to easily replicate statements written on the script into the game. This script took a number of days to be made, however once everything was settled we were then able to crack down on the prototype.

Initially it was planned that Jase, Sienna C and I would divide working on the prototype fairly evenly and same with the playtesting report. However, we realised that perhaps this wasn't the most strategic thing to do, so I decided that I would make the prototype on my own, playing at my strengths. This would work well for Sienna C and Jase anyways as Jase would work on art and music and Sienna C could do a fair amount of the report. The video would be made afterwards so we weren’t too worried about that for the time being. Jase quickly made up a few images of files using the new animated art style so I could begin. I started with the start up (Menu) screen which had a few different buttons that you could interact with, as it can be seen below. 

In the settings scene, I made volume, brightness and difficulty options. The volume was reasonably easy to make with a pre-made function in gDevelop made ready to go, so it was only a matter of linking it up to the buttons and moving the slider along the bar. I added the difficulty option with a coming soon sticker over the top just to entice players with potential further iterations in future, however nothing has been planned at this stage. I did struggle with the brightness however as I was unsure how to create this. I found different effects that were interesting to play around with but none of these worked with the brightness filter I had in mind. I figured I would leave it until I finished working on other parts and I could come back. Unfortunately although I figured out a way I could create the brightness, I didn’t have time to implement this before playtesting. I was going to put a global pitch black layer over the game and depending on the percentage of brightness the players wanted, the opacity of the layer would change. This can be included in future iterations. I also created a basic back button taking the player back to the main menu scene. I added a little robot running off the page an aesthetic little touch to the game.

The next page I made was the load game scene, this was pretty straight forward also, with button sprites and text numbering each saved button. I had the buttons change animation when pressed to show the players which button is selected. The continue button when pressed would take you to the loading scene just for the sake of this prototype. In future iterations, a saved progress file would need to be selected in order to proceed. Although the little red cross in the corner would be the way you would exit a textbox like this in real life, for the game I decided to make it so that players could press anywhere outside of the box for it to close. 

Next I made the new game scene, which required a little more coding than the others. This included hiding/showing text on a timer, the buttons that would change text depending on what is selected and what is written into the input, and the little animated sprites on the side. So, how this would work is that players would interact with the flashing text that would say ‘INSERT NAME’ and this would take you to the input name scene. I made this scene by duplicating the new game scene but changed the box in front so that players were entering a name into a new box on top of the new game box. When writing the input, this would save to a global variable so I can display it in the new game page. So once the player press continue after inputting the name would change to ‘NAME’ and the flashing would stop. Then when selecting what number save button they wanted, the button animation would change to the pressed down (like in load game) and the text would change to the global variable. This worked effectively in my opinion and I was more than happy with the results. 

Next was the loading scene which was easier and just had a molly sprite running back and forth with the ‘loading...’ modifying on a timer. After 10 seconds the ‘loading...’ text would change to ‘Ready to play’ and a continue button would pop up. When specifically making this scene, I had to “keep in mind that you are not creating the design document for its own sake— your objective is communication, so do whatever it takes to accomplish that goal.” (Fullerton, 2018). Although nothing was actually loading in the scene I wanted to replicate and communicate to the player that this would be when the game would set up the gameplay before jumping in.

Then it would go onto the game play. Its worth mentioning that the text used was downloaded and I layered green and purple to match the glitchy/animated aesthetic. I also used the same colours as the main logo. With all of what I spoken about so far in the production in Gdevelop, I just had a bit of fun with it trying to simulate to a normal computer desktop but add small touches that made it unique to the game specifically.

At this stage I realised I was going to be making the whole prototype so I began the long haul. I got the background all set up with the art Jase sent and read through the script. After gaining an understand of what he wanted, I started making the game. I initially made it so that Larry was walking around talking and Molly was following him around the screen, but when I asked for feedback he knew I must’ve read the script wrong. So I had to start again :( which wasn’t fun but I just kept going. 

Fullerton mentioned in chapter 14 that “the goal in this stage is to execute on the functional vision established during preproduction.” I was starting to worry that I would run out of time to make the whole prototype within the time frame allocated. I did have to decide which parts of the narrative I would cut out, keeping in mind that I only had to give insight to the player of what our vision was rather than creating the whole game. I had to also make sure that what I did cut wouldn’t affect the overall story to the point where players felt that part of the narrative was missing. After some time of reading through the script, I cut out one whole scene after the introduction and before the Wordcount level. I feel this was wise and wouldn't hinder the experience for the player.

Once I figured out how I wanted to display everyone on the screen, I started making the first level scene introduction with Larry. This wasn’t too tricky, I just had a timer for the whole scene where Larry’s text box would modify throughout the time. This whole introduction level actually had 4 duplicated then edited scenes throughout because I didn’t think about hiding/showing objects depending on the scene timer, but if i were to do it again, I would make the level one large scene. 

Once the player was able to move and the instructions were apparent on screen, I also created an objective box at the top. The player was able to move around and and climb up ladders before entering the password files document.

The documents scene was split into only two scenes however I think I could've made it into one scene using the showing/hiding objects using a scene timer. So in this level, Larry and Molly meet Dr Menth, which means that a large narrative portion would occur. I decided to allow Molly’s character to move around in this level whilst the talking was happening so that players had the opportunity to explore. This meant that I had to create all of both Larry’s and Dr Menth’s textbox, text and sprite to be centred around molly’s character, staying in screen. This was a pain as I wanted to get the exact positions right and it took a lot of trial and error, but I got there in the end. Implementing the text with the timers didn’t take too long, but then I realised the script didn’t actually have any objective after the narrative portion. I knew players would want a taste of doing some sort of activity, after all, we were attempting to make a puzzle-solving narrative game, so I decided to create a new objective/challenge. A number of robots would spawn, swapping animations on a random range timer. Players would have to interact and press E to delete them, saving Dr Menth’s home and fitting in with the narrative. I created another box in the top right to show how many robots would be left using a scene variable for each time the robot was deleted, -1 from the variable. Once the variable went to 0, the end scene would come up thanking for playing the prototype.

In terms of the game music and sound fx, I downloaded royalty free lofi music to put in the beginning menu scenes. This took a little bit of time, finding a nicely fitting song and finding the setting that would allow it to play through multiple scenes but stop once gameplay would begin. All sound effects used were also free downloads. This also took a fair amount of time to find some fitting ones, however in future iterations I would try find less abrupt and repetitive sounds. I just used 2 for Larry and Dr Menth and rotated back and fourth between the sounds. The sound effects for deleting the robots was fitting and I think it worked well.

This was an exhausting but rewarding prototype as I learnt a lot about gDevelop and pushed its capabilities.

gdev mechanics for game:

Fullerton, Tracy. Game Design Workshop : A Playcentric Approach to Creating Innovative Games, Fourth Edition, CRC Press LLC, 2018. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/qut/detail.action?docID=5477698.

[scrambledgegs]

A Perfect Storm

     In the context of the Philippine situation particularly, the COVID-19 Pandemic is a Perfect Storm epitomized. Everything that could go wrong – has, and in synchronous, epic proportions. As this storm rages on in torrential rains, we are nearing neck-deep in water in an extremely problematic situation, rooted from, or exacerbated by other bad decisions (or the lack of thereof). For others who are worse off, they are already drowning – and desperately reaching out for something to cling onto, even for a while. This pandemic has also further exposed and brought out into the light, the country’s vast and decades-long web of entangled and interwoven complex problems – poverty, the inaccessibility and lack of education, as well as miseducation, the government’s abuse of authority, incompetency and corruption, poor infrastructure (including internet connectivity to allow us to work optimally at home), insufficient public and private health resources, bureaucracy, crisis management and crisis communication – you name it, we got it all.

     We do not even know if we are in the eye of the storm, or if the storm is merely a-brewing. Could it be true according to experts in medical and economic fields that the worst is actually yet to come? I would like to be hopeful in my personal belief that a vaccine is on the way and will be ready by the third or fourth quarter of 2020, as finding a cure for this nasty virus is the only way the world can regain any semblance of normalcy. As for the cures of our other problems – I do not know if they can be cured, at least not in my lifetime.

     As I have mentioned in a previous post and can’ t help but say again - is that many things to mitigate the spread of the virus could have been done by the Philippine government early this year such as, by already banning flights to and from China since January 2020. This is not a recommendation made in 20/20 hindsight, as this was the vehement clamor from members of the private and public sector back then already. Tragically, it has been one bungle after another since then. It always makes me wonder just what kind of sweetheart propositions that the President must receive from the Chinese government in exchange for his pro-China decisions. They must be quite the fat paychecks for him to constantly sacrifice the welfare of his own countrymen. Kapwa niyang Pilipino.

I doubt there will be any sort of reckoning for as long as Duterte is in power. It pushes me allude instead to Dante’s Divine Comedy, where Dante describes how traitors end up in the lowest layer of the Inferno in the after-life, along with souls like Judas.

As for the Chinese government, still no accountability at all from their end, and they furthermore have the audacity to point fingers at other nations like the United States.

Pasa Load

     Another recent and very bothersome update in this unfolding, bleak COVID-19 saga was Presidential Spokesperson Harry Roque’s pronouncement last Monday, May 18, 2020. He said “that the government still has no plans to carry out mass testing to detect COVID-19 infections in the country, adding that authorities will leave such efforts in the hands of private businesses” (CNN Philippines).

     We’ve all known how unreliable our government has always been. Hence, it comes as no surprise that the government is placing the burden of ensuring health and safety of employees (disinfection, proper training, protective gear, etc) onto the private sector. However, the portion where they also pass on the colossal and costly responsibility of mass testing to the private sector is the point of concern and major frustration.

With President Duterte at the captain’s helm during this Perfect Storm, steering through unchartered waters as it is, it seems as though he has chosen to just abandon ship. It is statements such as [above] which confirm some of our worst fears – that he still has not, and does not seem to have any plans whatsoever of constructing a concrete battleplan to fight COVID-19. His only “plan” is to lockdown identified high-risk communities, enforce social distancing though the police and military, and then for everyone to passively wait for a vaccine from a developed country to emerge. Whatever happened to the hundreds of billions PHP “War Chest” that his administration has long been discussing and even boasting about? Is it to be assumed that this Fund has also mysteriously been depleted? Couldn’t his administration at least consider structuring a somewhat shared collaboration with the private sector for these testing costs?

