14.4.09

Poem I found

This is a poem I found in The Artist's Way , by Julia Cameron.
I think it is one of the most beautiful things I have ever read. I think it is also written by her.

WORDS FOR IT

I wish I could take language
And fold it like cool, moist rags.
I would lay words on your forehead.
I would wrap words on your wrists.
" There, there," my words would say-
Or something better.
I would ask them to murmur,
"Hush" and "Shh, shh, it's all right."
I would ask them to hold you all night.
I wish I could take language
And daub and sooth and cool
Where fever blisters and burns,
Where fever turns yourself against you.
I wish I could take language
And heal the words that were the wounds
You have no names for.


J.C

3.3.09

MADT written Narrative

This week our assignment was to write a short story/narrative for MADT. I chose to write a poem/folk tale/story, about the Sun and the Moon. It is a bit of a sad love story, but at the same time it is about the eternal power of love. Here it is, take a read!
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The Earth was alive and vibrant humming with the steady energy of life within its embrace. Rivers ran through the forest branching like veins running across the land to reach the tide, the blood of the earth on a journey to return to the heart.

Only 6,584 days the Earth had lived, but it was strong and beaming with vivacity. During the day the Sun perched atop the clouds. Like golden strands falling to the ground, his rays would fold gently over the hills, feeding the trees, the grass and awakening the creatures of the earth.

During the night the Moon sat suspended in the sparkle of the stars, glowing with a gentle ambience above all those submerged in deep slumber. She was a guardian of the earth, a night light in the dark, a listener of dreams as she sat alone in the inky black sky.

The Sun and the Moon took turns sustaining the earth during their well suited shifts, without the slightest knowledge of one another's existence. The tides of the ocean whispered rumors of the Moon to the Sun, he imagined his blue sky bleeding into black and a gentle glow hovering above the horizon reflecting in the calm of the ocean, but merely in a day dream.

On the 6,585th day the Sun shone, dancing within the clouds when something occurred. He began turning black, at first it was like a small bite out of his side, but then it was completely enveloping. It continued until he appeared to the Earth like a black circle with a flaming outer ring.

An eclipse, the Sun and the Moon had met for the first time. Complete opposites, they raged with curiosity towards one another. As they told tales of the stars and the blue sky, the Earth was covered with soft night, the birds fell calm and silent, and the bees took rest in the crevices of fragrant flower petals.

As quickly as the Moon had been drawn to the sun she began to slip away. The Sun wasn't ready for her to leave, and she wanted to stay. But the Moon guards the night and the sun sustains the day.

Destiny had written the Moon’s place within the stars and the Sun’s within the blue day sky. Even the strength of love could not switch the order of the universe. Accepting their duties and reluctantly claiming their skies, deeply heartbroken they separated.

The Sun spent the days dreaming of the night, and the Moon spent the nights dreaming of the day. Love cannot change the order of the universe, but it can travel the world in miraculous ways.

The Moon sent messages to the Sun through the ocean. With the tides and the waves, it spoke soft gentle words to the Sun. As the Sun rose in the East bathed half in the sea, the Moons messages found him. Filled with bliss he turned the sky pink, orange and red and smiled as the earth awoke. In the West when he set he plunged into the sea with a glow of purple and red and spoke to the ocean, sending a lullaby to the Moon.

The Moon would receive word and would glow with unquenchable luminosity. Sending electric sparks to the stars, they shone together like voices in a choir. With brilliance they decorated the sky. Excitedly the Moon would tell stories of the night to the ocean and immense waves would crash against the beach.

The Sun and the Moon did not know when they would meet again, but they knew that they would. So they spoke through the soft tides and the gentle rains, they fought with the lightning and the deep growl of thunder. They made up with the soft sigh of the wind and waited for their reunion.

After all the night cannot live without the day.

_____________________________________

p.s. I was inspired by the fantastic natural phenomenon of the allusive eclipse, which only happens every 6,585 days. I imagined the Sun and Moon meeting as opposites do, and falling in love, an how much they would miss each other waiting for the next eclipse. Also I wanted to incorporate the fact that the Moons gravitational pull is known to effect the tides. I'm not sure how to turn this into a film, but I suspect it could either be very cute and bright, a childlike animation. Or it could swing the other way and be a very profound yet gentle, more adult love story. I'm not too sure, we will see where the wind blows.

1.3.09

madness audio

This is a bit late to post, but it is the follow-up assignment to my madness video. Basically it was to remove all visual traces from out video, and add more sounds to create a work with the same message....but only with sound. This was quite the challenge for me, but I'm happy with the work itself, it's difficult to listen to it for me, because it's mostly made with my voice. No one really likes hearing their own voice haha. But give it a listen and see what you think. Headphones are a must. You should be able to download it from the link below

http://www.zshare.net/download/57005346fe825e41/

25.2.09

MADT Augmented Reality

I found all of the websites on our list of works to check out, were quite interesting. Some of them I think lost their preciousness through being displayed on youtube, as they are meant to be interactive works. I couldn't really get the feel for most of them because I wasn't interacting I was just watching. For example the rotating Panorama, The chess pawn and the Gold fish, all of those would be a lot cooler with first hand experience. I did really enjoy the Ash and Palestine video games because I felt that they were very ironic compared to other video games, and more realistic. My brother plays the game Call of Duty every day and is convinced that he wants to join the army. That game has given him a false reality of war, it's not all glory and honor, it's pain and death. The Ash game I think it was the players are armed with only rocks and fists to fight soldiers that are trying to kill them, it's like the civilian side and It's very interesting to see. When your facing fire arms with your bones and flesh, I think that's more realistic, emotional and terrifying than selecting your weapon of choice from a menu screen. It speaks to the sad, desperate side of war.

Another piece I liked was the paintball set up, where the artist lived in a small room for a month with a robot that would shoot paintballs at him through online control of the public. It reminded me of Chris Burdens "shoot" and Yoko Ono's "Cut Piece", in each work there is something that makes the artist very vulnerable, and there is a tense feeling of "what's Next?" Will Burden shoot himself? Will the public actually cut Ono's clothes off? Will the public shoot the poor guy with a paint ball when he's sleeping? It's very interesting, the work I love the most is one that offers interactivity and becomes what it is to be through the interaction.

The piece I most enjoyed was Ghost Industry. I am often fascinated by the awkward silence and sad decay of old abandoned buildings, there is a very strange consuming energy about it for me. I never really knew how to capture that feel in a piece of art, but I think that Ghost Industry did a beautiful and fantastic job translating that through the work. I loved it.

Here are a few links I found in the same vien:

This is an interesting way to display work
http://gzzglz.com/

This group does some very interesting interactive work in Australia
http://www.electronicmiracles.com/?s2=1&s3=19&p=1

I think this is awesome
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iIti8KE9F48

4.2.09

MADT 101 Narrative Projectvs2

This version 2 of the madness narrative, I just added some more photos and a background track to the images. I also re-amped the heart beat to try and make it sound more human like.