Funny, shocking, inspiring

An over-zealous woman, a TV host on laughing gas and some cool virals and ads...

Still have to see if ever something like this happens here in "Jouw vrouw, Mijn Vrouw"...
http://media.putfile.com/Lady-Goes-Crazy-on-Trading-Spouses

Many of you have probably seen this before. In this talk show called Boemerang, the theme for that day was medical blunders. The blunders, however, weren't just medical in nature. This one's in flemish, folks...
http://www.break.com/index/holditin2.html

Top 10 virals of 2005:
http://www.boreme.com/boreme/funny-top10/virals-of-2005.php

Top 10 ads of 2005:
http://www.boreme.com/boreme/funny-top10/ads-2005.php

And what if Gandhi had a webcam?...
http://www.epica-awards.com/assets/epica/2004/winners/film/flv/11071.htm

Some musings on visual culture

The following 6 posts are my reflections about visual culture and new media. These articles comprise the end-project for my subject Culture and Media in the Institue for Interactive Media (IAM) in Amsterdam.

This is not an art review, rather an articulation of several concepts in new media as derived from my chosen images. Some of these concepts are:

• perspective
• virtual, hyper, photo and spectacular realism
• verisimilitude
• the relations and implications of technology, culture, media and visual literacy of today's society

Sources:
Lister, M and J. Dovey, S. Giddings, I. Grant, K. Kelly
2003 New Media: A Critical Introduction. Oxon: St. Edmundsbury Press.

Lord of the Rings
2000 Andy Serkis as "Gollum".
http://www.serkis.com/cinlotr.htm
(geraadpleegd op 08-01-2006)

Wikipedia
2004 Bullet Time - WIkipedia, the free encyclopedia.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bullet_time
(geraadpleegd op 08-01-2006)

The spectacular commodification of Che

Films containing computer-generated images and computer animation have given birth not only to its own unique aesthetics, but also a critique of its visual seductiveness and dominance. In addressing this so-called ‘spectacular realism’ (Lister 2003: 145), we are faced with two main connotations of the spectacle. First, it’s the ability to distract the attention of the audience from the narrative; and second, it’s the commodification of social life. In Guy Debord’s book, The Society of the Spectacle, he asserts that our vision itself of the world is commodified: the world that we see is a world transformed largely by post-war capitalism — an illusion and a masking, of real life. (Listers 2003: 145) We are more likely to see — and look — at the appearance of things, not at their underlying relationships. This characteristic of today’s society is reflected in the way marketing and advertising weave their magic. The proliferation of branded communities — though I believe not just to be a product of commercial forces — is certainly a testimony to this. The way brands have become synonymous to lifestyles, choices and frame of mind seems to reinforce Debord’s notions of the society of the spectacle.

It’s not just they way we are fascinated with the CGI’s employed in today’s films. This fascination (or blind admiration)— the ‘centred eye’ of Albertian perspective — actually extends outside the cinema. The way we see the world is like looking through the camera lens that captures only the surface of things. The fascination for the spectacular extends to the way we label our environment and experiences in terms of products and brands: in terms of images purported by the current dominant institutions in society. Look at the way we have commodified Che Guevara, who has now become a brand himself. But of what? Of many things except the Revolution. What activists used to have as a symbol of resistance has now been assimilated by big business. Many of the so-called new ‘political’ ads, which supposedly resist discrimination and promote freedom and equality, or the emancipation of women, lose in the long run, the politics of their message. (The new ad campaign of Libresse sanitary napkins in the Netherlands is an example of this…but that’s for a later blog – timi). There’s always the danger that these radical and counter-culture statements can be reduced to mere hype and advertising gimmicks.

This is not to say that counter-culture has not achieved anything, but a statement of how the commodity-driven society continuously assimilates the successes of counter-culture. I’m saying that political ads might have originally possessed the radical potential, but their message was later lost in the glamour of advertising. What big business does is to use political messages (images), but filter out the politics. They’ve taken away the politics in the struggle for these freedoms. They’ve commodified Che.