I was stunned with disbelief and anger as I read this full article. Moreover, to add insult to injury, the DOLE has the nerve to spew out incredibly hypocritical lines like “for the sake of our economy we encourage them (businesses) to dig deeper into their vast reserve of charity and benevolence so that their workers and the communities can continue to further weather this crisis…” The DOLE need not solicit such a phony appeal to the private sector’s conscience and integrity. What do they think businesses have been doing this all time? Many private corporations including SMEs, have shown much compassion and a value for human life during this time – for instance, by releasing full salaries regardless of days worked and zero to minimal revenues, but they are also not invincible.

DOLE instead should take a long and hard look into the mirror, so they can actually practice by example what it is to really “dig deep.” I surmise, they have only scratched the surface.

Certain Uncertainties

Now on the nth day of Metro Manila’s ECQ and all modifications (I have also heard of the term MMECQ – Matirang Matibay ECQ), I have received various messages from weary friends saying that after all of this, they are seriously considering uprooting their families and moving to a more progressive country. This pandemic and the subsequent meek efforts to contain infections and address its consequences has convinced them that the Philippines is, and perhaps will not ever be, a liveable country in the next couple of years. Myself, being the usual the optimist and patriot, found myself sadly agreeing on some points.

Another big problem close to my heart is the future of our children’s education. As much as I applaud and deeply admire our relentless and kind-hearted educators for doing their best to continue online classroom learning, this educational BCP should only be a temporary solution. Children deserve to be learning with other children in classrooms. Yet, our schools too are in a tough spot, as education or any concrete back-to-school initiatives do not seem to be a priority right now by this administration. They are not given much guidance or support.

It is during these days that I get flashbacks of the time when President Duterte and his lackeys won the 2016 Elections. Exasperated by the results, including when Bong Bong Marcos closely trailed behind VP Leni Robredo, I became convinced that we Filipinos, across all generations and walks of life, just do not learn. I took a break from writing until 2019. I let Duterte supporters all around me say their ridiculous pieces, and I didn’t attempt to engage in debate. What for? I thought. A part of me was hoping though that Duterte would prove me wrong.

Sadly, he has never proved me wrong or others who voted otherwise wrong. In fact, his administration is gradually unravelling by the day. It is a clear “I told you so moment;” however, at the expense of the Philippines. It took this pandemic to finally open the eyes of many to see just how literally fatal it was to elect someone like Duterte into the highest position in the land. I still ask myself though – will we all really learn from this experience? History has shown us just how ignorant and stubborn we Filipinos can be. I am also not surprised that there still remains a large number of Duterte supporters who still go to great lengths to justify all his actions and express their undying loyalty.

Search for the Silver Lining

     Many nights, I ponder on the fate of the Philippines and the rest of the world, and like everyone else, all these uncertainties keep my anxieties running high. Last night however, I felt an air of comfort to hear senior-aged family members talk about how they have lived to withstand greater crises throughout their lives such as, Martial Law and the economic meltdown and nationwide bankruptcies that erupted during the years after Senator Ninoy Aquino’s assassination in 1983 up to post EDSA People Power Revolution in 1986. The peace that followed was short-lived as well, as coup d’ etats further rocked Metro Manila in the early 1990s. These wise boomers also discussed the global problems of the 1997 Asian Financial Crisis, and over a decade later, the Financial Crisis in 2007-2008. Yet here they are today, driven with the same determination to weather another storm, this COVID-19 pandemic. Certainly, these boomers still have a lot to teach us Millennials and GenZs.

It felt good to hear from wizened, older minds that there is Hope.

So, I thought to remind myself today and everyday moving forward, not to get too troubled about these times. Yes, there is much to worry about, but many things are beyond our control. We must keep our mindsets in check everyday if we are to get through all of this. Prayer and faith must also never be taken out of the equation, as well as counting our blessings and paying them forward. As I’ve also said in a previous post, acts of kindness (and humor) during these dark times happen everyday – we need not look far to witness or feel it.

As I began to reflect more, I remembered that rainbows appear after a storm – the more disastrous a storm, the brighter and more vivid is the rainbow. I am holding out for that rainbow to emerge (hopefully soon) after this vicious Perfect Storm.

[sargenthouse]

And So I Watch You From Afar – The Endless Shimmering: Exclusive Album Stream // The Independent

Countless bands will attest to And So I Watch You From Afar’s influence on their own music; in 2009, the predominantly instrumental Belfast-based outfit released a self-titled record that few heard but almost every single person who did immediately took it upon themselves to start a band. As a result, they have had a direct effect on making math rock and instrumental music blossom into the modest but fertile scenes that they are in the UK today. Thanks to a myriad of local DIY independent movements and festivals such as ArcTanGent and Strangeforms, a style of music that could easily have just been seen as a small blip in the annals of music history has bloomed into something that can be genuinely regarded as a world-wide recognised movement. 

Full article and album stream via The Independent.

For many, the Irish quartet, alongside bands such as Adebisi Shank, You Slut! and Maybeshewill, made the prospect of music with no vocals (with the exception of the odd yelp dotted hither and thither) exciting, by injecting it with a frenzied frenetic frisson and refusing to ever give the listener time to get remotely bored. Whilst the music they make is almost certainly too esoteric for it to ever be considered ‘mainstream’ (whatever that word even means in a modern context), they are originators and innovators in a genre that is adored by a modest but loyal and dedicated following of music aficionados. Their fifth album The Endless Shimmering, is available on Friday 20th October via Sargent House but you can stream the album in full below 3 days before it’s official release, exclusively with The Independent. 

The Endless Shimmering ushers in a new chapter in the life of And So I Watch You From Afar. Broadly speaking, it’s possible to group the band’s previous four full-length albums into two distinct groups; their 2009 self-titled debut and 2011’s Gangs serve as an introduction to the band infusing predominantly instrumental music with a ferocious, exuberant youthful energy that has more in common with punk rock than post rock. Similarly, the colourful, schizophrenic, everything-but-the-kitchen-sink sugar-rush of 2013’s All Hail Bright Futures and 2015’s Heirs are natural bedfellows. The 9 songs that make up The Endless Shimmering are cut from an altogether different cloth, which guitarist Rory Friers puts down to the way in which these new songs were constructed. 

"Heirs and All Hail Bright Futures were both projects where the songs were predominantly written in the studio, so we used more recording techniques and took advantage of being able to add more layers and extra instrumentation. We went in to the studio with songs that weren't fully finished and we allowed them to come to life in the studio. That whole world is a really exciting and fulfilling one but as with everything, it's not an approach that we want to take every single time. So this record felt like a natural point for us to step away from that studio environment when writing the songs. Before we started writing The Endless Shimmering, we knew that we wanted to spend a long time writing and rehearsing, essentially getting these songs to sound as amazing as possible as a live band.” 

This approach gives the songs on The Endless Shimmering more space and room to breathe; these 9 tracks are And So I Watch You From Afar’s most focused and taut songs to date and yet they still sound thrillingly vibrant and full of life. Both Heirs and All Hail Bright Futures took ‘weeks and weeks’ to record, whilst the band experimented with adding various bells, whistles, vocal lines and layers. Gangs was recorded in ’10-11 days’ but then took an additional 3-4 weeks to mix. In contrast, the band recorded andmixed The Endless Shimmering in just 9 days, making it the quickest And So I Watch You From Afar recording experience by a long shot. 

“All the work was done before we came into the studio” says Rory, “there was never a moment where we’d sit around and ask ourselves ‘what should we be doing now?’ It was a very pre-meditated approach this time around and by the very nature of how we wrote this album, essentially the four of us playing live in a rehearsal room, the songs had to stand up on their own. They were generally recorded in one or two takes, in some cases maybe three and it felt as if we’d explored every possible avenue with each song before we entered the studio, so we knew as soon as we went in exactly how each song needed to be.” 

Around 30 songs were written for the record before being whittled down to the 9 that appear on the album. It’s tantalising to think that there’s so much material leftover that could potentially be turned into something that might one day be heard outside of a rehearsal room, but Rory quashes that particular notion. “It's like an artist who wants to make a really cool painting; you've got to make several paintings that aren't quite right in order to get to the really good one. And that's ok, those not so good paintings are all a part of the process and throwing those ideas around in a room together has got us thinking and set us on the right path to the nine songs that we think of as being the really good ones. When you’re working on an idea, you always tell yourself that it’ll see the light of day at some point. But then, for whatever reason, you move past them and focus your attentions on something else. We're a band that has very little interest in looking backwards or taking ideas from the past or being nostalgic in any way. The exciting stuff is always in front of us and so those ideas tend to never get to see the light of day. There was an EP that almost got released last year but we just didn't get round to it and now it feels like we’ve missed the boat, because those songs just aren't exciting to us anymore. When you play a song in rehearsal a million times, it can lose its lustre.” 

Knowing which ideas to throw out and which to keep hold of is a difficult dilemma for any band; when you’re so close to material that you’ve written, how on earth are you meant to sort the wheat from the chaff? It’s something that And So I Watch You From Afar are very aware of and as such, the impulse was to follow their gut as much as possible this time around. “It's easy to get distracted now at a time when music is thrown in front of you and consumed so quickly and easily" says Rory. "I’m speaking here as a consumer of music as well as a musician; there’s so much at your disposal so instantly and so quickly that it becomes difficult for us to live with records and really let them sink in. It’s got to a point where option paralysis is a very real thing. So I think our instincts for this record were to dismiss anything that's wasn't speaking directly to us, to be drawn to the ideas that naturally lend themselves to the way we play and the four personalities that are in the room. Sometimes we might work on an idea where we’re trying something new but deep down we’ll know if it's natural for the four of us to go down that route or not. We try not to be scared of going down those corridors and exploring them sometimes but I think at some point you have to start following your gut and not force anything, and that’s exactly the approach we tried to adopt with this album.” 

The band flew out to Machines with Magnets recording studio in Pawtucket, Rhode Island, about 40 miles South-West of Boston. Just as they arrived, a major snowstorm brought the North-East coastline to a standstill, effectively isolating the band and focusing their attentions, a situation they welcomed with open arms, as guitarist Niall Kennedy explains. “I think it had a positive affect on the album; we’d talked about wanting to have this experience where we go into a studio and completely immerse ourselves in the process. When we’ve recorded in Belfast before, we’d spend all day in the studio, call it a day and then go home to our respective homes where normal stuff and social lives begin to creep in. So we were kind of hoping to create an environment where this album was our lives for the entire time that we were doing it. When we arrived and found out that there was going to be this snowstorm, it just added to the intensity of the experience and forced us into this little creative bubble. It heightened everything and made us feel even more immersed in putting together this record, the focus was on the album 100% of the time. We came away feeling like we'd accomplished everything that we had wanted to; it was a really positive experience.” 

