Trees and Jay

Here are the two final photo's for my photographic investigation on time.





Both images are a combination of three photos.

The photos making up the image on the left of my friend Jay was taken over the course of a minute whilst he was gaming; during a hectic session of Kane and Lynch his face exhibited a number of expressoins.

The photos making up the image on the right in contrast were taken over the course of three days with one photo being taken on each day. In this photo the trees remain still and in the moment no matter what time of day it is or who draws near.

People For Studying

As well as studying the activity, or rather inactivity, of trees I'm also going to be looking at human beings.

I present to you three of my friends; each a rather different character. I'm not sure which out the three of them would make the most suitable character for stalking and photographing so I think I'll ask them a few careful questions.

At what point of the day do you usually find your mood swinging the most?

How easily does your mood swing?

At which point of the day do you find yourself most relaxed?

How do you relax?

How aware are you of your uncontrollable thoughts?

CARLIE

1. In the morning when im tired.

1. Not too easily.

3. At night once ive done everything i need to.

4. Listen to music, hangout with friends.

5. I wouldn't say i have uncontrollable thoughts.

Jay
1. There's no obvious time really

2. I'm quite stoic.

3. In the early evening usually.

4. Computer games, a drink or two.

5. Not very!

Phil
1. In the morning always

2. It can swing a little too easily

3. Supper time!

4. Supper time!

5. I know my mind goes all over the place all too often but usually I just let my head get the better of me.

Tree Hunting

So in order to find a suitable tree to photograph I thought I'd go scouting and snapping.

As you can see I took a number of shots, as well as one or two of the same tree. These photos are my shortlist for potential specimens for studying.

For best results, seeing as I'm going to be highlighting their relative existence with humans I feel that it would be a good idea to choose a scene that is likely to involve the greatest amount of nearby visible human activity.

And so without an inch of doubt I felt the photo on the top left would be best suited. Not only is it a rather nice and slightly symmetrical piece involving a brilliant dose of symmetry, but also it exemplifies humans relationship with nature, a path right down the middle, neat privet hedges and allotments on one side.

Metal Gear Solid Stil Looks Good

I decided to revisit one of the best games I've ever played: Metal Gear Solid. For me this game introduced the idea of story over gameplay in games. This game in fact feels more like an "interactive film"! It starts just like a film and throughout the game the names of the voice actors pop up as credits as the characters are introduced. The game is so dam watchable that some kind soul has taken the trouble to record themselves playing the game and then uploaded it to You Tube.

Of course this still had far to go before it could rival anything of true cinematic merit. The cutscenes whilst being the basis of the game can be tedious at times, especially thanks to the cheesy voice acting and labored anti war messages. Its also full of rather out of place humour that for me doesn't sit well with the "serious" story. Some of the comments made by the bosses whilst you're fighting them turn everything into a bit of a parody. When revolver Ocelot declares that "there's nothing like sliding a long silver bullet into well greased chamber" one doesn't take the whole situation at all seriously.

Concept (And Art)

This post I actually made on the 21st Jan, despite coming up with the concept a wile before. These little sketches illustrate how I plan on presenting my final images.

In order to illustrate the effect of time on the activities and consciousness of living things I intend on taking multiple photos of vegetation and one of my friends and maybe - if I can find a creature that will oblige - of an animal. The photos will be taken at larger intervals the lower the level of the conscious the being in question is. I.e a tree will be photographed every hour or so, while my friend no less than every minute. I then plan on blending the images of the same object in photoshop to create two or hopefully three final images. The main message of the outcome will be illustrated by the fact that in comparison to the tree my friend will be far more ruled by time through their emotions. This will best be demonstrated if I manage to catch them at their most emotionally variant where the situation they are in has a greater sense of time than usual; say, when they are in a rush to get somewhere.

This may sound a little confusing, hopfully the below pictures will help.

Trees and Their Power (of Now)

One thing that really spoke to me from Mr Tolle's book was the way in which he spoke of how nature is timeless, it only exists in the now. He mentions how if one were to ask a tree the time the tree wouldn't understand. The tree would only be able to declare the time to be now. This is of course because trees simply exist, they just "are" as opposed to being the comparatively emotionally complicated creatures, gripped by desire for sensory pleasure. Now yes, I know trees are blessed by not having the beautifully complex brain that's found within the humans of today that makes us such irrational, suffering creatures however Tolle and many Zen masters claim to have learnt from the existence of such beings.