Gollum: poster-boy for the next generation

I love everything LOTR; not just Legolas, but even Gollum and Sauron. But after seeing Jackson’s LOTR, I’ve become unexpectedly a real fan of Gollum. Its/his performance in the film was truly touching. Yep, ‘its/his performance’, because Gollum wasn’t just purely a CGI; as everyone knows, he’s also the product of Andy Serkis’ acting commitment. Gollum was a performance-based digital creation that “acted” as much as any actor in the film — probably the most actor-driven digital creature that has ever been used in a film. Andy Serkis’ performance on set was digitally remade using his movements and facial expressions to animate the Gollum that would ultimately “act” in the scenes. (http://www.serkis.com/cinlotr.htm)
Gollum was the synthesis of motion capture photography, computer generated imagery and digital sound mixing. Truly, a new visual effect.

Although Gollum doesn’t really exist (I hear objections), viewers approved, accepted and sympathized with his character primarily because of its photo-realistic quality. His representation wasn’t produced by just photographic techniques, but if Gollum would in fact exist, he would look like the film’s Gollum. People accept it “…because it conforms to prevailing or emergent realist notions of screen spectacle and fantasy, not the ‘real world’.” (Listers 2003: 140)

The existence and accessibility to digital imaging and CGI’s was a great determining factor to the feasibility of filming LOTR. The wondrous creatures and beings of Tolkien’s world could at last be rendered realistically, thereby also lending authenticity to the film. Developments such as these, also reflect from a cyberculture perspective, a distinct phase in Western culture view where “…computer modelling of ‘3D’, ‘photo-realistic’ environment and characters is seen as ontologically distinct from photographic representation.’ (Listers 2003: 147)

In the world of games, special effects, digital animation and CGI are also on the path to achieving more and more verisimilitude. Although majority of the games still possess a distinct hyperrealist aesthetic — edgy, chiselled figures, cartoon/animation colours and hues [you know the real world doesn’t appear like in these games!] — the newest technology is certainly pushing towards a heightened sense of verisimilitude. The uncanny likeness to external reality of environments combined with photo-realistic images of characters and objects marks the newest games. With the use of next-generation technology and A.I., the gaming experience is set to reach another crossroad. Check out the demo videos of the game, Oblivion (especially the forest-scene) and you’ll see what I mean. http://www.elderscrolls.com/home/home.htm

The Realism Chronicles: The hero, the tiger and the matrix

Although many celebrate the technologies of verisimilitude, many also criticize the role of digital animation and special effects as factors that contribute to the depthlessness of modern cinema and the digital visual culture. These digital-driven images are seen as dazzling and thrilling, but merely illusory and lacking meaning. (Listers 2003: 145)

You don’t have to have a doctorate degree to know that, indeed, many films suffer from depthlessness; and that technological wizardry is often used to compensate for the lack of a solid story. But to what extent is this ‘depthlessness’ a symptom of the slide into digital illusion and a hindrance to the telling of stories? Even before the coming of these technologies, bad stories and lousy films already existed, which definitely lacked meaning and depth. Couldn’t it be that digital technology has opened not just a new way of viewing movies, but also a new way of telling stories?
This is at least how I see it when it comes to films like the kung-fu greats of today, particularly The Hero and Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. Kung-fu films (and kung-fu-inspired ones) have emerged successfully in the international scene when digital manipulation — paradoxically — helped made its magical realist character more ‘real.’ It helped the unfamiliar Western eye to momentarily suspend its disbelief. So, in terms of mainstream cinema, kung-fu films graduated from being comical, exaggerated stories of warriors who can fly, walk on water, and fight from atop bamboo trees (as seen from a Western perspective) to a more unique and rich retelling of realities. They’ve become the cool thing to adopt in action films; the conventions of kung-fu realism are now more exposed, popularised and understood.

The technological advancements in film-making also birthed a new genre of producing and creating films, like LOTR and The Matrix. The latter is most famous for its dramatic scenes using bullet-time.

