Moment Factory - Ode à la vie démo officiel

As ever, Gaudí's architecture continues to amaze and awe-inspire - almost 70 years after his death. The Montreal-based new media arts and entertainment studio, 'Moment Factory', in September 2012, transformed the Sagrada Familia into yet a more stunning and colourful vision, playing on the building's magnificent architecture. By use of video, lighting, performance and sound, the team of artists created the most magical of moments for its spectators. Inspired by the original coloured drawings of Gaudí, 'Moment Factory' projected a dazzling array of coloured lighting and motion onto the Roman Catholic Church that remains uncompleted since the untimely death of its creator.
'Images cascaded across the front of the church, from a brightly coloured display of birds to a mosaic, to a tropical paradise, complete with waterfall'- The Daily Mail

To relate this fantastic art installation to my own project, I was inspired by how Moment Factory completely transformed the Sagrada Familia. It proves how colour can almost entirely change a space. As you see the Sagrada Familia transformed you almost feel as if you are gazing into a fourth dimesional space - another world. It has inspired me to explore colour and how it can effect and transform 2D and 3D spaces.

'Colour is the essence of life' - Antoni Gaudí

After dipping the ends of the stalagtites/ icycle formations into wax, i tied them together and after many attempts, managed to attach them all to behind my board. I was happy with the end product but after a talk with one of my tutors, came to the conclusion that working with such a literal interpretation of caves would leave me with a limited amount of projects to undertake. And so i began looking at a more broader spectrum of ideas (still based on the concept of space being the natural and man-made structures around me)

creating my cave...

Today i experiemented in making stalagtites out of paper. I then dipped them in saturated poster paint. I chose for them to be a pale lilac - a colour that to me means reassurance, comfort, even sanctury. Tomorrow I'll see how dipping the dried pieces into wax effects the texture and look of the piece.

I don't know anyone who actually likes the dark or night-time. I don't care how much they say it doesn't bother them. That's why we used to huddle in caves and light fires when the sun went down.
- Paul Kane 

Thinking about my Space.

Gaudí had a deep admiration for the natural and all forms of nature. He even saw how nature provides an underlying skeleton for all man-made objects, especially architecture. He believed that all buldings, in which we live and dwell, are 'caves', a primal need that we have craved since ancient times. In prehistory, the earliest humans lived and grew in caves. They decorated them and made them into homes. The caves became their lives. Grand spaces that the human form needed, craved.
   I too think that one of the most important spaces to me, and to everyone, is that space that shelters and holds us - be that our homes, our rooms, or any other enclosed space that we feel at home. Perhaps we create these spaces based on that ancient archetype of rocky walls and dripstone formations. For this project , 'To Sense my Space', i feel compelled to explore my space in relation to what's around me, the cavernous forms that surround me every day, and how i can sense this longing for enclosure.

magical caves...

`

This was an experiment of sorts. My first 3D piece (well, a messy, playschool-esque piece at that). I wasnt entired happy with its finished piece (blobby being the best ajective to describe!) Oh well, at least we can say its up from here!

my wall (including inspirational quotes, pictures of artworks and my own sketches)     



 

“If I had a world of my own, everything would be nonsense. Nothing woulf be what it is because everything would be what it isn’t . And contrary-wise. what it is it wouldn’t be, and what it wouldn’t be, it would, you see?” - Alice.

As part of my contextual research, i took out a very informative book from the library, 'Alice in Wonderland : Through the Visual Arts'. The book was bases on an exhibition in the Tate gallery in Liverpool, the subject being the numerous works of art inspired by Lewis Carrolls classic. Various images from numerous artists (most notably for me, Dalí and the Pre Raphaelites) and essays on the strange philosophy of the story. One essay was centred around the use and exploration of space and time in the book. (As Alice falls down the rabbit hole, she tumbles through a deep abyss of space, yet gravity does not seem to exist as it does in our world. She plucks a jar of orange marmalade from a shelf halfway down the rabbit hole and, while falling, seems to contemplate finding the jar and places it back on another shelf.) Essentially, the discussion on the character falling through the rabbit hole challenged my own sense of space and fitted neatly into my topic of exploration.

China : 'Through the Lens'

 

 

Today I went with some of my friends from our studio to an exhibition in the Hunt Museum. The beautiful exhibition was of photographs taken by english explorer, John Thomson, between 1868-1872. His portraits are almost journalistic as the portary accurately the society and traditions of this era in China. The exhibition was beautifully put together, almost to make it feel as if I was taking part in the journey.