The Endless Shimmering is an album where everything is laid bare; one could see it as a ‘back to basics’ record, where the songs have been stripped of any unnecessary parts or vocal lines (of which, bar a tiny sample at the beginning of ‘Three Triangles’, none feature what-so-ever, a first for an ASIWYFA album). There’s been talk of The Endless Shimmering being the band’s most personal album to date and, whilst they’re reluctant to go into specifics, there’s a direct approach to the material here that suggests a desire to cut through the crap and get to the meat of the matter. 

“We are fortunate enough to be able to make music that is very cathartic for us” says Rory, “something that is the product of four friends coming together and writing and rehearsing long into the night. Whenever I listen to this album, I can hear everything that went into it; it feels as if there’s a lot of emotion in there. I can associate each song with various different things that were going on in our lives and it makes me so much prouder that we managed to up cycle those events and turn them into something positive. It’s taken that negative energy and made it into 44 minutes of music that, regardless of what anyone else thinks of it, we view as our proudest achievement.” 

The Endless Shimmering is released on Friday 20th October through Sargent House and is available to preorder on vinyl, CDand digitally now. The band begin a 40-date tour of the UK and Europe at Patronaat in Haarlem, The Netherlands on 18th October

[mitchelledwardsexplorationfclay]

17 Experiments whilst using Clay

As a starting point for my project I decided to use the Martino Gamper philosophy where you continuously make variations of something to inspire creativity.

At this stage in the project I am unsure what direction I want to take things in so this activity can be considered as playing in order to generate ideas.

The reason I used this method was so that I could get use to the working with clay on an intimate level to test its function and properties as a medium this will then give me a better idea of where I can take the material next.

From doing these experiments I learnt a fundamental part of working with clay in the fact that although it is a material that can be moulded easily that it also has a memory. This means that sometimes when using the material it will try to return to its original shape.

The tests that are present above test the clay’s shape, texture, flexibility and I have also practised some techniques like making pinch pots and tiles. 

One of the factors within my project is to learn how clay works to test its material properties therefore whilst making these pieces I made notes on what process I have used and I then documented how the clay reacts to these changes.

1. The first test I did was flatten a piece of clay and then add water to create a layer of slip, I then slid the clay around my hands which created a rough texture in the form of a palm print.

I thought that this created an interesting texture which represents the fact that clay as a material is often moulded by the human hand and is almost an extension to the human body. So this experiment represents the making process that takes place and showcases the fact that it is a hand made piece by leaving the palm print which is normally smoothed over this almost acts like a makers mark.

After about an hour the clay started to dry and the subtle palm print became more visible. Artists often leave marks that prove the work is theirs like a painter might have a certain painting style with significant brush strokes that identify with their paintings. Artists will also have their name on a piece, what if they left a hand or palm print ?. I found this to be an interesting idea.

Making with clay is a skill based process and the first stages of that is to squeeze the clay in the hand to make it more soft and malleable.

Not only is this an experiment with texture but also with shape which is also something that I am interested in, The shape that has been created from this process resembles a rock which is something that is created naturally just like clay.

I am really interested in making more shapes with the clay which represents nature and is something that I can explore further this experiment is the idea of making a natural object in the most basic way with a rock like form.

2. The next experiment was with texture, I found that whilst working in the workshop there was lots of plaster dust on the work surfaces which kept getting stuck in the smooth clay. 

I then thought what would happen if I combined the plaster and clay intentionally. By adding the plaster dust to the clay it gave the piece a hybrid texture which was rough and smooth in places, it also made the clay harder to manipulate because the plaster turned into smaller particles changing the structure of the material.

Mixing clay with other materials will make for more interesting experiments and is something I would like to look into further.

Materials I would like to mix with clay :

* Vinyl.

* Other Types of Clay.

* Acrylic.

* Wax.

These are just a few examples of other materials that I may mix with clay later in the project.

What I like most about this experiment is the pattern that the plaster dust left behind that is very expressive and the white plaster is very aesthetically pleasing against the green muddy clay.

3. Experiment number three is based on shape and thickness I rolled out the clay and made it smooth using water.

I want to see if the thickness effects the drying process, will the clay crack more if it is a thinner piece. I will have to wait a while for this piece to dry fully before I can test what happens with different thicknesses of clay when they dry.

After the clay is dry I will compare the first piece that I made which is similar and is thicker and see how each one drys they might both be the same or considerably different but I won’t know until I have left them out a few days to dry.

4. Experiment number 4 evolved squeezing and compressing the clay to create an interesting sculpture which again leaves an impression of the human hand which shows movement. In my opinion this piece almost tells a story of how a clay sculpture starts off its journey from its natural state to a finished piece.

The piece has a very interesting texture that is left by moulding the wet clay you can see the tiny speckles of clay that is left by the palm and finger prints.

When squeezing the clay it adds pressure to the clay and becomes tight and compact which I assume is due to the air bubbles being removed in the process.

I really enjoyed making in a very free flowing way not thinking about the finished sculpture but more about the process and I really like how it turned out because again it tells a story about how a sculpture begins to manipulate the clay. 

The piece is also very reminiscent of bones which could once again be considered as natural constructs and I think that this will be showcased further when the piece has been left to dry out. 

5. The next piece has a very interesting shape which consists of crinkly edges and a smooth middle section. I created this effect using using metal wire to cut the clay.

I really like the effect that this piece gives off it is very pleasing to look at and it has a very smooth texture. After creating this piece I noticed that the ridges created by the wire act almost like a waterfall and will be idea for pouring liquid onto so I can see where the liquid goes and how this will change the context of the sculpture.

Therefore I tried pouring green mould release onto the clay which had an interesting effect because it gave the top layer of the clay a wet look and I am interested to see how this looks when it drys.

Water is often used to make the clay soft and easy to mould and prevent it from drying out so it is interesting to see the clay mix with a liquid which creates an interesting comparison.

6. Below is my first experience at making pinch pots, I started by tossing the clay between each hand to remove air bubbles whilst creating a clay ball.

I then started to pinch the bottom of the clay ball continuously until it formed a pot.

During the making of the pinch pot I also had to make sure that I added water if the clay started to crack because when modelling with clay the heat from our hands can make the clay dry out so keeping it wet is important otherwise it will mean we will have a pot with cracks in when fired and will also be harder to mould. 

Although making pinch pots is relatively simple, it is hard to create a pinch pot that you are happy with because it depends on the thickness of the clay, how much clay you use and making sure that the top is smooth unless you are going for a pot which is intentionally not round.

I think that for a first attempt this pinch pot isn’t too bad although it is a bit too thick in some places, making hand made ceramics is something that I am interested in developing further.

In order to develop this technique further I will have to practice by making more pinch pots and hand made ceramics, I could also try slip casting which will give me a smoother product.

when looking at the pinch pot from a bird eye view I can see that the pot isn’t symmetrical especially towards the back.

7.Below I have flattened the clay using a rolling pin on a sheet of fabric. I have shown both sides of the clay so that the texture can be seen in the centre you can see the smoothed out clay and I have then turned over the other sides so you can see what happens to the bottom of the clay when it is being flattened.

What I like about this experiment is that it shows the comparison between smooth and compressed clay which is separated by the straight cut edges.

it’s quite trans formative showing the process of flattening out the clay I like that you can see the separation of the clay on the right and then it transitions to the smoother clay.

8.During this experiment rather than wet the clay I have wet the palm of my hand and then squeezed the clay in the palm.

What is interesting about this piece is that as you can see you have a mixture of surfaces where the clay has been touched by the hand it is extremely smooth and in other places the clay has a rough texture.

I wonder if this piece will have a different effect when it drys out, will the different surfaces differ when dry ?

9.The ninth piece I dropped a smoothed out piece of clay into a pot of water for about 10 seconds after which I then pulled it out and put it straight onto the MDF board.

The water added a thick layer of slip and made the clay in the centre very slippy and easy to manipulate. After an hour the clay was still extremely wet even though most of the other pieces had already started to dry.

I find that when doing these experiments a lot of them are changing the clay using the elements like adding water, firing and drying out this is because these are the fundamental processes when working with clay.

10.The next set of pieces was created by rolling out the clay into thin strips and then folding the clay into different shapes I did this to test how malleable the clay is.

I found that when folding the clay little rips and tears start to form which vary depending on how big the bend in the clay is, the piece on the right on the second picture is the best example of this it has many more rips in comparison to the one in the first picture.

Clay is a material that has a memory meaning that it will always try to return to its original shape I think that this is why it is quite resilient to the bends because it was once a flat piece.

I find these pieces to be intriguing because they show the inner core of the clay whilst also being a unique set of shapes, When I think about clay I never imagine a rip or tear because almost every sculptor smooths out the clay for their finished pieces so by doing these experiment I get to see how the clay reacts in-terms of it’s material properties.

11. For the next experiment I created swirls with the clay which were reminiscent of the inner core of a rose, These were again created by bending the clay but this time in a more controlled way. During the making of these pieces I didn’t put much pressure on the clay meaning that it didn’t tear as much.

What I find interesting about these pieces is on the inside you can see the texture of the fabric which it has been placed on when it was rolled out and then on the outer sides and the top it is completely smooth.

12. As a addition to number eleven I next created two sets of swirls and connected them together this got me thinking what if I made several of these and created on a flat bed this could be a good idea for tiles and other interesting projects.

I did find that these swirls were hard to replicate to the exact same thickness and size as the other I tried cutting them against a thin wooden strip once they were rolled out but they were still a little offset from each other.

13. On this piece I wanted to experiment with texture on the top layer of the flat clay. I created this effect by using a three fingered tool which I found in the clay workshop.

What was interesting about this experiment is it’s a complete opposite from the smooth clay texture/tiles that we are used to seeing, it reminds me less of clay and more of cement when it has a grazed texture like in this piece.

14. Number fourteen is a combination of flat and rounded surfaces which was created by rolling out the clay whilst placing thin wooden boards underneath each side.

Both edges have curled edges which show a transition between the flat and rounded clay. I was trying to show movement in the piece and although simple this piece shows movement really well because of the way the clay has transitioned from its flat state to a rounded edge.

15. During this experiment I rolled the clay into a ball and made it as smooth as possible. In most processes that are associated with clay you start by making a ball like slip casting for example.

Therefore I wanted to make a clay ball and rather than make a pinch pot like earlier I will let it dry out as a ball and see what happens when it drys, will it crack or will the fact that it is compressed mean that there aren’t any air bubbles ?

16. Here I have created another swirl but I have sliced through the top half of the piece so that you can see what the inner layers look like.

