Some Thoughts

In Act/React exhibition, Deep Walls is an art work that interests me because Scott Snibbe creatively integrates simple elements into the work producing dynamic images. Silhouette of visitor’s movements in separated frames is one element, while juxtaposition of frames is another element that serves as the complement. Nathaniel Dorsky’s Three Songs: Song and Solitude, Winter and Sarabande are three silent films which present breathtaking images even though most of them are mundane outdoor landscapes. Similarly, there are two characters that function together to promote the dynamics in these films. Although silent, Dorsky’s films speak to viewer in powerful images with extraordinary saturated in color and superimposition of texture. Whether showing the landscapes reflected on the window, or the flowers in the brush, his images are on a splendor level. I even have the illusion that I am looking at strong paintings due to their powerful colors. Another character for these films is that two scenes are superimposed in one frame. Branches in one scene would interweave with furniture in another scene. The superimposition creates a magical effect that as if viewers are looking at transparent glass that one behind another. The images seem to be printed on the glass. There is one scene in Sarabande that there are some drops on a window. Each drop not only reflects lights to different angles, but also reflects the distorted images of building, people and surrounding decorations on its hemispherical surface. Besides that, the color and texture of the flowers on the images of another scene appear behind the window. The application of saturated color and superimposition generate a visual attraction to viewer’s eyes. As images are shown continually, a flowing color in the screen involves me into this world. After I watched his all three films that night, I couldn’t remember a single image. But when I closed my eyes, I could feel the dynamics that provided by the integration by these two characters.

The striking color of images from Dorsky’s Three Songs leads me to think about Deep Walls. At a glance, Deep Walls and Three Songs can be significant different regarding the images. The former is a group of black-and-white images featuring ever-changing movements. The latter are vivid color images without extraordinary movement. Yet they have similarities in a surprise way. Deep Walls applies the juxtaposition of sixteen frames on a screen that each frame presents moving images. Three Songs integrate two scenes into one frame. The movement in one scene would appear more dramatically with the superimposition of another scene. For example, with the existence of another scene which serves as an extra background or foreground, the angles of the reflected lights are enlarged in our eyes. The images of superimposed scenes produce a flowing color and movement without showing many moving objects. In a nutshell, Snibbe and Dorsky apply elements that I mention above to enhance the complexity of composition in images in order to create the dynamics. Snibbe intends to involve visitors into his art work by focusing on the movements in his images, while Dorsky allows viewers to see through the screen as a window to a vivid world.

It is interesting to imagine the situation that Deep Walls and Three Songs are projected on one screen. Apparently there will be huge conflicts between two works on several levels. Deep Walls is an installation art work and the images are recorded by digital camera, while Three Songs are motion pictures filmed in 16 mm film. The characteristics of images are different. Contrasts would be made between saturated color and black-and-white, juxtaposition of frames and superimposed images in one frame. For Deep Walls, viewers would easily notice two elements that I mentioned in paper#2: silhouette and frames, which generate the dynamics. For Three Songs, gay images play a key role in drawing viewer’s attention. The contribution to the floating of the color from other factors such as montage editing cannot be denied, yet the feeling of the floating color is driven by superimposition greatly. This may be a little more difficult to discover. For an understanding of all these elements and their functions in Deep Walls and Three Songs, I need to pay attentions and devote my thinking. So at last, I realized that approaches that used to produce complexity, dynamics, and perspective illusion or to enlarge angles vary from work to work. However, the goal of the artists is to create a work that can trigger a viewer’s active thoughts.
Click to see information of Dorsky's films.

A Door to another World

Art Encounter Series Three

Key Words: Sound, Aaron Ximm


There is always more than one way to learn about the world around us. Sound artist Aaron Ximm introduces a fantastic world for us by his field recording sounds which collected in his journey to many countries. I went to the performance which Aaron presented his two long pieces. Aaron also came to our class and performed his works with other sound artists. I was lucky to listen to his live performance and felt very sad that I could not listen again. One of his sound pieces lasts for forty minutes, but I felt that it was a very short time. Perhaps it was so musical to me that I forgot the time when I was listening.