“The camera path was pre-designed using computer-generated visualizations as a guide. Cameras were arranged on a track and aligned through a laser targeting system, forming a complex curve through space. The cameras were then triggered at extremely close intervals, so the action continued to unfold, in extreme slow-motion, while the viewpoint moved. Additionally, the individual frames were scanned for computer processing.”
( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bullet_time )

The bullet time has been around for some time (Speed Racer, Blade, Wing Commander, etc.), but in The Matrix, it was a crucial element of both the story and the storytelling. Utilizing this and other digital-effects actually made The Matrix very ‘realistic’ that the public was very willing to suspend their disbeliefs and their notions of everyday reality. The imagery/metaphor of virtual reality and its technologies were creatively expressed through bullet-time / time slice. It enhanced the story’s dimensions regarding the shifting, altering and merging nature of realities/unrealities in the Matrix. It assured a more compelling and visually powerful telling of the story.

But it isn’t just the technical ingenuity of films like The Matrix and LOTR that assured them of success. Today’s spectators are modern, aware and literate of the technological advancements in cinema and entertainment. This knowledge prevents them from being duped or tricked. It’s the same knowledge and appreciation that makes them accept the realism promoted by the Matrix and LOTR, and adds to the “pleasure of spectatorship”. They know that the special effects are there to be noticed. It becomes then “…a play between the audience’s willing acceptance of illusory events and images and their pleasure in recognising the sophistication of the artifice.” (Listers 2003: 154)

Gulf Wars

The effect and usefulness of movies certainly last longer than their viewing time. I think movies (TV, videos) have become so ingrained in our society (I’m a film-junkie myself) that its visual recall is so powerful. Our visual literacy makes this sort of posters powerful media. Many people may find it hard to understand the Middle-east conflict, for instance, by just reading the news; but coupled with visual media of satire and parody, the intricacies of these issues could be better understood, if not at least, popularised.

What’s so endearing and enduring about spoofs or parodies is that they not only make you laugh, but they make you think as well. That’s their charm: the audience knows that there are more realities than the one that’s presented on stage. With the standardization of image-manipulation in interpersonal and mass communication, playing with reality has been launched to a grand scale. The ability to tweak reality has now become a new and important skill for today’s generation and is increasingly interwoven in our daily lives.
Technological advancements have changed the way we see the world — literally and figuratively. On one hand, we are now equipped with the capacity to see what was once invisible or inconceivable. Think of quarks, dying stars, embedded journalism, Google Earth. On the other hand, the same technology has enabled us to select, manipulate or hyper-focus our realities: in the name of glorifying beauty, protecting civilized sensibilities, promoting commercial interests or exposing the next great evil menace. Technological trickery or mastery of reality? The boundaries in-between are thinning, sometimes shifting and merging.

What I personally like about posters such as this — especially movie posters — is how real events can be constructed to fit perfectly within its fictional parameters. Something imaginary such as Star Wars is used both as a creative and communicative handle to re-present the reality of the war between the American government and its proclaimed enemies.

A bit funny but characteristic of today’s society: something fictive remediates something real. Image-manipulation software has, in the case of this poster, enhanced such a representation of reality. It possesses a filmic realism comparable, for example to the effects in Forrest Gump. (Lister 2003: 156) However, this same technological wizardry has also been widely used outside the boundaries of cinema to spread false perceptions, such as of beauty, world events, politics, development, etc. The paradox this presents is that with the development of visual culture and visual technology, the authenticity of images is also questioned.

The Nightwatch

Its full title is: 'The Company of Captain Banning Cocq and Lieutenant Willem van Ruytenburch’. In this painting, the young Lord Van Purmerland as Captain orders his Lieutenant, the Lord Van Vlaerdingen, to march his company Civilians. The popular title, The Nightwatch, is actually a nickname earned by this painting because of its striking depiction of a (supposedly) night scene. It was however coated in dark varnish, which made it unusually darker than originally intended. Some articles state that it actually depicts a day-scene.