When creating the swirl I added lots of pressure but this one didn’t stay together quite as well as the ones that I made previous I think that this is because I have created more curves within the clay.

17. The final experiment can be seen below when I started this project I wanted to first focus on the material properties of clay so that I would understand the material at it’s fundamental level and then to start making clay products.

One of the things that I was interested in creating as well as pots and other ceramics was tiles.

So here is my first attempt at creating a clay tile, the first thing that I did when creating this tile was to role out a flat piece of clay and the cut it to a size of about 15cm x 15cm.

I then started to carve out a design on the clay using some sculpting tools the design is very basic using thin and thicker lines, rounded indents and dots to create the design on the top layer of the piece.

I can improve this process by working more on my drawing skills with the sculpting tools and to look at the shape and thickness of the tile.

Through creating these seventeen experiments I have managed to generate many different ideas that I can take forward within the project and it has also taught me some of the fundamentals when working with clay and it’s material properties.

I have found out how far I can bend the clay, what will happen if the clay is exposed to large amounts of water, I have looked at texture and shape and I have also looked at making processes like tile making and pinch pot making which are things that I am highly interested in exploring further.

Some of the experiments were small and simple yet they again act as a way to articulate ideas at the beginning of the project and will help to shape the way that the work develops.

I will next wait for these pieces to dry out further by leaving them for a few days or longer to see how they changed during the drying process. Did any of them crack ? and how will things such as the teared pieces dry ?

Week 4  - The First stage of this experiment was conducted in week 4, I spent the first three weeks both planning and attending skill based workshops to develop tradition making techniques.

Whilst attending these workshops I started to realise that the material itself is just as interesting as the processes and applications that it is used for because it is a material that is constantly undergoing change which I find fascinating. Therefore I have decided that my primary focus for the remainder of the project will be to look at clay as a material to see how it can be manipulated in interesting ways so that I can gain a better understanding of the material and how it operates in the mist of making and thereafter.

These are ongoing tests that I will continue to document through there drying stages to determine how the clay will be effected by its drying state and how my tests will be effected by this process.

[michael-radi-the-glamorous-life]

Why Is *THAT* A Musical?

If I had a nickel for every time I was asked this question, or even asked this question myself, I would have a very large number of relatively heavy and annoying coins.

But I do wonder - How often do people hear about a new musical or see a marquee and think this question to themselves? I mean, what makes a story ripe for adaptation into a musical? Why do some musicals seem like no-brainers, while others make us scratch our heads and think, “Huh. Really? That one?”

The Lehman Engel BMI Musical Theatre Writing Workshop answer to the question of what type of stories should be adapted into musicals is a relatively simple and subjective one: If you think there’s more within the story that should be told, and that music will enhance that storytelling, then it is likely adaptable into a musical. But if the story feels complete in its current form, and it doesn’t seem like music will enhance the piece and its purpose, it should probably be left alone.

Despite the subjective nature of this statement, I do think there’s truth to it. If you look at the types of stories that have been most successfully adapted into musicals (and most musicals are adaptations), the use of music in the storytelling has heightened the plots and characters, and filled in some invisible hole that helps the audience interact with the material.

This is the reason, I think, that certain stories see multiple attempts at musical adaptation. For a couple of examples, we have 2 adaptations of The Phantom of the Opera, 2 musicals of The Wild Party, and countless musical versions of Shakespeare’s plays (most of which have not worked well). Some stories feel as though they could be told well, or better, in musical theatre form and therefore multiple adaptations appear. Some are good, and some aren’t. Some use the original author’s intents, and some leave them behind.

Successful adaptation is a tricky process - and I know this from adapting one of the most-adapted stories in musical theatre, The Legend Of Sleepy Hollow. Approximately 5-6 musical versions of this story exist, but none of them has had great mainstream or commercial success. Yet. But why? What goes into this process?

“Adapt or Perish”

Thanks H.G. Wells! In the natural world, I totally agree. But in the theatrical world, I would probably alter it to say: “Adapt well or perish.”

Adapting a story for the stage is difficult, especially when it’s well-known. Adapting a story into a musical specifically adds many additional layers of difficulty.

But Michael, wouldn’t coming up with an entirely original story be harder?

Why yes, sole reader of this blog! In many ways an original musical is much harder, since the entire burden of plot and character rests on the writers. There’s nothing to build from.

So then, what’s the issue?

Excellent question!

There are 3 main issues I see when it comes to making a musical adaptation:

Audiences enter with ideas about the story and characters already formulated.

The original author’s intent and basic structures may or may not still be present.

Music is meant to enhance, but what exactly are you enhancing for your version?

Audience Expectation

When adapting a well-known story, book, movie, play, etc., your audience will come into the performances with preconceived notions.

Now, perhaps they’ve never actually encountered the original material, but that doesn’t mean there won’t be an image, idea, feeling, emotion, or otherwise already planted, which will color their expectations. So how does this alter your approach?

In all honesty, I wouldn’t give it too much thought.

What?! But if your audience isn’t on board, then you’re sunk!

True. But the best way to get the audience on board with what you’re writing is simply to write well. The only real decision you have to make is whether you’re going to take the story in a direction that will feed into audience expectation, or break from it (and to what degree). But, if you successfully create and introduce your world and characters to the audience and set them up for the journey you’re going to take them on, then they will follow.

Application: The Legend of Sleepy Hollow

One of the most interesting things my composer and I have encountered in adapting The Legend of Sleepy Hollow has been the complete and utter variance in the levels of familiarity with this story.

I can say that title to anyone and some sort of preconceived notion will suddenly appear, but it is vastly different depending on the person. Some people have only ever seen the Disney short film. Others the Tim Burton film. Others had a watered down version read to them as a child, but don’t remember anything about it. Some people have no idea what you’re talking about until you say the words “Headless Horseman.” New Yorkers read this story in school, but basically no one else in the country does. And almost no one has read the story recently or has a particularly accurate idea of what takes place in its small number of pages.

Quite the range, eh?

So what did we learn from this?

We could never in a million years satisfy everyone’s expectations, so we shouldn’t try.

The name of the story is evocative in and of itself.

General feelings about the story seem more pervasive than the actual characters and plot.

Only certain images are universally retained, namely that of the Headless Horseman.

Author’s Intent

What is this story about? Why was it originally told? Why should it continue to be told? What did the original author want their audiences to take away? What do you want your audiences to take away? Are they the same?

Far too often I see musical adaptations that have abandoned the original intents and message of the story. Suddenly, an entire plot point will disappear, or a character will make a decision that’s inconsistent with the plot. Is it okay to do this? Certainly! However, the most successful adaptations that make these changes tend to abandon the brand of the original story, treat the original more like a guideline, and come into their own as an individual piece of musical theatre.

Small example: we all know that West Side Story is essentially Romeo and Juliet, but it also isn’t. The basic plot is still there, but characters are added and subtracted as needed. Tony and Romeo are not very alike if you compare them side by side. The purposeful movement of the time and setting add and subtract layers from the story. And the biggest change: the entire ending sequence. Romeo and Juliet is famous for its graveyard scene, whereas in West Side Story the sequence of events has been altered and Maria is left to live with the results. But has Shakespeare’s message been lost? I personally do not think so.

Now, I’m not saying that to keep a title or a brand you must strictly adhere to the original author’s structure, plot, and character creation. You have chosen this piece to enhance it, which will require changes. But if a piece was written to highlight social injustice and you alter it so much that this message becomes completely lost, then you may need to rethink your adaptation. Or if a character is famous for being one way because that drives the story, but you subvert that, then the piece just might crumble.

Application: The Legend of Sleepy Hollow

This was a tricky one. We spent a great deal of time trying to determine what Washington Irving’s purpose was in telling this story.

Was it a commentary on social constructs and collective thinking? Was it about superstition and its effects on a community? Was it a cautionary tale about individual gullibility? A comment on small-town American life? A slight aimed at Dutch settlers and their descendants? A celebration of the haunted nature of the beautiful American landscape? A questioning of what is real? Or was it just a silly little tale?

The key for us was when we remembered that this story, which has only a handful of spoken lines, was not actually being told by Washington Irving. In the collection of tales, there is a narrator who provides us with the context for the story of Ichabod Crane, Brom Bones, Katrina Van Tassel, and the Headless Horseman, and then he gives us the story itself. It was a story within a story.

So why was the narrator telling us this story?

The answer to that question ultimately did not matter, for we had found our way in. Stories are told with purpose, whether or not their contents are true. And this was the common thread throughout The Legend of Sleepy Hollow.

Storytelling cropped up throughout the piece, in the form of ghost stories, minor tales of the countryside, re-tellings of American Revolution battles, and lots of town gossip. All of this while being narrated by a character who has his own reasons, but who is also being written by Washington Irving. And this was the point of the piece: Why do we tell stories, and how do they help us get what we desire?

Music and Story Enhancement

Music is evocative. Music is language. Music is math. Music is emotion. Music is ethereal. Music is nebulous. Music can have an immeasurable impact.

So why a musical? How is music going to help you tell this story? Why is music the thing that was lacking from the original story, and how will you utilize it to strengthen the piece? Why are they singing?

There are a million-and-one ways to answer these questions, but here’s the key: You had better have an answer and it better be a good one. And additionally, the audience better be able to pick up on your reasoning, consciously or unconsciously.

Some people self-proclaim that they hate musicals, and the reason they give is generally the same: Why are they bursting out into song? It doesn’t make sense. People don’t do that.

***Side Note: Anyone who says this clearly doesn’t spend enough time around musical theatre folk.

The incorporation of music has to be earned. The circumstances or emotion must be so great, so heightened, that music not only feels natural at that moment, but necessary.

This is so incredibly important, and I cannot stress it enough.

Application: The Legend of Sleepy Hollow

Once we realized that the story, and therefore the entire musical, was about telling stories in order to manipulate and acquire, the music was a natural addition. Add on top that superstition, ghost stories, and the other-worldly lend themselves to musicality as well, and having moments of song became absolutely integral to the storytelling.

All of our main characters needed strong desires. The original story gave very little, particularly to the almost non-existent Katrina Van Tassel, the two-dimensional Brom Bones, and amorphous Baltus Van Tassel, so we provided the extra layers. We came up with what exactly each character desires most and what makes them tick. From there, the question became how exactly would they go about attempting to manipulate their situations and the people around them in order to get their desires. And this is where music came in.

Surprisingly, we discovered that since almost every line and moment of interaction had to do with manipulation, storytelling, and/or the supernatural, moments without music felt extremely odd. Not that we think the show should be sung-through, but underscore became as necessary and enhancing as the song moments. It was a wonderful discovery. The music helps complete this story in the same way that the verbosely descriptive language aided Irving’s original story.