Aaron opens a door for me, a door to a world which I need to learn to listen in a new way. His field recordings show me how to experience the world through listening. Field recordings from Aaron are sounds including human sounds, mechanical sounds and natural sounds. Many of them are ambient sounds of certain areas. Aaron combined these sounds into short or long pieces. But he would not add musical sounds into his sounds. Just as Glenn told us in his lecture, “Nature has its own music, and we should listen to this music”.

I went to Aaron’s performance in theater. That is a large room and equipped with great speakers. We sit in dark and listened. One of his sound pieces tells the story that his wife was giving birth. The whole piece lasts for forty minutes. At the very beginning, there was a drone growing gradually. It needs much attention to hear. With the drone was going on, it was silence but uneasy. I knew that it would prepare us to enter the climax. And then people started talking and making sounds with medical equipment in the operation room. A woman started moaning because of pain in her body. Doctors’ voices and her husband’s voices were added. Her moans seemed to come from a far place but still clear. At this time, I could feel the intense atmosphere even in dark. Everyone seemed to be able to feel her pain. But suddenly, there was a surprised silence. And then we all heard sweet baby crying sounds which melt our hearts. The silence-sound contrast that Aaron made in this piece is amazing. I felt that for the sweet baby voice, all the suffering from the silence and drone was nothing. At the end of this piece, I felt that I arrived to a bright world after traveling through darkness. Aaron didn’t use any musical sounds to help us experience his story. So I guess that is why Glenn said in class, let the sound speaks and tells the story.

Listening to Aaron’s sound pieces makes me feel warm. But why and how do I have such feeling? I think because they are come from common sounds but organized in a way that I like. Aaron would compose his raw materials into long pieces by combining and editing sounds pieces. However, he did not add musical instrument sounds into them. When he came to our class and performed his sound pieces, I just sit there and listened to one piece. I could not remember the beginning part, but then I heard the sounds of flip-flop, sounds of a window blew by wind and sounds of raindrops. And it was such a silence after the rain stopped that I could only hear the window shaking lightly in a breeze. My eyes were closed. I saw that I was in my sweet old house and just awoke after a nap at an afternoon twelve years ago. The contrast between the silence and sounds is powerful. When I heard the silence after sounds of raindrop, my memory of that afternoon was so clear that I could remember the shapes of the raindrops on my window. It was not a special afternoon and the sounds were not very euphonious. But they related to my memory of lovely childhood which I didn't have too much homework to do and didn’t have to face pressure from school. I would not talk about such experience in that afternoon because it is too trivial. But it never lost in my memory. So I was moving when I heard these sounds. Aaron has the ability to present beauty with these common sounds.

Aaron also has a talent to capture beautiful sounds which we may not familiar with. Most of his field recordings were collected in warm places such as India, Vietnam and South America. The ambient sounds in certain areas, just like images, have their own tune. Usually, people in these places are able to enjoy many outdoor activities most of time in a year. They are fond of dance and gathering together for celebration. So it is not strange that there would be sounds of singing, music and talking. Even the sounds of thunders and rain seem to be pleased. Aaron said that there are many interesting sounds in India and he would travel there again.

Aaron decided that he would make his sounds warm. Given the same raw materials, different people would make different sound pieces. It is just like to make a movie. A director would use the footage to make a movie which reveals his or her own personality. Aaron’s every sound piece that he performed for us likes a movie. We need to experience his stories using our ears. His sound pieces reveal his personality. But he did not dominate the stories in his works. We listen and imagine our own images in the mind, which is promising.

Aaron’s exploration in sounds which exist in human societies and natural environments opens a door for me. I entered a strange world that I saw people’s daily lives, a train with passengers, rain and thunder, a flying bird……I even saw a world that in my memory. If they are appeared in front me in the form of a movie or pictures, I would not feel exciting at all. When I was watching movies, my eyes and ears accept the information together. When I was looking at pictures, my ears could fall asleep. But when I was listening to Aaron’s work, my ears were totally awoke and activated to accept the information. I am trying to learn this world in a new way. It is so amazing to have more than one way to know about the world.

