Meshes of the afternoon

A film by Maya Deren and Alexander Hamid. The music is by Teiji Ito (1943)
In the 40s, Deren made a number of experimental films.
In the beginning of Meshes of the Afternoon, she presents her self and an unknown stranger. She connects both by a flower that is dropped y the first. Interestingly, she then uses repetition, to reveal her self as the stranger. In this repetitiveness she is very successful, by altering each time she repeats a part of the film in a small way. Through this she shows and furthers the plot, as every time the viewer is given a bit more information, and a newly introduced form of the main character.
Though it is somewhat violent, as the main character has conflict between her self with a knife, the film is successful.
The music complements and adds to the element of mistery.

Indifference and Apocrypha

In Fuel Gallery, an exhibition called "Indifference and Apocrypha" opened. It, as is described, shows constant reminders of death. Yet it is portrayed as a loss of innocence. Most of the works have subject maters reminiscent of childhood, yet with a very disturbing factor, not always clearly related to death, but certainly disturbing, harsh. It ranges from Adela Leibowitz’s presentation of blue images of little girls, and peaceful subjects, to Angelou Guingon presenting a man standing in front of a house, well over-armed with canons, and cows in front of the canons. There is no question that there is significance to the pieces, yet the true expression was more affected by the massive crowd of first friday, and performers, as well as protesters of "free drugs" dressed entirely in white, and people with masks, and signs of free hugs in the entrance... the art was not as clear as one would think the artist meant it to be seen.

Almodovar

Pedro Almodovar is an expert in portraying women. He expresses the interactions and conflicts of his characters with delicate beauty and grace. In All about my mother, though the plot is not necessarily something everyone can relate to, but instead quite absurd, the characters are so developed and express emotions in such a way that allow the viewer to connect to them. The combination of the music and different angles adds to this.

In one of the beginning scenes, when Estevan is killed, the portrayal of what he would be seeing works great. It shows the tragic situation in a manner that is not commonly portrayed.

April fools

In questioning time, we must think of our perception of it. We crate calendars, and traditions around them, to help identify and celebrate differences in time. The old tradition of April fools is just another form to distinguish a day, and make it memorable. it is an initiative taken by each person to make it worth remembering.
An article "April Fools' Day Facts: Behind the Laughs" talks about the traditions, and believed origins of this day.

Calotypes

In the national gallery of art, the "Impressed by Light: British Photographs from Paper Negatives, 1840-1860" calotypes are shown. Calotypes, as explained in the exhibit, are photographs made from paper negatives. It is fascinating how the beginning of photography was conducted in such an experimental manner. Though the technique was an attempt to create a new form of producing photographs by chemistry different from the now commonly used silver printing, it was not as successful. Never the less it is interesting that a group of people was so intrigued and developed this to such an extent.

Galary 339

In the philadelphia masters, the comercial photography gallery shows great array of photographs.
the ones presented by Ray K. Metzer are peronaly the most outstanding. the use of positive and negative, as black and white is incredible in " philadelphia" (1962), 62c2-13. He places the main focus on the subject in the darck shadow. Though the figure is contrasted with the darck background, it is quite well light. This draws greeat attention to the figure. Then the eye moves to the figure behind it.This print is very succesfull in attracing the viewer's eye, and leading it throught.

Ansel Adams

The exhibit in the Philadelphia Museum of Art called "Transcending the Literal: Photographs by Ansel Adams from the Collectiont" shows some of the abstractions of the natural landscapes created by Adams. In the water and foam as well as the Surf series, numbers 1 through 5, show an incredible amount of texture and variety. The viewer is presented with a wave coming in and moving out, sand, both wet and dry, in front of it, as well as shadow. Yet it shows the water in a smooth manner and in light tones. . It is quite abstract. Because of the perspective, it is a bit confusing on what exactly is being presented. Nonetheless it is fascinating.

in progress

One of the major assignments of the class is to make an experimental film, around 3 minutes long. this is my film, in progress...

In this video it is interesting to see the randomness of the different things in the ball. Yet as a video it works together. The music goes along with the visual movement.
The setting is also interesting. it combines the familiar objects with a surreal space, and movement.
The ending is also strange, but is a choice of the musicians and video makers.

yellow submarine

In the Beatles' movie "Yellow Submarine" the song "when Im 64" shows the progression of a minute, through simple graphics of numbers, counting up. Though the subject is simple, it is effective, in keeping the viewer interested.

Cinema Paradiso is sort of an autobiographical story of filmmaker Giuseppe Tornatore. It is a classic Italian film. in the scenes of the movie theater, clips of early classics are shown. It is interesting to see the change in movies from that time. As the industry has grown, movies are not such a rarity, and thus society’s involvement has also expanded, and become more of a quotidian thing. It is also interesting to see the changes in what is allowed to be shown; as the movie is set in old past times, a preacher decided what was allowed an what was not permitted to be shown.

16 mm film.

This is footage of an experimental film, achieved by altering the film, through scratches and coloring,

Atonement, a movie set in the time of war, is about the mistake, false accusation of a young man. What is interesting in this movie is the play with the narrative. It presents parts of the story from one character’s perspective, and then goes back and presents it from an other’s view, which let the viewer understand the events.

My Flip Book

Ingmar Bergman

Wild Strawberries, shows the dream sequence of a man, and his worries of old age and time of death.

Though it is a narrative, it is experimental.

Man Ray

In this short video the photographs of Man Ray, a photographer film maker from the 20th century, are used in an animation. It combines the classical photographs with a more modern animation.

Some of Man Ray's experimental films are "La retour a la raison" (The Return to Reason)1923 and "Emak-Bakia" (Leave Me Alone) 1926

a little piece of my flip book. Click on the image to see the animated clip.

kinetic toys - Zoetrope

persistence of vision

Presistance of vision, as defined by Merriam-Webster’s Medical Dictionary:

Pronunciation: pr-sis-tn(t)s-, -zis-

Function: noun

: visual phenomenon that is responsible for the apparent continuity of rapidly presented discrete images (as in motion pictures or television) consisting essentially of a brief retinal persistence of one image so that it is overlapped by the next and the whole is centrally interpreted as continuous

This is a picture of the reflection of my eye. It’s amazing that the hands and the camera can be seen, without feeling disgusted by the closeness of the eye.

Harold Edgerton

As a photographer, Harold Edgerton was able to capture what the eye can not see ordinarily: a golfer in motion, or the shape created by a milk drop, in his famous 1957 "Milk drop Coronet." Edgerton captured a single instance of time in a manner that had not been previously achieved.

A video clip from The Edgerton Center at MIT shows this phenomenon
<"http://web.mit.edu/vrtour/movies/n2_edgerton_mv.mov">