I’m No Expert

I will very readily admit that I am no expert on the topic of musical theatre adaptation, and I am certainly continuing to learn as I go through the process myself. But these are my observations thus far in my career, and I do think they have merit and factual evidence to support them.

Adaptation is hard. But it’s very doable. Without it, most of the musical theatre canon would not exist.

***Another Note: If you’re interested in learning more about my adaptation of The Legend of Sleepy Hollow with composer Sean Havrilla, click on the Musicals page or feel free to contact me!

Otherwise, thank you for reading and happy adapting, my friends!

[jamesodell2]

Mid-Project Review

In this blog post I will be reviewing my progress so far throughout this project; I will be discussing all the elements involved within the project such as the context, research, planning, practical and evaluations. I will be reflecting on this by talking about what research I have done behind my concept and how this has stemmed towards my practical developments; Also discussing what I can look at too push my project elements further such as artists, movements, techniques and processes.

Springboard Showing Project Themes And Ideas

Research and Context:

As I am only at the mid point of my project this helps me establish what to do in the time remaining for this project but also helps us repair our project if we haven't used our current time wisely. To push our project into a specific direction we needed to establish a theme to follow which would be focused on throughout the duration of the project. The theme I decided to follow in my FMP was showing the relationship between type and image but displaying this through poster design which connects to recent and iconic events happening around the world. Throughout my time in this course I have been increasingly influenced by the effect of typography and visual imagery affecting a poster and what to show this throughout my FMP stages. When I established my theme I needed to gather research behind what events I was going to focus on; the events I went for were the moon landing (1969), Trump and Kim Jong Un political conflict and the current conflict in Syria.

Project Themes Behind Recent And Iconic Events

Once I gained background knowledge behind these events I needed to focus on the specialism poster design but also the technique of collage. How I was going to gain a greater understanding behind these topics were by finding relevant but influential artists which were going to affect my practical development in a positive way. The artists I found inspiring were Roa who I gained knowledge about on the street art trip, Dface who creates mash ups of famous people and David Carson who has always been able to inspire me through his use of abstract text and compositions. When looking at these artists I wanted to show my own reaction which would create a pathway into my practical development; one of my examples of this would be my spray paint mash up which included the current political leaders as well as famous cartoon characters which added humor to my piece. Using this technique in my research helps me take ideas from my own response and develop upon the initial research which helps me create ne and exciting pieces which have connection to the influential artist I have chosen to look at.

Dface Response And Artwork 

How I feel I could improve and broaden my research would be by looking at artists such as Jamie Reid, Hannah Hoch and the Dada Movement. I think by researching these people/movements would help me broaden my practical activity as well as showing me the abstract side of collage within poster design. This would enable me to show a new approach in my project and connect to the new artist I have mentioned in this post, I also want to show my own responses to these to show me gaining a greater understanding behind their concept behind the work but also the technique used. Why I want to look into the Dada movement is because it would broaden my project concept; this is because it contains elements such as political punk which could really affect my posters/collages in a positive way.

Development:

When I was looking back upon my progress in my practical development I pleasantly surprised within the outcomes I have created; these some me exploring different techniques but also combining processes I'm comfortable in with unfamiliar processes which greater my skill set. The development which pushed my project in a positive direction was influenced by the Saul Bass workshop but specifically the template we followed when completing the workshop. This template enabled us to look at an artists work and begin to analyse the visual qualities it possesses; this enabled us to gather a greater understanding behind how the work was created, gaining an understanding behind how it was made but also the meaning behind the piece. The final stage of the template pushed us into responding to our line of enquiry, which allowed us to explore the principles the artist followed when creating their work but also incorporating this with our own specific style.

Saul Bass Research Plus Development

Throughout my development during my FMP I wanted to show a range of processes and techniques which show me expressing my context through new methods of graphic design. My project context was very broad which opened many ideas into pathways for development; I want to show poster design through traditional and digital processes which can also be combined to create a new style of poster. Looking back upon my developments I have currently covered poster design through different traditional processes such as screen print and spray paint; these techniques were inspired by Shepard Fiery and Saul Bass who have created many successful powers between them. The screen print outcomes were really successful, this was because of the bold and clean outcome which was produced at the end of the process. When looking at  these outcomes I wanted to compare them against my Dface outcome; these practical outcomes involved different characteristics which me think about combining the two. The spray paint outcomes contained rough textures which I wanted to take and use as a layer on my screen prints, how I did this was by adjusting each outcome on Photoshop.

My development so far has been good because I have been exploring techniques in both traditional and digital but also beginning starting to think about combining the two. However, I think I could push this development further by looking into the topic of collage and more specifically tactility ( size and scale). I think this will enable me to broaden my outcomes through scale, this is because my practical developments have limited inscale which has held the effect of the poster to a minimum. To gather a greater understanding behind the topic of collage and tactility I will look at artists such as Jamie Reid, Hannah Hoch and the Dada movement.

Jamie Reid, Hannah Hoch And The Dada Movement

Evaluations:

Throughout most of my projects this year I feel as my evaluations have always been a strong element and show me explaining clearly my ides and intentions. This is key because it shows me talking about the visuals I have created and where I have gained this from, such as research influences as well as my own style. What I try to talk about in my evaluations are the successful qualities in my outcomes but also try to reflect on some improvements which could be added to push this practical outcome further. Another technique I have added in my evaluations for this project is peer comparison, this enables me to discuss similarities and differences between each others work but also gaining constructive commparison  which helps me generate relevant actions to push my project further.

Goals And Grades:

To achieve the grade I want at the end of this project I will need to produce detailed and relevant research which suits my project context. This can be done by following the line of enquiry handout on moodle which enables you to create a in detailed response and reflection behind your chosen artists. Following on from this research I will need to respond to this; I will need to make something in response to the artist to show me understanding and doing something in relation to my project concept/theme. What I aim to make for my final outcome is a poster/collage showing relation towards my project concept behind the recent events in politics but also relating to artist and movements such as Jamie Reid and Dada. I also want to display this in a abstract way and wish to do this by exploring new compositions which have been displayed in different ways. I will need to do some research behind some exhibitions and how people show off their work, this will give me a inset into the ways I could display my outcome.

My Own Reflection Alongside Tutor Assessment 

When I was assessing myself I rated my elements much lower because I felt that I didn't explain my research in depth and show clear relevance towards my project concept of recent and iconic events. However I pleasantly surprised with my feedback which was a much better improvement to my own self assessment; I think I may have marked myself harshly but this was so that I could improve upon my work to improve my overall grade. When getter my feedback this gave me confidence in my own work but also stemmed new ideas and concepts I could look into to push my project and grade even further.

Actions:

> Research the artist I have talked about on this blog post ( Jamie Reid, Hannah Hoch and Dada Movement ).

> Respond to the research, begin making things from these which are relevant to my concept.

> Begin to explore size and scale.

[jbpiggin]

Via Appia Found on Satellite Image

The Appian Way is perhaps the world's most celebrated road. On the outskirts of Rome it is a major tourist attraction. I have just discovered you can see some of its far reaches on photographs from space. The Way seems to be the source of a common misconception in the English-speaking world that all Roman roads were solidly paved and ran straight as a laser, up hill and down dale, never yielding to the lie of the land. Beyond the vicinity of Rome, much of the Via Appia was neither paved nor straight, but wriggled along long-worn prehistoric ridgeway routes, where the ground was drier (and harder) and the traveler had the best chance of spotting approaching attackers, whether they were bandits or bears. Begun under the direction of Appius Claudius, a consul, in 312 BCE, the Via Appia initially connected Rome to Capua near Naples. Later it was extended to Brindisi on the Adriatic Coast. It was any physical traces of this latter extension that I was hoping to find while on a visit last week to Italy. We were staying in the newly elegant city of Matera which is dolling itself up to be one of two European Capitals of Culture of 2019. In Roman times, Matera was just a remote warren of hand-hewn caves, never mentioned in the ancient sources. Perhaps it was a refuge of the above-mentioned bandits, who could murder a merchant on the Via Appia at dusk and carry the booty 15 kilometers away to the caves to hide it, safely holed up by midnight like the Ahlbergs' brigands:

Near Matera one finds two modern highways named Via Appia. The one beginning from Ferandina, national highway SS7, and proceeding via Matera to Massafra is a fake, although it too terminates at Brindisi. The other, Puglia provincial road SP28, marked "Strada Provinciale Appia" on maps, is, in some stretches at least, the real thing. Recent articles by Luciano Piepoli dispense with the armchair scholarship (mainly German) about this part of the Via. They assemble new hard archaeological evidence about its course and stage-stops. Unfortunately Piepoli does not provide GIS geolocations (this ought to be prescribed by the style guides of every journal dealing with historical geography). He writes:

The Appian Way, at the exit from the current town of Gravina in Puglia, begins its path in a south-easterly direction near Scomunicata and, after having touched the localities of Graviscella and Ponte Padule Cardena, reaches the rocky outcrop of the Murgia Catena, located about 7 km southeast of Altamura. The road runs along the southern slope of this last location to Iesce, where there are the remains of an important settlement that had been abandoned by the 2nd century B.C. On the territory of Altamura, in a flat section between the southern slope of the Murgia Catena and the hillock of Montepovero, the projecting traces of wheel ruts are visible in the rocky surface for a length of about 200m and a total width of more than 30m, forming multiple lanes. Although they are not contemporary with one another, it appears highly probable by virtue of their topographical location that some of them must derive from the consular Via Appia. (My English, helped by Apple and Google Translate).

Hoping to see these traces of the wheels of ancient or medieval carts, we stopped our car on the shoulder of the SP28 at what we thought was the spot. Since a narrow lane of wheat was growing there on the verge of the road itself, we searched the rocky field behind it, but to no avail. On the point of giving up, and after nearly stepping on a sturdy snake, I finally discovered the ruts further up the road.

In the 50-second video above you can hear cicadas and see the colorful wild flowers of a southern Italian spring including tall fennel, all growing in the dirt that has collected in the ruts. The most pronounced track is at the left, close to the dry-stone wall. There are no doubt specialists who could estimate from the wheelbase whether this track is ancient or medieval. A second, shorter bunch of tracks can be found about 50m further down the hill (in a 24-second video). I have uploaded videos of both to my YouTube Channel. The greatest surprise came later: these ruts are visible on common garden satellite imagery. When I studied the same location on Google Maps later, I was amazed to see the big set of ruts quite clearly at the location 40.76424, 16.61516 (tip: copy just this to any sat-nav or mapping app to find it):

As far as I know, this remarkable, aerially visible archaeological site is not listed on any of the ancient geographical portals such as the Digital Atlas of the Roman Empire, Pelagios or Vici. I can see how to add it to Vici (and will add it later), but I must admit that I have no idea yet how to contribute it to the former two. They do not offer any "guide for dummies" instructions. These stone remains do not seem to have gained any legal protection, although the feature is surely known locally. The IGM map of 1919 (reproduced as British AMS M791 of 1939) labels a nearby stretch of the road "od via antica Via Appia". I don't know what "od" means.