This Zen quote is a good example;

"Just think of the trees: they let the birds perch and fly with no intention to call them when they come and no longing for their return when they fly away. It people's hearts can be like the trees, they will not be off the way."

Thanks to this quote I all of a sudden have a rather clearer idea of depicting the effect the concept of time has on human consciousness; I can investigate time in relation to unconscious beings and compare the results with that of human consciousness.

Yes I know the above may not seem clear....

Bare with me, all will be revealed in the next post.

For now I feel a little help from some good tree photos would be handy and for that I've picked out a nice little book called...

wait for it....

"Trees".

It's part of the magnum photos series and contains a number of different photographers' works. Below are some of my favourites.

Mat Gaser Concept Art

I find that all too often concept art is a little brutal and samey. Time and again it simply looks like another cover of a fantasy novel. More dragonesque creatures, more large swords, more jagged mountains. Yes indeed, it may look breathtaking but it doesn't feel very inviting. You can't imagine hanging it in your living room!

Enter Mat Gaser.

I find his art a lot softer and more inviting. His fantasy landscapes feel more peacefully dreamlike rather than unsettlingly nightmarish, even his darker works have such qualities.

http://www.mattgaser.com/

Shpongletastic

Here's some footage from a Shpongle gig. These guys make a hybrid sort of music that most people can only really describe as "psychedelic". What really attracts me the most to this is the manner in which in manages to incorporate such a wide variety of sounds into something that is actually pleasing. We have everything from cellos to synths to evan a bit of mongolian throat singing! This all encompassing "multi coloured" approach to music making is in a broad sense how I plan on creating my own moving image sequences; through the use of a wide variety of images coming together to end up being rather bizarrely yet none the less beautifully juxtaposed.

Kind of a random post I know, I just felt that this type of music illustrated perfectly how I like most art forms to feel; full of drastic, just about compatible variety.

The Power of Now

Baring in mind the last post, this post will address a rather different angle on the concept of time....

A large element of my investigation into the concept of no time comes from the spiritual philosopher Eckhart Tolle.

His book "The Power of Now", which is at world best seller, addresses the idea that human suffering is rooted in man's inability to stay focused on the present moment and not break free from "mind identification". All that may well seem like a load of mumbo jumbo and without a lot of explanation it can be hard to grasp or even after that, fully believe! However having read the book I've come to understand in detail the ideas that he is stabbing at and that could be incorporated within the thinking behind my final investigative piece.

Eckhart Tolle starts his book by giving a very explanation about how he came to be where he is today. He tells of how for most of his life he was overcome by fear and periods of suicidal depression until one evening, when he awoke suddenly in the middle of the night, he felt his usual combination of intense feelings but this time more intensely than ever. He wondered why there was any point in carrying on with this continuous struggle and felt that he couldn't live with the person he was any more. Then it struck him; if he couldn't live with himself then there must be two of him? How could that be? Maybe only one of those two were real. He claims at that point to have experienced a state of clear mind without thought.

From that point on he was a different person. He claims to have spent a few years after that in a state of constant bliss as a tramp, however he was still unaware of what had taken place that evening. It was only after a few years of training with spiritual teachers that he began to gain a degree of comprehensible knowledge on what had happened to him. He learnt that through his intense suffering his mind had withdrawn from the unhappy and fearful self, this self being the involuntary thinking mind which he declares as nothing but an illusion. He says that what was left was his true nature, free from the duality of mind identification.

Now all the above may well sound like a pile of hippy nonsense and I certainly wouldn't be surprised if it were exaggerated for the purposes of his book. That doesn't matter though as the ideas that he conveys are quite enlightening.

He begins his theory by stating that "you are not your mind". By this he is implying that the thinking mind that governs us pretty much all our lives, mostly without our control, is not who we truly are and that this involuntary thinking is in fact cutting us off from "the joy of being". He is suggesting that a state of constant peace is achievable if we learn to disconnect from the constant inner dialogue or as he likes to call it "mental noise" which is produced by the egoic mind. He declares that one's bare attention on the present moment is all we need as the mental noise is nothing more than contemplating the past and future which is where our minds pretty much always are. I'd imagine that even as you are reading this text you have a number of nebulous thoughts flying round your head, preventing you from connecting with what is right before you.