I’m no expert on Rembrandt, so I won’t delve into the details of this painting’s history. I’d like, however, to focus on two elements relevant to a discourse of visual culture, namely: perspective and narrative sequence.
Perspective was used in this painting as a practical method to realistically capture the moving out of the Company. The right proportions and distances were used to promote its logic to the spectator. Although colossal in size (363 x 437 cm), the painting still conforms to the standards of pictorial perspective at that time. Its size however makes it better viewed from a distance. As such, it gives the impression that the scene — the pictorial space — “…is continuous with the viewer’s position in real space.” (Lister 2003: 127)

However, perspective is also used here as a symbolic form. The play with light and shadows, and dark and bright colours captures the eye and focuses it on the centre of the painting where the most important figures are depicted: the two men and the small girl in the centre left background. They were thrust from the anonymity of darkness to the foreground, the light of recognition shining upon their figures. Their significance in the painting is immediately obvious.

The painting also effectively impresses a sense of movement and creates a narrative sequence in a single space. The canvas reflects a bustle of activity and evokes an atmosphere of excitement through the contrasts between light and dark, bright and dark hues and a variety of positions, gestures and facial expressions. It departed from the customs of that time which favoured a static mode of painting rows of figures for the corporate portrait. In doing so, it managed to reflect the dynamism of the narrative: the Captain giving orders, the men preparing their musket, some shooting, the flag proudly displayed, and a drum roll about to start— a Company come to life and beginning to march.

My Magic Library

I made this illustration two years ago for a project for Visual Design where we had to create an imaginary state. My team decided to create a magical world for kids, Vettesatisda (derived from the Dutch “Vette stad is dat”, which in English translates to “That’s one cool city!”). This forest is actually a magic library of sorts where children can read or create any story they want, night and day. In the middle of the forest is a magical water source which forks out into streams of chocolate milk, orange juice, lemonade and strawberry shake.

Worth mentioning here is the use of digital manipulation in this illustration. It began as a hand-drawn painting and then was transformed to a digital image. I first painted the forest by hand, and then I added objects and the figures of children. These were scanned from greeting cards and edited to closely simulate the colour scheme and style of the painting.
This illustration is obviously fantasy-inspired. The subject matter, caricature design, and the way some elements of the physical world are exaggerated all reflect hyperrealist aesthetics. (Listers 2003: 143) The colours are bright and the figures are clearly rendered in animation graphic conventions. Some objects are more symbolic and expressively rendered like the sun and moon and the colours of trees. It definitely exceeds verisimilitude.

However, some realist elements still echo strongly throughout the illustration. A vanishing point — the farthest tree in the middle — is used to determine the perspective of the scene. The trees become taller and bigger as they approach the foreground. The figures of children also vary in size depending on their position in the illustration. The use of perspective also enhances the narrative aspect of the picture, showing how the children spend their time in the magic library: some atop the trees, others next to the stream while day and night pass idly by.

Unless I Love

Unless I love you
The way I would have loved you
In kinder times,
Love you with fire
That blazes all night
And dies as happy smoke
Rising, swirling with the light
Of grey mornings,
Unless I love you
This way and all other ways,
As if you loved me,
As if we have met,
and you are close enough
for me to follow the trails
of your hair,
and for you to catch
the embers
of my terrible dreams,
Unless I love you
with this fearful heart,
then I would not be able to love.

Unless I love you
With the stillness
Of heaving mountains,
Or the grace
Of raging oceans,
Love you despite this
Relentless hunger,
Love you in spite
Of being alone to wander
The domains of my soul,
Unless my love should
pervade my mind
Like the aroma of rain
On dusty pavements
That summons memories
and melancholy --
Then to love you is to love
the fate of flowers
and hold on
to the promise of solstice

Unless this love withstands
the desperate brown
of my parched lands, and
strive amidst the hardened laughter
of women inside shanties,
Should love grow
unbridled as I march towards
the surreal phalanx of
men armed with uncertainty,
Unless i dare to love you amidst
the chaotic plan of the universe,
close my eyes in peace
and stir in your passing,
If I do not love you with my history
and the present of my tears,

Then I must love you
in hope.