Piepoli relies on a survey of the area by the great aerial archaeologist of the 1920s to the 1950s, Giuseppe Lugli, so I presume these remains are mentioned in Lugli's books or articles. As far as I can tell, they are the only surface evidence left of the ancient Via Appia between Gravina and Tarento. The fact that wheels ran across bedrock here is an indication that the highway was unpaved. A few kilometers away, the route has been archaeologically excavated. Piepoli writes:

Near Masseria Capitolicchio Vecchia, recent excavations conducted by the Archaeological Superintendency of Puglia have highlighted a short stretch (about 200 x 4.90 m) of a road - of the glareata type - interpreted, on the basis of the construction technique, orientation and topographic context, as a segment of the Appian Way [Mattioli, 2002]. An interesting fact which emerged during the excavations is that the roadway is partially obliterated by a layer of relative collapse likely due to a structure located near the road axis. The ceramic finds and coins found can be dated between the end of the 2nd century BC and the 3rd century AD, which could be considered as a terminus post quem for the abandonment of the Via Appia in this section.

The simple glareata road had a base of stones, built up to a sand or gravel, and would be kicked or ground apart by heavy traffic if it were not maintained. This is probably what happened at 40.76424, 16.61516, exposing the bedrock to the cart and carriage wheels. Above, I mentioned a narrow crop of wheat growing in the queen's acre (the roadside). It too is clearly visible in the space imagery, and occupies what seems to have once been a ford through a seasonal stream, the Vulle. No doubt the silt, organic particles and the churning of the wheels created fertile soil in this rocky landscape. Most of the Via Appia in this area follows the watershed. Here's a more open location, looking towards the Murgia Catena from the north-west, where you may be able to see that the land slopes very lightly away to both sides.

To the left of this spot, the drop to the base of the valley is quite substantial, as the next image shows:

In an article this year, the scholar Tønnes Bekker-Nielsen compares the posterity of this southern Via Appia built in the 3rd century BCE to the highly engineered Via Traiana built with cuttings and bridges in the 2nd century CE. The bridges ultimately fell down, whereas the prehistoric footpaths and droving tracks along the watersheds remained in use. The self-maintaining character of ridgeway routes is the reason that the Via Appia lost all its gravel but remained in continuous medieval use:

For the Roman traveler, the Via Traiana was a significant improvement. It was shorter, had far fewer inclines and declines and was less vulnerable to snowfall. But despite the many advantages of the Via Traiana, it is the Via Appia which has survived to this day. An estimated 90% of the total length of the Appia is still in use as graveled or asphalt road. Large portions of the Via Traiana, on the other hand, are overgrown and impassable. (My assisted translation from the Danish.) 

Bekker-Nielsen, Tønnes. ‘Romerske Veje i Syditalien: Via Appia Og via Traiana’. Vejhistorie, 2018. Academia.edu

Piepoli, Luciano. ‘Blera e Sub Lupatia (It. Ant. 121,4-5): Proposte per l'identificazione di due stazioni itinerarie lungo il tratto apulo della via Appia’. In Statio amoena: Sostare e vivere lungo le strade romane, edited by Patrizia Basso and Enrico Zanini. Oxford: Archaeopress, 2016.  Academia.edu

———. ‘Il percorso della via Appia antica nell'Apulia et Calabria: Stato dell'arte e nuove acquisizioni sul tratto Gravina-Taranto’, in Vetera Christianorum, 51, 2014, 239-261’. Academia.edu.

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[micaramel]

Artist: Jutta Koether

Venue: Bortolami, Philadelphia (Artist/City)

Exhibition Title: Phase I: Trinity Past

Date: January 14 – April 8, 2018

Click here to view slideshow

Full gallery of images, press release and link available after the jump.

Images:

Images courtesy of Bortolami, New York

Press Release:

Bortolami is pleased to announce the opening of Jutta Koether/Philadelphia, the fourth project of the gallery’s Artist/City programming initiative. The exhibition will take place in a trinity house, miniscule three-story homes that once housed the working class of the city’s more affluent areas and an architectural typology specific to the city of Philadelphia. Using the idea of the trinity as its organizing principle, the exhibition will take place in three parts: Past, Present, and Future, unfolding over the next year. The subsequent phases, Present and Future, opening later this year, will endeavor to capitalize on the artist’s relationship to the incredible artistic legacies present in Philadelphia including Duchamp, Cezanne, and Soutine, among many other important painters represented in local institutions.

Koether has divided her time between Germany and New York since the early 1990s, and Trinity: Past, focuses on works she made in New York or have found their way into private collections here in the United States. The exhibition seeks to compose or open up the history of her artistic output in this country. In the artist’s words, this exhibition is about, “searching, retrieving, finding ideas, histories.” Less of an artist’s project, and more an “external research site”, Trinity: Past has collected works—both from private collections and from the artist’s own archive—that while emitted from the same source may never have had the opportunity to engage with one another within the context of an exhibition.

On the first floor, anchoring this exhibition is a painting entitled, Roots in the Rhineland (1995), originally shown at Pat Hearn Gallery in Koether’s 1995 exhibition, Frontage. Like many other examples of her work, Roots in the Rhineland evinces her identity as a German artist who moved frequently between her homeland and the U.S., and more specifically the distinct Cologne and New York City art scenes. Rendered in a fluorescent palette, the painting features a “portrait of the Rhine, Watteauian colors, enhances Jochen Distelmeyer—german singer of the band Blumfeld,” according to Koether’s handwritten notes from the time. Inscribed with the phrase “american dream”, the painting relates to her career-long search for transatlantic shared histories of underground cultures that perform various types of transgression. This painting entered a private collection in Connecticut after its original exhibition in 1995, and this is the first time it has been shown since.

Leibhaftige Malerei (red version) (2007), on the second floor, was originally shown in Berlin at Susanne Vielmetter gallery, and has been in a private New York collection since its purchase. Unlike Roots in the Rhineland, this painting represents another strain of Koether’s practice drawing upon art historical references and reproduces Sandro Botticelli’s The Story of Nastagio Degli Onesti: The Disembowelment of the Woman Pursued (1483-87). Koether was drawn to this painting for its use of layered imagery used to communicate a narrative. Leibhaftige Malerei—which translates to Painting Incarnate—is a nesting-doll of authorship. Botticelli made Nastagio Degli Onesti based on Giovanni Boccaccio’s The Decameron, a collection of novellas written in the 14th century. The characters in Botticelli’s painting appear in both foreground and background simultaneously, telling the entire story in a single frame and thus creating a temporal collapse. Koether reimagines the Boticelli in her signature red monochrome palette, mediating Boccaccio’s original story through the Renaissance master’s illustration of it, adding yet another authorial voice to a narrative that originated 700 years ago.

Two drawings that served as studies for paintings are installed in the small spiral stairwell of the Trinity house. One of the drawings was a sketch made for a painting entitled Hot Rod (after Poussin) (2009) which was shown on a floating wall in Reena Spaulings gallery by itself in the 2009 exhibition Lux Interior. The painting is a too-scale reproduction of Poussin’s Landscape with Pyramus and Thisbe (1651), an illustration of Ovid’s tale. In the drawing, one can make out the complex landscape rendered in orange and red. The second drawing is a study for Koether’s Mad Garland series of painting, which was shown at Campoli Presti in 2011.

A group of three paintings resides on the third floor, including Art Basel 17 Untitled 1 (Maximum Inspiration) a painting Koether made for this past edition of Art Basel as well as two smaller paintings that echo the Cezanne-esque apples in the larger painting. In Koether’s own words, she describes Maximum Inspiration as, “a kind of ‘genre scenes of the soul’”. The painting features several of the motifs that have populated her paintings for years; the cane, apples, a grid, a figure that appears in other previous paintings, text (here, taken from the tagline of a brand of guitar pedal), and a non-hierarchical approach to materials. In this work, Koether uses several different types of paint and materials to construct the surface, demonstrating equal adeptness with oil paint as with metallic craft paint.

Artist/City is a roving programming initiative by Bortolami that presents yearlong exhibitions in different cities across the country. Previous projects include Daniel Buren/Miami, Eric Wesley/St. Louis, Tom Burr/New Haven (alternatively titled BODY / BUILDING). Upcoming projects include Ann Veronica Janssens/Baltimore, and Barbara Kasten/Chicago.

Link: Jutta Koether at Bortolami

Contemporary Art Daily is produced by Contemporary Art Group, a not-for-profit organization. We rely on our audience to help fund the publication of exhibitions that show up in this RSS feed. Please consider supporting us by making a donation today.

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[mredwinsmith]

11 Famous Artists Who Paint with Acrylics

Andy Warhol to Thomas Hart Benton

When it comes to hype, nothing works better than bringing out the big names. Acrylics have some very big names behind them. Why? Well, for one, acrylics have a very interesting “secret life” that make them appealing to painters.

But acrylics were also a modern solution to painting that cutting edge artists craved. Brought to market in the 1940s, acrylics started out as house paints but their easy usability and quick drying time caught the eye of many modern painters.

Liquid Texture

In 1955, to meet the demand from artists, Permanent Pigments Company developed the first water-based acrylic gesso called Liquitex, named for what it was all about: liquid texture. A year later Liquitex put out the first water-based fluid acrylic paints, called Soft Body acrylics, which you can still reach for today at your local art shop.

Since then hundreds of thousands of artists have chosen acrylics as their painting medium, including so many iconic masters of modernism.

Sponsored by

200 Versions and Counting

Elegy to the Spanish Republic No. 110 by Robert Motherwell

Robert Motherwell’s Elegy to the Spanish Republic? The painting no one gets and we all had to study in art history class? Yup, acrylics…at least some of the 200 versions that he made on this theme. Talk about commitment.

He mixed his paints with graphite and charcoal for those signature shapes and startling blackness.

“I’d Rather Sink Than Call Brad for Help”

Drowning Girl by Roy Lichtenstein

Roy Lichtenstein, the man who brought comic book Ben-Day dots and pop culture drama to canvas? Yup, did it in acrylics, including his best known work, Drowning Girl.