Eckhart Tolle advises that we "honour" the present moment deeply, for it is all we have. And here I really do see eye to eye with his thinking. Events only happen in the present moment, never in the future or the past. Past and future only exist so that we can reference other present moments. If we fully honour the present moment, he believes that pain and suffering are transmuted; dwelling on past pain or worrying about future pain is completely unnecessary and in fact ultimately painless when the present moment is honoured.

The remainder of the book is in effect more sides of the same coin. It goes into different scenarios where one should remain in the present moment and how to do it, one of those ways being the unintentional detachment from the thinking mind that he experienced all those years ago through intense suffering. The message is still the same though; the present moment is all we have and is also the answer to all our problems.

This way of thinking is pretty much the antithesis of the Long Now concept!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Power_of_Now

The Clock of the Long Now

In order to investigate the theory of time further, I paid a visit to the science museum where they had a prototype of a mechanism entitled "The Clock of the Long Now".

Stewart Brand; championed sustainable living the 60s and is president of the long now foundation.

"Civilisation has revved itself into a pathologically short attention span.... And some sort of balancing corrective to short sightedness is needed - some mechanism which encourages the long view." With this statement Stewart Brand reveals the thinking behind a project to build a clock which will keep time for 10,000 years - a period the artist & musician Brian Eno called "the long now".

The prototype was designed by Danny Hills and has been built by the Long Now foundation to explore the mechanism for a clock intoned to keep time for 10,000 years. The final version of the clock would be an enormously large version of the prototype - a vast mechanism of architectural scale, big enough for visitors to walk through. It is intended that this will be installed near a National Park in eastern Nevada in a chamber hollowed out of a limestone cliff. To reduce wear the clock uses a torsional pendulum which rotates slowly and the clock ticks only once every 30 seconds. This clock is driven by falling weights that are rewound regularly. The full-size example would be powered by the energy from the footsteps of visitors or by changes in temperature. Any drift in the clocks rate will be corrected by a mechanism sensing the sun passing overhead @ noon. The stock of disks in the lower part of the clock is a train of adding wheels - a binary mechanical computer that counts the hours, the calendar & solar years, the centuries & phases of the moon & the Zodiac. This also drives the display on the face of the clock which shows the changing pattern of the night sky continuously throughout the life of the clock. Each hour the clock performs a visible calculation to update the dial display.

This clock is designed to draw attention to the virtues of firstly measuring time and more importantly being more aware of long periods of time, i.e beyond our lifespan.

In this day and age of instant pleasure and satisfaction where we regularly fail to see past the next deadline Stewart Brand believes that man has become dangerously unaware of the future and that it is our obligation to think in terms of the long now. I take his point and certainly feel that his ideas are altruistic towards future generations but I none the less regard this "long now" concept as rather pointless. Wile I'm sure the world could benefit from a little long term thinking and as much as this clock is pretty cool I feel that time and money is being wasted on something of which the benefits we'll never see. When one considers the effort put in and the money spent on it and then imagines how that could be spent on problems that affect us here and now one fails to see the virtue of such a mechanism. In many ways this contraption is unlike a clock as although it may keep time, to a future viewer it will be nothing but a collection of arbitrary figures that "apparently" have something to do with the distant past and future outside any human life expectancy. So for time to be relevant or rather for time to even exist, it has to be linked with events experienced directly.

My Three Moodboards

As you can see I haven't done any posts in quite a while! What can say? It was one hell of a Christmas break! I actually did these over a month ago.

Here is are the three sets of rather nebulous ideas regarding my lens based media investigation.

I alighted on the concept of time for my investigation and came up with three themes, however one stuck out firmly as being the most interesting.

But first, ill talk about the other two.

The board on the top left is addressing the idea of how one's age affects one over the years and especially how one's innocence is lost with age.

The board on the bottom right is slightly more mundane. It's simply about the study of how time affects the earth and specifically rocks. In a broader sense, one could say that it is a study of the effect very long periods of time have on objects; rocks being the only objects possible of withstanding such time periods.