For I would like it
that when I die,
and people will say,
“She was not really the writer
she claimed, or
she could never stay long
in a job;
she was always the dreamer
and her dreams
were too bright, and
she was forever wandering,
and often afraid,
shifting roads, shifting seas,”
They will pause
and furrow their brows,
as if feeling for the pea
in the folds of their memories.
And in the still light of moments
a faint smile will spread
on their face as they say:

Ay, but how she loved!

And how she loved us.

She loved as if each moment
Were the first and the last.
She loved with a heart so big
It took in both joy and sorrow.
Her love so immense
She gave everything
To know drowning,
To be burned and to rage
To cackle and scream
To be still in crying
To be scared and lost,
Ah yes, these were her constants
Love was her fated savior
And how she loved,
How she loved him!

--delunna

Warning

I'll be posting my poems regularly...
;-p

By My Tears

“This is my program:
Let us all weep.”
--Kenneth Patchen

The world has not wept enough.
Yes, we have cried for reason’s demise
Or reason itself turned cold and cruel
We have wailed for lives cut short,
Or for hearts that beat without spirit,
We have cursed each season upturned,
The death of leaves, the fall of mountains –
Why do our species define
history and peace as contradictions?
With righteous anger,
We tremble at injustice, and yet
We summon wars as much as we train heroes.
We are relentless, without limits
Like a catastrophe
And we punish ourselves for this terrible,
Implacable destiny.

We torture ourselves for conjuring destinies
That destroy those who seek them.

But we have not wept enough.
The night’s disquiet is more piercing than our mourning.
Suffering is still greater than our sadness.

So, I propose:
Let us weep until we cannot.

Let us weep so hard
that we cannot turn our back to the other
without touching, without sharing,
without being shaken by our capacity for despair.

Let us take pride in our weeping,
And weave these tears into our skin,
That laughter becomes a memory,
And happiness a dream.
Maybe then,
We shall call destiny, hope.
Love, our evolution.

I shall begin with myself.
By my tears, my love shall know me.

How to beat back-to-school blues

I was supposed to be finishing my project for Culture and Media, but I got waylaid by these vacation photos of Palawan, one of the most beautiful provinces in the Philippines (southwest of Manila). This was back in 2003 in an island called Club Noah. I've posted some for your (and my) viewing pleasure. Just looking at these shots transport me back to that lovely island and to a time when deadlines and projects were fuzzy, blurry, delusional products of a mind caressed by the sea...

(read: i am in denial and don't want to go back to school and work!!!)

*Sigh*

Top view

Top view
Originally uploaded by delunna.

On the way to Club Noah in Palawan...(did i mention i'm scared of heights and teeny-weeny airplanes?)

Club Noah

We're here!
Originally uploaded by delunna.

Finally, after travelling by plane, jeepney and boat, we've arrived at this jewel of an island.

A room with a view

A room with a view
Originally uploaded by delunna.

Staying in can be fun, too!

A room with a view 2

A room with a view 2
Originally uploaded by delunna.

My idea of neighbours and the perfect neighbourhood ;-p

Something's fishy

Something's fishy
Originally uploaded by delunna.

"Fishes are nice, fishes are friends, we lovessss fishies"
-- The QB's and Gollum

Gulp

Gulp
Originally uploaded by delunna.

Definitely must dive again...

Palawan sunset

Palawan sunset
Originally uploaded by delunna.

I'm homesick ;-(

Winoli

A great cat, a true friend who chose me...

What’s bugging me about Vodafone’s Mayflower-ad

Have you seen Vodafone’s new campaign? It uses the insect, Mayfly, as a metaphor of a life lived to the max and in the here-and-now. If you haven’t seen it yet, better check their website first before continuing to read my piece. http://www.vodafonemayfly.co.uk/

I first saw this ad in the cinema while waiting for Harry Potter to begin. Initially, I found it charming: I like computer-generated images in general, and insects can be quite a cute batch. The visuals were nice: the forest was lush and alive, a fantastic playground for our buddy, the Mayfly. It flew around, dived, glided and surfed; did some juggling and tried its hands -– er -- or ‘legs’ at tennis. It even fell in love (nice touch, I thought). All these in the span of its one-day life.