  Fields of Color

When you start an art movement with acrylics, people take notice. Kenneth Noland was a leader in the Color Field movement, one of the most mesmerizing modern art trends of the 20th century. Noland spearheaded the Washington Color School movement that bubbled up in America’s capital city in the 1960s. His works usually focus on painted depictions of circles, chevrons, stripes or shaped canvases. The latter especially showcase Noland’s fixation with the power that the edge of a canvas has overall.

Beginning by Kenneth Noland

Colors Do the Twist

Zing 1 by Bridget Riley

Bridget Riley — yet another art movement maker — this time of Op Art — did it with acrylics. Riley’s geometric-shaped lines of paint produced wild optical effects. Zing 1 was one of Riley’s breakthrough paintings, in which she used vertical stripes to create (borderline) mind-bending horizontal bands of color.

Significant Stains

Canyon by Helen Frankenthaler, acrylic painting

Helen Frankenthaler made some very significant marks in her day. They came as drips and splatters. They came as stains and blots.

According to The Phillips Collection: “In 1963 she began using acrylic paint as opposed to turpentine-thinned oil, resulting in the expansion of form and the production of bolder, more saturated colors. Canyon (above) of 1965, painted in acrylic, exemplifies Frankenthaler’s paintings of the 1960s as it flows out from a boldly colored center, in this case red.”

Mixed Media Awe

Just opening his latest powerhouse exhibition at the Hirshhorn, Mark Bradford lives big at 6’7″ and paints that way too. He started out painting with cans of remainder paint sold for $1 at hardware stores and hasn’t altered from that course, simply adding dimension with layers upon layers of cut paper (construction paper, newspaper and photographs among others) along the way.

The Grace of Simple “Space”

An artist of subtlety, contemplation and harmony, Mark Rothko made the act of painting a mindful, meditative experience. Mixing oils, powdered pigments and acrylics, he created large scale canvases that brought grace to simple forms. He explored color exhaustively and the look and feel of his works is almost always conveyed through color and pattern.

No. 13 (White, Red on Yellow) by Mark Rothko

Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf

Late in his career Barnett Newman created paintings on a massive scale. He painted them in acrylics. The four works from his series Who’s Afraid of Red, Yellow and Blue are all well over life-size and were made with pure, unmixed primary colors.

Heartland Artist

The Bicyclers by Thomas Hart Benton

Thomas Hart Benton’s The Bicyclers is a tour de force from this American modernist. From the composition to the style, this painting indicates all that Benton would become famous for. Interesting to note in this context, he created several studies of this painting in oil and watercolor, but he decided to do the final version in acrylics.

  Poolside Paintings

A Bigger Splash by David Hockney

One of the most famous Brit Pop Artists, David Hockney painted several iconic California swimming pools — including his own — in acrylics. He started painting poolsides around the same time he came across acrylic paints in the 1960s. Their fast-drying ability (rather than the slow drying of oils) was most appropriate to the easy, breezy, clean and sunny landscapes that Hockney was depicting. A match made in California dreaming you could say.

Soupy Acrylics

Campbell’s Soup Cans by Andy Warhol

Andy Warhol’s Campbell’s Soup Cans, among others, were painted in acrylics. He is yet another example of a modern artist who found his modern medium in acrylics.

Maybe because they were easy to use? So that the artists could spend time building their legends and attending amazing parties (Andy, this means you!).

Maybe because they were fast and they were easy and the artists using them were modern, cutting edge and brand new as well?

Warhol, like all of the listed artists, craved newness because he was living in a new age. The modern 20th century defied historic precedence. Every artistic foray felt brand new. All eyes were looking forward into the ‘now’ and looking back simply wasn’t in the plans. Acrylics gave these artists a way forward into uncharted but exciting territory. The results, obviously, are well worth recognizing. 

  Do You Want to Join Them?

Hundreds of thousands of artists, both famous and unsung, have found that for their painting process, acrylics are the answer.

Now the next evolution of acrylics has arrived with Liquitex’s new cadmium-free colors, the world’s first non-cadmium acrylic paints with the same brightness, color strength and opacity as cadmium paint, offering artists a safer option in their practice.

    Try them for yourself!

The Liquitex brand prides themselves in creating and delivering a best in class product with ingredients that are the most safe and effective for you, the artist.

Enter your information HERE to receive a sample of Liquitex cadmium-free and cadmium paints and see if you can tell which one is cadmium-free!

Act quickly, as sample quantities are limited to 500!

  Sponsored by

    Liquitex was the first water-based acrylic paint created in 1955 and since then we have partnered with artists to ensure that we continually evolve and innovate – resulting in a long history of acrylic innovation. Today, Liquitex offers the largest array of vibrant acrylic paints, mediums and tools to enable acrylic artists to continually explore their art and take it to new and unprecedented boundaries. With our innovative drive, our creative passion and our intense desire to share the joys of artistic expression through unparalleled education and community outreach programs, Liquitex is and will continue to be a strong partner to help artists explore their art for decades to come. 

The post 11 Famous Artists Who Paint with Acrylics appeared first on Artist's Network.

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[nofomoartworld]

8 Breakout Artists from the Venice Biennale

Every two years, the Venice Biennale sets the stage for investigative art that represents the current human condition and grapples with identity, nationality, and liberty. Established in 1895, the Biennale today invites artists from all over the world to share their work on a global stage. 120 artists are invited to represent themselves, their countries, their aesthetics, and their personal politics to an audience of about 500,000 visitors over the course of six months.

Since its inception, artist reputations have been made, catapulting some to fame and others into webs of controversy. Says curator Christine Macel, the director of the 2017 Venice Biennale, "The role, the voice and the responsibility of the artist are more crucial than ever before within the framework of contemporary debates. It is in and through these individual initiatives that the world of tomorrow takes shape."

Creators visited the 57th Venice Biennale to meet with the youngest artists of the exhibition. Here we selected eight rising international art stars, hailing from the Republic of China to Kosovo, who span disciplines, mediums, and themes. We wanted to learn more about their provocations, inspirations, and what it feels like to make art specifically with the Biennale in mind.

Guan Xiao, Beijing, China

Guan Xiao sees her role as has a constructor and spectator in finding online content and creating a new visual language. Concerned in the ways to achieve expression, the video artist and sculptor scours the internet to find images and sounds with which she makes video collages. In her humorous three-channel video piece, David, Xiao pieces together downloadable material from YouTube to explore the iconic Renaissance sculpture by Michelangelo. Most of what she had to work with came from videos made by tourists who were more concerned with documenting their art pilgrimage than having any cultural insight to the sculpture's significance. Xiao says, "We 'see' with our eyes, but actually this is not the most important thing. What is important is that we are using all our senses to remember. I decided to put all these 'worthless' videos together to make my work." Xiao's video takes on an ambivalent tone as the artist sings over a video montage of all of the ways in which the statue of David exists in a modern-day context, from mass produced commercial goods to its celebrity-like status. Her lyrics playfully question collective cultural memory: "We don't know how to see [David]… Only recording, but not remembering…"

Pauline Curnier Jardin, Marseille, France

When entering the cave-world of Pauline Curnier Jardin's film, Grotta Profunda, Approfundita, one passes through a splayed and grotesque hand into a dank and dark viewing room. The red-hued campy film on display is loosely based on the life of Bernadette Soubirous, a Catholic figure who encountered visions of the Virgin Mary in a cave in the French Pyrenees. Yet, Jardin's version distills the experience into an erotic awakening, a return to our primitive animal instincts, and venerates the naked female body. The experience is enhanced by the placenta-like room Jardin designed with playground granulates that lets viewers sit or lay on the floor with ease to consider the celebration of the female body. Of her installation, Jardin says, "I dive into research about a cave in its very polysemic polymorphic definition." Jardin's film is inspired by the psychedelic aesthetics of 70s pornography, specifically Behind the Green Door, and its title is loosely based on Deep Throat. She says, "The film is called Grotta Profunda because deep throat in French is gorge profonde so it was also making fun of this movie that we know is problematic, when we look at how pornography is playing with subjectivity and objectivity around the woman." Jardin's womb-room is meant to elevate the many iterations of the female body and remind us of its capacity to contain the wisdom through the ages.

Petrit Halilaj, Republic of Kosovo

Within the core of the Arsenale building, fabric moth sculptures are hidden in the rafters, and fill artist Petrit Halilaj's exhibition space, titled, Do you realize there is a rainbow even if it's night!? The moth structures, handcrafted by Halilaj and his mother out of traditional Qilim carpets from Kosovo, shift between objects hanging on a wall and costumes for the artist to wear during poetic live performances. Halilaj's moths personify the wondrous capacity for self-expression, recognition of his own sexuality, and the symbolic dance between self and society. "I can enter and the body disappears becoming an insect. So with this idea of hiding and becoming an insect, I just escaped another time to talk and confess about something that is still too complicated," the artist tells Creators. Halilaj's autobiographical installations grapple with the weight of exile, war, and abandoned territory—at the age of 12, his family fled the Kosovo War to an Albanian refugee camp. He pulls inspiration from animal nature to translate emotions of catharsis. He says, "I would try to dream something beyond verbal, a different kind of language that would be added to my body. This is the first costume or performative sculpture that has different layers coming from history, culture, and personal nature."

Taus Makhacheva, Moscow, Russia

In Taus Makhacheva's video installation, Tightrope (2015), a real-life tightrope walker balances between two rugged cliffs, carrying an entire collection of modern art from one side to the other. The daring act symbolizes our modern fascination with categorizing and archiving art collections. The project, realized in collaboration with the Museum of Dagestan, uses 61 actual works of art from the museum's storage to display the fine line between valuing local heritage and a community entering a larger global narrative. Makhacheva wants us to question the strategies contemporary museums from the West have on local communities and what happens to the art of the past (pre- and post-Soviet times, in this case). There are battle paintings from the Caucasian War alongside social realism. In the beautifully composed cliffhanger, we are left to resolve our own cultures and representation of them. Makhacheva puts forth the tensions between tradition and modernity, local and global. She says, "There's this idea of balancing when you're involved in cultural production, balancing with survival and balancing on believing that your works will enter history. For me, it was also kind of talking about how you make a certain history of art visible."