Finally we have the moodboard in the top right hand corner. This board addresses the concept of how time is in fact just a man made creation for reference purposes; it is only relative. The dandelion represents how nature is timeless and is constantly living the present moment, above him is the spiritual philosopher Eckhart Tolle who's books have addressed the issue of living the present, free from unnecessary thought. Beneath is a clock with a human brain placed above it. This represents how time is only a creation of the human mind. In between the two circles is a faint image of einstein. This is the bridge between the human world of time and the "spiritual" or some may say real world of no time.

We Are All Amoral!

We all deserve to go to Hell!

Well not all of us, only most of the people that watched Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid and that includes me.

Why? Because (and only read on if you don't mind me spoiling the ending) we warm to murdering highwaymen.

Still perplexed? Yeah o.k I'll explain....

Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid is a Western about a good ol' gang of highwaymen and as the film develops, about the two ringleaders; Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. They are the film's protagonists and put simply the film follows them from the Wild West to Bolivia as they kill and steal everything in sight for a little money.

Throughout the film one grows to love these two rogues as they are both rather slick characters and kinda nice (aside from the killing and stealing). So when it is indicated that they die at the end of film one does feel a little sad!

Then I woke myself up and reminded myself that in the real world these two characters are the lowest of the low, and what makes it even worse is that I expect the vast majority of viewers of this film developed feelings similar to mine!

Yes we are horrible horrible people who like villains because they are cool and look good.

The Evil "Good" Person

We all love to hate a good villain/antagonist. Darth Vader, Captain Hook, The Joker.

The list is endless.

Sometimes, however these villains are just a little too obvious.

Yes they are nasty people we get that, and so do all the characters.

No if you want real anger within the viewer you need The Evil "Good" Person.

Here are two of my favourites who are interestingly both Bible-bashing prison workers!

Firstly we have The Warden from The Shawshank Redemption who can't admit to himself that the prison he runs is flouting human rights laws and has no shame in killing a prisoner when he offers to testify in a fellow inmate's appeal. It's all in the name of god of course.

Secondly we have Percy, a warden from the The Green Mile. This character is a rather slimy character who only got his undeserved position through his powerful connections wets himself when he's scared, walks round like he owns the place and feels the need to take his anger out on rodents.

Characters like these tear the viewer apart as wile one can see that they are thoroughly evil, more importantly one is frustrated both at the inability of others to see them for who they really are and the villains' delusion that they are somehow good people.

It's Still All About the Story!

It may seem that I'm about to undermine a lot of what I stand against. Maybe I am....

I don't think I am.

Nevermind.

As per usual I saw one hell of a film the other day; Awake, starring Hayden Christiensen and Jessica Alba. This was a bit of a change of scene for me. Why? Because as an "arty kid" I usually watch all those "arty" movies that look all wired and arty. Yes I know I'm hardly being eloquent here, don't worry. In case you hadn't noticed I'm trying to make a rather crude imitation of the inarticulate yet accurate descriptions people (including myself) give of those kinds of films; indie films, animated films, surreal films e.t.c

Anyway, as you may be able to deduce from the below clip this has MASSIVE THRILLER written all over it. Placing one immediately in the beautifully uncomfortable shoes of someone who can feel everything during their surgery whilst experiencing every slow and painful second of their slow and painful death is automatically going to get the heart racing.

Yes I'll admit there are some very nicely shot scenes involving Clayton as a small boy and his various visions but all in all this film appeals first to the mind and then to the eyes later.

My Favorite Scene From The World's Favorite Film

This certainly isn't my favorite film but it's one of my favorites. This scene for me however sums up the main appeal.



Firstly I find the scene to be perfectly composed. The focal point is of course Charles Kane, sat down at his desk. His ex-guardian is trying to persuade him from continuing to run a newspaper that is loosing money, of course Mr Kane is having none of it. Kane's position of power is illustrated perfectly here by visually the seemingly opposite situation of his ex-guardian having the upper hand by him standing tall. However this is not the case as Charles remains calm and composed before being swept up in a fit of passion. Then comes a very inspirational line which for me is the essence of what being a creative entrepreneur is all about; "At the rate of a million dollars a year I'd have to close this place in... 60 years". It is lines like these that really stir up the creative passion in me and make me want to be the kind of person who is willing to sacrifice their entire life savings for the love of their artwork.

