Museum of Moving Image

This week the Media 160 class took on the MoMI in Queens. We parted into groups and ventured off into the enormous world of moving image from its past, to how it has evolved over time, to how it is handled in the present day. What I found most fascinating during my visit to the MoMI was the filming of certain Sci-Fi movies, that giant spaceship you see is really just a toy prop. I don't know why it blew my mind so much, because in reality the idea that they went out to space to film an actual spaceship is so ridiculous. However, I guess I just never really thought about how they filmed scenes of this nature. The image pictured left is the actual prop from one of these movies and had hundreds of wires that controlled the lights and elevators within the prop to make it look as if it were real. It just blew my mind how an audiences perception can be so altered into thinking it is one thing. For example, we reviewed a scene from Titanic focusing more specifically on sound, foley sound, special effects etc. The movie was filmed in a giant swimming pool and all the sound effects were added to make it sound the way it did in the movie since electrical equipment like microphones couldn't be in water. It's amazing to think of how far movies and moving image has come and how people have harnessed ideas and techniques to bring it more and more to life. Now a days we have 4-d Movies in the works that makes you feel like you're in the movie, its insane.

Linear Media Post

What exactly determines how long shots are? Camera angles and shots are all different and their movements combine to create a sequence of images, just like a sentence, the order combine to have it make sense and create a meaning. The piece of media I analyzed is a music video by The Weeknd. As explained to me, a linear pice of media has a traditional beginning, middle and end which this video contains. The events happen sequentially as opposed to experimental or abstractly. The beginning starts off with the artist singing to an audience, towards the middle he is still serenading the crowd while a suspicious man is at the club watching him. The camera keeps focusing on a woman who is watching the artist perform, and right while this happens the artist is set on fire at the hands of the suspicious man. The ending is the artist finishing his song while still on fire, but the crowd is going wild. Since it is a music video, the sounds are the the lyrics to the song and it matches up perfectly to the images because you can see the artist performing them. Each image matches the sound playing in the background. The constant reference to the woman in the music video matches the lyrics which seem to indicate that the woman is like a drug which makes him unable to feel his face, as if it were on fire which he becomes in contact with. What is also interesting to note is the correlation to his other music videos, the suspicious man who lights the artist on fire is in many other music videos as if each music video were a piece of a larger story. The shots are mainly close ups of each character from the artist, to the woman, to the suspicious man. This reinforces the suspicious of the man while indicating a love-type relationship between the artist and this woman. The colors remain consistent throughout the piece, dark and only colored when the artist is set aflame placing emphasis on him. The cuts seem smooth and seamless, to indicate a story being told. What determines long and short shots is the importance of the shots and how much emphasis to place on the shot.

piece of media analyzed: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KEI4qSrkPAs

https://soundcloud.com/giuliana-videla/carla_interview2

Sounds Around Me

7 am: A walk through Flushing Meadows Park. All that can be heard in the distant is the cars making their way down the Grand Central Parkway. The light traffic produces honking cars every so often. The park is rich in sounds. The rustling of the trees as the wind picks up then dies down. There is a sound of feet running down the paths and heavy panting. I can hear the calm water of the pond moving in unison with the wind pushing through the park. The birds are alive with chirping noises and the flapping of their wings is too loud to ignore. As I speed up my walk I can hear my own heart pounding within my chest and my breath start to quicken. To my surprise I heard a lot of chatter, even this early in the morning. Conversations between runners, between people holding hands taking early morning walks, and even the sound of children shouting. Taking a seat on a bench facing the water, I can hear the sound of the wind more clearly. It has grown louder as it washes through the trees. I can hear the loud crunching of fallen leaves as the runners pass me by. As the wind picks up I hear the dragging of the crisp leaves being dragged along the concrete pathway. The water bangs against the wooden pegs planted into the ground and the plastic boats bump up against one another loudly. 

https://vimeo.com/141452440

Artists Statement

It's always difficult to explain what drives your creativity when more often than not, it can be as spontaneous as seeing something on your morning run that sparks your imagination. Personally, I have trouble coming up with something on the spot although there are always ideas brewing in my mind about everything and anything. In High School we had to write an artist statement for our IB Diploma program Art course. This statement would be permanent throughout the two years we had to work with all our materials to create an exhibition of our minds essentially. My main theme was the concept of human sexuality. I explored the movement of the human body and the interaction with other human bodies and i used different materials to do this. I branched out to different emotions and colors to reflect this.

Working with video and sound I hope to keep my concept from High School and do more with it. I want to learn how to alter sound and image in order to continue exploring the topic of human sexuality. The movement of the body and the shape and contour of it fascinates me and I feel there is so much you can do with it in terms of art. Throughout time peoples bodies have been sculpted and painted, naked and clothed and each art medium and artist has made something totally different. 

I'm not entirely sure what "truths" I'm trying to portray yet, but what I hope to accomplish is to somehow connect the human body to the Earths setting and societal views through various mediums and effects that can be used in moving image. I want to show that the body is a reflection of everything around us and I want to twist this to show different views. For example, the body and how society has viewed it has changed over time. Sex was viewed as incredibly taboo and is now discussed out in the open comfortably. The coming generations are becoming more open with their bodies and how they interact with one another. What I want my work to reflect is the change and progression of the body and how it is viewed by society. I want my work to show the transition and opening of the body and how it is accepted. However, I want to be creative with this to make it more interesting. I want to integrate aspects of nature into my work. The way that trees has bumps and ridges and mountains have different shapes and sizes all remind me of the human body so I would want to somehow find a way to mimic nature in my work.