Matthew Barney's Cremaster Cycle and Björk's Work

After watching parts of Matthew Barney's Cremaster cycle, I can definitely say that this work is something like no other. It was my first time being exposed to something so grand, if I can use that word. While the cycle focuses on creation, it is only obvious that Barney's work is meant for mature audiences. While some people could find his work grotesque, I find it intriguing. He uses many different metaphors and allusions throughout his cycle, mainly in sexual ways. The camera shots in this piece are also phenomenal, as is the accompanying score.


I happened to find Björk's work more fascinating, perhaps because of its use of digital projection technology. I watched a few pieces, one of them being even more different than the others, called "Cocoon." From prior knowledge, the Japanese believe that the red string represents fate, and that it connects two people together romantically.

It really is a video you have to watch to understand it yourself.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_fN-eotrifA

Matthew Barney's Cremaster Cycle: a late night interpretation

Upon watching the first part of Matthew Barney's Cremaster Cycle, I found it amusing how Barney plays back and forth  between a lingerie group flashing their skirts and what appears to be the lines of the football field, alternating between side to side and top to bottom. His syncing of music is right on for both shots in that they follow a sort of burlesque dance across the stage.His use of camera movement and focal length make it almost feel like the room is breathing and alive. For the most part, we should be able to see this happening a lot in traditional cinema, however we are trained to focus on the actor rather than the room around them in these dramatic swoops of the camera.

From the way Barney is sequencing his shots, it looks like two parties are going on in the opposing blimps. The two colors of grapes are the only distinguishing characteristic between the two rooms. The play on vertical and horizontal lines is a pretty strong theme in his first part as the legs are a huge emphasis in the beginning and at this point. There is the metaphor of the women's legs being as fine as porcelain as they are leaning out the window. This relationship is established during the overhead camera view in which all the legs are horizontal, much like the supporting structure of the centerpiece of the table. The guiding lines of the legs and the centerpiece would lead you side to side to make the comparison for yourself.

In addition to the lines, there is a voyeuristic sort of theme going on in the piece. The women start out as scantily clad and willing to show off what is underneath their skirts. On the blimp however, the dress style of the women appear to be quite prudish, almost like catholic school nuns. There is a lot of peeking at them from under the table, staring at their feet and crossed legs. It almost illustrates the subtle way men look at women when they aren't aware of it.

Barney seems to start a new sequence with the woman under the table. Due to the way she is dressed and the broken music box sort of background ambiance, it feels like we are staring at a broken doll that is laid to rest. I feel like the grapes illustrate a sort of male stimulation in which the movement  conveys a stirring in the loins. The way Barney cuts from the prudish woman to the one under the bed shows, at least to me, that she is harboring some kind of sexual desire that she is keeping under the covers. They constantly stare out the window for the  fear that someone is judging their outer appearance.It looks to me like the football field is masculinity portrayed as a monolith and the women are put on a pedestal way up in the blimps.

Avant-garde artist with digital technology

After viewing multiple Bjork and Matthew Barney's artworks I found that avant-garde artists normally could follow the steps of digital technology. Because when they need to achieve their weird effects, digital technology is a  good resource for them to rely on. Unique colour, sharp-cut theme, reshaped objects and unrestricted style, audience view them as avant-garde is largely determined by that they're unfamiliar with artists' magic technology. Of course, this not equals to that people who knows technology could creative them as well.

One of Bjork's was impressed on my heart which called Hyper ballad.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=26sP2WsA5cY
Bjork is lying on a digital projection screen with her eyes closed, then another Bjork projects on the former one, with her eyes opened and singing crazily. Multiple overlapped digital layers intwine with each other rhythmically, which draws a split situation for our viewers.
This is also could be interpreted as an excellent digital projection's application in art, I really like it.


Matthew Barney's works I think are a little bit bloody and irascible just as what he said.

However, I have not to deny that his work sparks his endless intelligence and his thistly but valuable emotion. 

Synaesthetic Synthesis: Simultaneous Perception of Harmonic Opposites

Youngblood has pointed out that cinema is newly defined by every person that creates a film. However that argument loses ground when we, as human beings, are only limited to define what we have access to; in other words, a pool of knowledge and resources available to the human race. In this way, the relationships defined may be new and never before observed.They aren't completely new, but rather a new derivative of what we currently have available to us. The only way something truly new is defined comes with the way of advancements in humanity and technology that would give us deeper insights into our understandings of nature and therefore a new element in the pool from which we can draw new and grander observations.

Super Video Converter

http://www.erightsoft.com/SUPER.html

You can convert to any format of audio or video with it.

Blade Runner screening

Last week, I had the opportunity to attend a screening of Ridley Scott's Blade Runner. Professors Diana and James presented their take on the many themes existing in the movie and how this movie affected their career in some way or another. It was entertaining to say the least. It's been a while since I have last seen Blade Runner; when I initially watched it, I was with friends and I'll admit, we didn't pay much attention to the movie. I noticed multiples of themes in this movie, which contributes to its fame of being one of the most famous science fiction movies to date. Like most movies featuring a dystopian setting, topics arise along the lines of a deteriorating earth (pollution, lack of resources), unethical political systems, and the most important in this movie being genetic manipulation and cloning. You'll notice there are many extreme close-ups of human eye balls. In the movie, there is a test called the Voight-Kampff test that determines wether a being is human or replicant. As such, many characters' eyes are focused on screen in a way to let the audience know that his or her existence as a human or replicant is in question.

Thoughts on Blade Runner

There are many movies produced by current filmmakers about human's future, but I believe that I finished my first real science fiction film until I have seen the movie called Blade Runner.

Actually, I couldn't understand every conversation when I watched, but I could still receive those cold-blooded,hopeless and lonely emotions in the film. Endless darkness and dirtiness in the street while temporary artificial light and  delicacy in the room, which develops a great contrast to our audience. 

Whether from macro environment setup or micro details design, this film is successful. I notice a detail related to character's eyeballs in the film. On the one hand, replicant's creator wore a pair of thick glasses, whose eyes are deformed beneath those glasses and finally, as a punishment, his eyes to be pierced by his replicant. Replicant Roy and his lover, their white part in  eyes even more than their eyeballs. Further, the expensive owl which only has two empty eye holes and ridiculous eyeballs experiments for replicants' discrimination. On the other hand,  Rachael, as a replicant who is implanted memory without knowing her real status,  possesses two big, beautiful and storytelling eyes. In addition, When Roy at the end of his life, his sorrowful tears from his eyes in the rain. 

There are multiple versions of the end, whether Deckard is replicant or not. I would like to share some of my personal thoughts at here. Firstly, I have read a book written by Haruki Murakami, unicorn in his book is a typical symbol of freedom and goodliness, so I think Deckard's dream also tells us he is looking for his happiness and his love.  Secondly,abnormal Roy saves Deckard at the last second and he is full of sadness to express his last memory and feeling,  helping audience jump out of action thriller to realize that even a replicant also could have two paradoxical mental sides, so as a human, which is the best way for us to cope with our replicant's problem? Whether it is possible that replicants to be more human while human to be more inhuman?  Thirdly, memory is a magic thing. Because of memory, Roy hope he possess his real life; Because of memory, Rachael couldn't receive the truth of herself; Because of memory, Deckard finally finds out his own answer. Even though a person cannot forget everything in his life is torturous, we still need to remember what memories we got from our past experience, and to remember the feelings when we retrieve our memories, our memories prove our existence and our existence is our condition for everything.