Mariechen Danz, Dublin, Ireland

It's hard to say what catches your eye first in Mariechen Danz's room of exploration, Ore Oral Orientation: a soulful stream of music from a video panel beckons you in; Venetian mud coats the entire room; and three anatomical sculptures give you a peek into the human body. Along the walls are maps from Babylonia throughout the 20th century, giving the sense of a journey through history. Danz says, "I wanted to make a map where we could talk about how to ask questions about how to access knowledge and especially scientific imagery, the mappings, and then anatomy." Something wondrous about the sense of time and history that the artist has composed feels ancient and futuristic. Danz holds our attention long enough to reflect and riff on the potential for meaning through symbols, structures, and the lyrics of a song that drop knowledge about Western reasoning. In her installation, we think of climate change, the power of written language, and the capacity for the human body to evolve despite calamity, through song, maps, and the body itself.

Thu Van Tran, Paris, France

Thu Van Tran was born in Vietnam and raised in France after being received into a refugee camp with her family. Straddling two cultures, the artist explores issues of identity, language, history, and political oppression in her conceptual artworks. For the Biennale, Tran's exhibition space is stained in a pastel palette, with rubber and chemical pigments, to question the role of rubber production in colonial Vietnam. In the artist's four sculptural works, the rubber tree symbolizes the abuse of power, cheap labor, and the raw materials associated with six decades of French colonialism in Vietnam. In one corner, a 16mm film plays as a projection, highlighting the repetitive movements made by laborers extracting rubber from the Hevea tree trunks. The title of her film (in English), Overly Forced Gestures, From Harvest to Fight, calls out the political and repressive air of the period. Tran says, "In French, we have this almost anagram which is de recolte, a revolt which means in a way to harvest so that was the link to all those materials facing history, putting it into the light." The three photograms known as In the Fall, in the Rise were made by capturing the imprints of tropical plants, including Hevea tree leaves, onto Fuji-flex paper. The artist says the entire installation is meant to be a poetic account of "history but petrified into sculptural form that deliver a more dreamy and honorific dimension."

Hao Liang, Beijing, China

Fusing traditional Chinese ink painting with surreal narratives, Hao Liang paints directly onto silk to reflect upon the past and the future. In a way, he suspends time. The artist's aesthetic is influenced by masterpieces from the Northern Song dynasty, which dates back to as early as 960 AD. While in art school, Liang found that scholarly Chinese art forms have struggled to evolve due to the political reforms of the Cultural Revolution. For the Biennale, Liang exhibits landscapes from the Hunan Province in his own version of the traditional and iconic form, titled, Eight Views of Xiaoxiang. Most often, these pictorial scenes combine poetic writings to attain a sort of enlightenment. The paintings show a unique worldview constructed through the artist's values and perspective, usually through deep symbolism. The artist says, "I am interested in the traditional East Asian painting theme, 'Eight Views of Xiaoxiang.' In my long-term research, the ancient subject is involved with the present knowledge, perceptions, and geography." Liang contemporizes his paintings and the tradition by infusing the ideas of modern authors outside of China like Franz Kafka, Jorge Luis Borges, and Italo Calvino. He tells Creators, "My work is based on the Chinese ancient art traditions, trying to seek a path to contemporaneity inside Chinese culture."

The 57th Biennale di Venezia runs through November 26 th. Learn more about it here.

Related:

"Black Lives Matter" Makes It to the Venice Biennale [Exclusive Photos] The 'World's Most Important Art Exhibition,' a Film About the Venice Biennale

Disposable DIS-Dain: Berlin Biennale Critics Miss the Point

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[artdaily]

Anna Sofie Hvid @ Academy of Fine Arts Munich

Artist: Anna Sofie Hvid Exhibition title: “True Facts” Venue: Academy of Fine Arts Munich (Neubau) Dates: 2017-02-08 – 2017-02-14

Press release:

Focusing on a critical discourse on space, Anna Sofie Hvid’s practice includes cooperation with architects and art practitioners aiming at promoting an interdisciplinary spatial practice.

For the exhibition ‘True Facts’ she creates speculative spatial contexts for her last painting, a documentary of a non-existent art display. The exhibition is an amalgamation of art and spatial context in the documentary image.

Within the Coop Himmelb(l)au designed extension building of the Academy of Fine Arts Munich, the exhibition plays off several layers of architecture against each other: the speculative and the present, the documentation and the constructed documentation.  

The in-between of speculation and documentation marks the launch of a found magazine turned artists’ publication which is a key object in the exhibition. It includes, among other embedded elements, a text by the curator Hasan Veseli (Fresh Art Bytes) whom she invited to contribute to that publication ('An Incomplete Introduction to Modeling'). Furthermore, she rewrote an essay of hers to a self-conducted interview ('Architecture is Not a Language'); the English version can be found below.

Architecture is Not a Language - “True Facts” 

DOMUS: Mrs. Hvid, is there a reality behind your activities?

ANNA SOFIE HVID: No.

DOMUS: So, how would you describe what you are doing?

ASH: Your question implies that reality is a reference point up front, in the rear, beside, and beneath what we are doing, but we don’t align ourselves with that type of reality. Following Bohr, I could say: We are suspended in reality in such a way that we cannot tell what is up and what is down…[1]

DOMUS: You’ve been at the helm of the architecture studio SDA (Society of Dialectic Architecture, editor’s note) for two years now, have you ever really built something?

ASH: For years now we have built in-between reality and fiction, in a very successful way. Realizing objects is not our benchmark. Many architects realize significant architectures, but we focus on the inter-space. If you want to highlight the actionist notion in that, you could say we work in the interface, in the dialectics of two or more entities. You probably know David Ruiz Muriel, the awardee of the 'cgarchitect Architectural 3D Award 2016'? We are, so to speak, between the pixels of his renderings and the hollow space of Gehry’s 'Walt Disney Concert Hall,' and we took part in the 'datascapes'; those computer generated shapes.

DOMUS: Meaning that you philosophize?

ASH: No. But, from time to time, in close collaboration with the 'Unemployed Academics Union,' we hire PhD-level philosophers temporary. It proves to have added value. We don’t consider the think-space between the pixels as a philosophical framework, but rather as aesthetical practice: Our approach is that the perspective of the inter-space of all entities shall be integrated with their individual and unreduced identity—a rather a materialized task than a way of thinking. For example, the black cloth between Kandinsky’s artworks (now exhibited in a historically informed way, at the Lenbachhaus) suggests a flat ontology between art and surface, between the dust particles that become invisible on the black background, and that turmoil in the top light. It is like in Jacob’s Room: “The sea was indistinguishable from the sky, except that the sea was slightly creased as if a cloth had wrinkles in it. Gradually as the sky whitened a dark line lay on the horizon dividing the sea from the sky and the grey cloth became barred with thick strokes moving, one after another, beneath the surface, following each other, pursuing each other, perpetually...” [from Virginia Woolf’s The Waves, editor’s note]. I don’t know how to think of that without wetting one’s pants to keep one warm, ethically speaking. Aesthetically speaking, the adventure is on the dice. We are sufficiently educated to realize that the artwork doesn’t represent anything, but when picking up this analogy, we could say that the inter-space doesn’t represent too; the same could be said about the dust particles or the skirting board. Architecture, especially the architecture of the industry of historical art, aims for the representative and the significant and places the symbolic beyond that which withholds from the significant. If architecture is art, then it is only art because it is not a signifying language. At this point, Mies would have lit a cigar (laughs).[2]

DOMUS: If you insist that you operate between the pixels and build in the 'datascapes,' then you also operate in a visual language?[3]

ASH: Well, the question is whether the inter-space is part of that visual language. In his memoirs, Sergei Eisenstein talks about a trip to the Chichén Itzá Museum, where the lights are switched off. The museum visit continued by torchlight and matches (it was 1931). Do the phases in the dark belong to an aesthetical experience of the museum pieces or just the 'illuminated' ones? The enlightened visual language to which art and architecture commit themselves to, under the pretense of documentation and communication of art, is qua their fluid technical quality a manifestation of biopower. Social platforms build the archive of our visual language based on “searchability,” and that in return determines our visual world of experience. The inter-space enables a biopower non-social dialectics between light and darkness, space and inter-space, etc.

DOMUS: Aesthetics as flash?

ASH: I am with Haraway here, who says: you have to learn to stay with the trouble. The flash doesn’t go past, and we have to learn to work with the twilight. Trump’s counselor, Kellyanne Conway, replied that she is talking about 'alternative facts' when being refuted by facts. Alternative facts can’t be strained off by confronting them with the truth (is that the opposite of alternative facts; something like 'true facts'? ... there, one can see that absurd regress). Alternative facts keep us in some inconvenient suspense, and in that state, we have to work in between the well-lit and unlit objects. It’s a memory game! With memory as architecture—that fancy bits architecture with empty attics and leaky joints—I’m referring to Bachelard, of course.

DOMUS: Bernett Newman said in the 1950’s: “Sculpture is what you bump into when you back up to look at a painting.” When you renounced painting in 2017, marked by the True Facts-exhibition, you dissolved a picture in architectural interiors; and those in pixels... one doesn’t encounter architecture or sculpture...

ASH: ...you forget that this work was exhibited in the extension building of the Academy of the Fine Arts in Munich—designed by the 'Coop Himmelb(l)au'-studio—and that was a punch line. That architecture wants and wants and wants to be a sculpture—a typical reminiscence from the art-architecture complex of modernism and the post-modern. As a counter-concept to that, I came up with docile organic cream-tea architecture, specific for that last oil painting that I painted.[4] I had created the architectonic contexts for that picture which you would have never bumped into if you had not backed up to look at it. On the other hand, it is something from which you couldn’t have escaped. If you had tried that, you would have bumped into the 'Coop Himmelb(l)au' sculpture.

DOMUS: Picture and architecture merged...

ASH: ...in the inter-space in a seamless way and inseparable...

DOMUS: ...has this exhibition ever happened?

ASH: No.

The interview was conducted by Anna Sofie Hvid herself. Munich, February 2017. 

[1] Editor’s note: Bohr is misquoted here. The correct quote is as follows: “Traditionally philosophy has accustomed us to regard language as something secondary, and reality as something primary. Bohr considered this attitude toward the relation between language and reality inappropriate. When one said to him that it cannot be language which is fundamental, but that it must be reality which, so to speak, lies beneath language, and of which language is a picture, he would reply 'We are suspended in reality in such a way that we cannot tell what is up and what is down.'“(Petersen (1985), S. 302)

[2] “Architecture is a language ... We have to pull the whole thing together; we have to destroy the separation between painting and sculpture and architecture and design“ Mies van der Rohe. See video: https://vimeo.com/139258382

[3] From 2008 – 2017 painting was part of Hvid’s practice.

[4] "Lukke Gaarden“ (Hvid, 2015), oil on paper, 32,5 x 46,7 cm, is part of the dark oil-painting series; these motifs are only visible in a particular light perspective.