The Art of Splitting Up

A Donated Wedding Dress (above)
This is a particularly interesting exhibition, based on items being donated from the general public of varying countries that are momentos of past relationships, whether they be short term flings or divorces. The exhibition originated in Croatia, but wherever the exhibition goes, the public are able to bring their own memories to display, including a short description about what it means to them.


A Donated Pair of Handcuffs (above)
The artists behind the idea Olinka Vistica and Drazen Grubisic infact were going through a split, and wanted to do something creative with the feelings they had. I think its a really nice idea, for its very simple idea that allows the public not only to be interactive, but also personal with the exhibition. Its almost like a support group for the wounded, each has a story that they want to share, and almost get comfort seeing as though they are not the only ones to ever get hurt. Donators often felt a very cathartic effect. One woman brought an axe that she used on her lovers furniture, when she found out she'd cheated on her.

"The more her room filled up with chopped up furniture, the more I started to feel better. Two weeks after she was kicked out she came to take the furniture. It was neatly arranged into small heaps and fragments of wood."

Cracked

"Sibboleth"

London's Tate Modern Gallery's central exhibit is what we see in the image above, a massice crack in a concrete floor. "Shibboleth" created by Colombian sculptor Doris Salcedo, runs the full 167-metre (548-feet) length of the massive Turbine Hall within the Tate. It begins as a tiny crack then gradually widens and deepens as it crosses the room. The entire piece took one year to make and 5 weeks for installtion. Sibboleth is Hebrew used in the Old Testement means "a custom or practice that distinguishes someone as an outsider." This piece aimed to highlight the racism faced by White Europeans and the rest of humanity.

When asked how deep the crack went, she replied: "It's bottomless. It's as deep as humanity."

The physicalities of the piece aim to created borders and fractions to represent the issue at hand. I think it is an interesting idea to put the idea of segregation and division on such a literal and large scale - making you take notice.

"It represents borders, the experience of immigrants, the experience of segregation, the experience of racial hatred. It is the experience of a Third World person coming into the heart of Europe.... For example, the space which illegal immigrants occupy is a negative space. And so this piece is a negative space."

"Shibboleth" is Salcedo's first public commission in Britain and the eighth in the Unilever Series of works occupying the Turbine Hall at the former power station. The last was Carsten Hoeller's hugely popular giant slides.

Tate Modern staff will be stationed near the crack to warn visitors about the dangers of tripping and falling into the void. The installation will be removed next April by filling in the crack. Tate director Nicholas Serota said the "scar" would remain "as a memory of the work and also be a memorial to the issues Doris touches on."

Greetings...

www.urbangraphic.co.uk

See The Light

Olivia Cheung, a student from Brighton University who studied a BA in Product design wanted to incorporate packaging into the selling of light bulbs avoiding excess waste of the earth’s resources. She managed to create these beautifully stylish and ecological lampshades (seen below).

“I began to explore the concept of 'reuse', as some objects take on other, more interesting and diverse roles. I then endeavored to make reusing packaging more appealing - due to the sheer amount that is thrown away.”
Olivia Chueng

She focused on creating packaging that had an added function, and complimented the product at hand as well as meeting standard packaging demands like protecting and keeping the product secure. With her designs, the packaging transforms on to a beautiful lampshade, not only re-suing the packaging, but also it means she no longer need to by addition products like a lampshade.

To see more images pf her work visit:
http://www.jointhemediacircus.co.uk/mediacircus/2007/09/student-gallery.html

The Celebrity Race

Face Look Familiar?

While researching for my dissertation, I came across this Ad campaign from 2001 by the Commission for Racial Equality. The campaign was trying to tackle issues such as racism and prejudices within society. Using the special effects team who also worked on the film “Gladiator”, well know celebrities were transformed into someone of a different race, whilst asking viewers questions such as, would Ken Livingstone really have been elected Mayor if he was Asian – really homing in on the issue at hand. This campaign also reminded me of a more recent advertising campaign to promote awareness over the issue of domestic violence, where images of well known women in British media were seen to be bruised and hurt, making the audience really take note that it can happen to anyone. Using celebrities to promote or make social causes more aware to the public is really successful concept, allowing the viewer to symapthise with someone who they “know” from the public eye, however advertisers could run the risk of playing it safe by using the same concept, whereby it will be bound to lose its appeal if repeated too many times.

"FlatLife"

A Short Film By Jonas Geirnaert

This animation reminded me of “Tango” by Zbigniew Rybczynski (shown below). Jonas Geirnaert wrote, animated, directed and edited this film, and for it won a ‘Prix de Jury’ at the Cannes Film Festival 2004. “Flatlife” is a cartoon, based on four characters in four separate rooms in a house. It is a sweet film, with a series of small story lines, like broken washing machines, noisy neighbours and a game of chess. Unfortunately this film lacks the ingenuity of “Tango”, for each of the characters were directly interacting with each other in “Flatlife”, whereas “Tango” has been so beautifully choreographed, so that although the characters were in the same room, they were completely oblivious to each other. Also, with Tango the characters were three dimensional, whereas I think the cartoons used in “Flatlife” give the impression of a more amateur production. However said that, the film is still lovely to watch, for the challenge of the viewer is to keep an eye on what each of the characters are doing, for they are constantly changing and moving with the storyline unlike “Tango” where each of the characters are repeating the same sequence.

To Watch "FlatLife" visit:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_1eRgDGmXJE

"Tango"

A Short Film By Zbigniew Rybczynski
Original Format: 35mm Colour

I originally looked at the short film “Tango” by Rybczynski when researching our Family Portrait Brief. The film was made in 1980 and is comprised of a static shot of a single room. Over a period of 8min 10secs, 36 different characters from different time periods all enter the room, performing separate actions. What is astounding about this film is that each character, or pair are completely in their own worlds, yet never acknowledge the existence of the other 35 inhabitants for that moment in time.

“I had to draw and paint about 16.000 cell-mattes, and make several hundred thousand exposures on an optical printer. It took a full seven months, sixteen hours per day, to make the piece. The miracle is that the negative got through the process with only minor damage, and I made less than one hundred mathematical mistakes out of several hundred thousand possibilities”
Zbig Rybczynski –Looking to the Future - Imagining the Truth,” in FranÐois Penz, Maureen Thomas, Cinema& Architecture. Mþliús, Mallet-Stevens, Multimedia, BFI, London, 1997

Although the quality of the film is of the highest standard, the grainy nature only adds to the more sensitive and organic feel of the film.To watch the film go to:
http://video.libero.it/app/play/index.html?id=d93a43d249e5df44770f480fc174675c