Filming of Gigs

I was doing my usual browsing of You Tube for a song to listen to wile I worked. I settled on this video of one of my top bands, Placebo playing at the 2006 Reading festival.

This video got me thinking of what goes into the decision making process when filming large gigs. Do they have a generic way of filming large stages or are the shots and cuts carefully decided upon for each different band or even different song?

One would first of all jump to the conclusion that they would of course select each shot with the upmost diligence however it is also not implausible to consider the fact that the people behind the lens know that the fans watching the footage are going to be so enthralled by their favorite bands, that any sort of slow moving picturesque image that shows a rockstar strutting their funky stuff is going to get their juices going.

I think the only way to answer this question is to compare the above act with the Prodigy's performance at this year's Glastonbury.

The footage of Placebo has two obvious differences to that of the Prodigy. Firstly the Placebo video's cuts are far less frequent. As we know, frequent cutting creates a far more energized feel to the footage and seeing as one can't really get much more energized than a live Prodigy gig the second video is cutting left right and centre!

Secondly the camera is far more static in the Placebo video. At least a fifth of the shots in this video are completely static and the remainder of the shots involve very little movement at all. The Prodigy video is of course a completely different kettle of fish as aside from the start, the "calm before the storm" so speak, the camera is constantly moving. It pans left and right and zooms in and out. I suppose it's doing a rather good job of mimicking the head movements of the crowd! I should know, I was there!

Symmetry

Here's a little scene from one of my favorite films, Spun.

Here the director utilizes symmetry juxtaposed with asymmetry to heighten the sense of chaos that infuses when the troublesome Latin character is stuck by Mickey Rourke's character as well as the calming down once he has finished.

Leading up to the moment when he strikes the shopper, there are cuts between multiple shots involving symmetry. Shots such as the view of the pair of shop workers from both the front and behind, the shot of the aisle overview, the interior of the fridge and the mid shot of Mickey Rourke's character walking down the aisle.

Then during the striking of the troublesome Latin character there cease to be as many shots of this nature. The cuts are now more frequent and the shots more asymmetrical. The shots are also cropped in a number of instances.

However after the chaos has passed and Mickey Rourke's character has finished his work, the frequency of cutting decreases and the shots go back to being more symmetrical.

Nice Editing

I'd always heard how a film editor was in effect a second director.

This clever little video works through a series of very clever and precise cuts as well as the expert timing of the dancer's movements to the rhythm.

The precise yet straight forward nature I feel reflects the song's mood perfectly. I think this is exemplified most clearly after about 30 seconds when there is a sudden change in the song and this is complimented by an equally obvious yet equally precise cut in the footage before both the footage and the song return to their original path.

My Archetypal Character

Name: Quentin 'n Quake

A two headed, double personalitied schizophrenic who bounces ideas of both his personalities to formulate the best resolution. This actually ends up being quite effective.

His many colours are representative of his multiple thoughts and emotions. Still, despite this he ends up being remarkably balanced.

His moustaches and little beards are always kept in good nick!

Quentin 'n Quake was born from the violent chemical reaction that took place the first and only time that somebody mixed tea and coffee in the safe mug. It is not certain where Qentin 'n Quake's roots lie however we do know that he has spent his life wandering all over the earth absorbing but never intentionally seeking out wisdom wherever he can and he has also spent a great deal of time (and still does for that matter) in calm secluded parts of the world such as greenland and various unknown pacific islands. He does this to compute the multitude of information that both his

personalities absorb.

Habits include sudden streams of consciousness out loud, sneezing and drastic changes in the volume of his voice. At least one head will always be talking and the total decibel level of both of Quentin 'n Quake's heads will always be evened out by the other i.e Quentin 'n Quake is always talking at the same volume level; if one head is silent then the other will be at its loudest.

Quentin 'n Quake doesn't really have a specific goal. This is because he is quietly content in his constant unintentional quest for knowledge and insight. His only weakness is his occasional tendency to succumb to the other comparatively ignorant people on this planet who ask him for his view or knowledge on a certain topic who then go on to use this knowledge for unproductive or evil results.

Quentin 'n Quake is a still a complicated character who's likes and dislikes are ever changing and contradictory. This results in ultimately an overall neutral take on pretty much everything he comes across. This is convenient in that it ultimately gives him room for his constant unintentional pursuit for knowledge and wisdom.