I thought, cute, until I began to listen more clearly to the narration. At the end of the story, the voice-over went: “If we embrace life like the Mayfly, what a life that would be.” It continued: “Make the most of now”, while the word “now” is shown with Vodafone’s logo serving as the letter “o”.

Smart, I thought. But somehow, I found the ad unsettling. The images I saw didn’t seem to match the message. At first glance, everything seemed to fit. So why was I frowning at the end of the ad? How come I didn’t believe it?

After 2 days, that was still my question. I’m a fan of CGI and I appreciate this kind of aesthetics. I’ve also seen a lot of ads where I went “Duh”, “Aarrgghh” and “Eeeuuw”. This one wasn’t even bad -- it was charming -- but something was definitely bugging me. No pun intended.

So I sat back and performed a dangerous activity: thinking. I dared go a step further and decided that whatever I thought, I would blog it. All my other selves immediately made their objections known: the QB’s – all 9 of them -- just wanted to play games and watch films, Sangga wanted to concentrate on deadlines for school and work (she has a point), and Timi wanted to continue writing a novel. But it was too late for my own objections: the seed has been planted.

So, these are my musings:

I miss the element of sincerity in the ad. The Mayfly’s life – and the suggestion of the good life – was romanticized too much. Or actually, it was made too pretty, too pimped-up. Too cartoon. This time the use of animation or CGI didn’t contribute to making it look real. On the contrary, its hi-tech character made it came across as superficial. The voice-over said that although the Mayfly has a life expectancy of one day, it's not miserable about it and instead, crams its life with doing the things it loves. OK, good message, but still I couldn't help being sarcastic: how do we know that it's not miserable? Ok, ok, I don't require an interview with a Mayfly saying it's happy...it's not about that ;-p . But a nice-looking Mayfly on the screen having fun plus a voice-over saying how much it loves doing what it does not make the message more convincing nor authentic. For me, the meaning was forced; the authenticity, lost. The paradox was: because the Mayflower was made too human in the ad, it somehow lost its authenticity to represent a human life.

What’s funny is that in reality, the Mayfly’s life is spent almost entirely in flight and its main purpose is to reproduce. According to good ol’ Wikipedia, its mouthparts are useless and its digestive system filled with air. Fly-shag-die, thus. Not exactly the kind of life many people dream nor love to live.

But this is exactly the life that many people are leading. And hey, I’m not saying this kind of life is bad. The so-called normal and unexciting everyday existence can be full of surprises. Not always as grand as the Hollywood manner, but it can be full of nuances, light and shadows. This is what the ad wanted to say, I guess, but personally, I don’t think it worked. A message as big as ‘embrace your life now’ can’t be captured by a few impressive frames of a computer-generated mayfly that’s prancing around and having fun. In this case, the digital-ness came in the way of storytelling. My brain refused to match the message with the image. It wasn't so much that it was fake -- i knew that -- but that it felt fake.

It’s a shame that the Mayfly’s story was lost in the telling. As much as I don’t really favour this particular ad, I still find the Mayfly an interesting metaphor of something that’s hard to obtain. Like living, for example. Really embracing life, that’s easier said than done. I wish the ad focused more on the fact that Mayflies often dance around each other in large groups. This was also featured in the ad and was nicely rendered, but its significance failed to shine in the narrative. I think this would’ve been a better creative and conceptual handle. Imagine showing real Mayflies, ala-Discovery Channel, for instance; and then, at the end, showing how they all converge to dance wildly in the twilight. It’s like a celebration of their brief –- but still their only, and thus, important -- lives. It would be like saying: “Hey all you people bemoaning your dreary existence, you still have the chance to participate in the Great Dance of Life! So stop dragging your feet, embrace life, make the most of now. Dance magnificently, dizzyingly, madly!”

That I would’ve bought. That would’ve inspired me.