Click to visit Aaron Ximm's website.

Pursuing the Seriousness

Media making is changing so fast today due to many factors such as the development of technology and people’s lifestyle. Media in 21st century applies new tools and appeared in new forms that challenge our knowledge about art. Film, as a traditional form of media art, is also influenced by similar factors. Although I am very concerned about the state of filmmaking today as well as its future, I don’t have the confidence that I would find a satisfied answer. It is difficult to discuss the state of filmmaking today without working for years and doing a lot of research in this field. However, through my limited reading of this journal, I feel that filmmakers are still pursuing the seriousness of cinemas.

Filmmaking can be approached by many innovative ways nowadays, while they are revealing serious subjects. For examples, one of the important new forms is animation film. To make a film is to build a world based on a story. Filmmakers’ imagination plays a key role on telling the story artistically. Now with the computer techniques, filmmakers are able to create almost any special effects that they want. This would enable filmmakers to extend the border of film to subject matters that they have never touched before. Under some conditions, without the limitations of actors and actresses’ performance, animation would free filmmakers to achieve a film easier. But if some people think that animation film is only cartoon for kids, they are wrong. It is not only because films that refer to science or mythology would have to apply animation today, but also some animation films would just made for serious themes and meanings. For instance, a recently screened animation film Persepolis tells a serious story about people’s lives under war. It is true that there are scenes which reveal a sense of humor, but you can not help to feel the sorrow after watching this movie.

Through my reading on this journal, I found that the seriousness that people searching for on filmmaking always has something to do with humanity. Humanity would reflect different aspects in different situations. Certain events or conditions such as war could enlarge or distort aspects of humanity. It is very common for people in a real life that they suffer so much because they cannot obtain the emotions, objects and lives that they expected. In many films, these suffering would be artistically enlarged and presented so that people can see themselves from this “mirror”. Since the very beginning of making films, people have concerned about humanity.

Filmmaking today is still a way of trying to know about ourselves and pursuing the seriousness.

You Only Live Once from Fritz Lang

Recently I read an article about You Only Live Once from Fritz Lang by Christopher Justice. I am really interested in this film and would like to watch it. This film is considered as a great work which marks Fritz Lang’s successfully transition from silent to sound film. But what is attractive to me is that the film noir and the sadness of protagonist in the story. According to Justice, the protagonist Taylor is victimized by the injustice of his community while trying to lead a normal life with his wife Joan. He and his wife can not avoid the violence that destroys them at last. In Justice’s article, he discusses that how Lang uses expressionistic style to present the protagonist’s fate and his relationship with the society in this film noir. Justice thinks that Lang is interested in and highly skilled at the depiction of implication of innocent soul.

Reading Justice’s description of the story, I think that he summarizes some very good points for this film. When Justice introduces Eddie (the protagonist)’s jail experience in the film, he says that Eddie is right and society is wrong. This situation can bring so many troubles to anyone who wants to be right. When the majority stand on the other side in our society and whatever they are right or wrong, the minority may have to succumb to its power. This is also the Eddie’s destiny in the film. It reminds me the infamous revolution which happened in my country at 1970s. At that period, many great writers, scholars and scientists were killed because they insisted on being right. The result is a disaster, which the majority not only killed those people, but also destroy the culture. We all know that there are political and historical reasons for certain events, but we will not be able to avoid its occurrence. People’s personality can be complicated in that period. Justice mentions Eddie’s words “It’s fun to see an innocent man die”. Although I have not seen the film, I feel that this sentence will be perfect to describe the majority in a society that in this film. And it is the same as the people in the revolution that I mention above. As the wrong power of the majority grows, it will triggers inappropriate activities of common people. Consequently, anyone who wants to be right and insists on being right usually has to struggle to live under this power.

As Justice states in his article, perhaps that director wants us to think about the justice according to the society, which is the actual shelter for us. A film which refers to violence and unfortunate fate of protagonists would always bring deeper thoughts for viewers. In fact, sometimes it can be suffering for watching and thinking about these kinds of film. However, we still need these films for the introspection of human society.