Microcosmos was real footage of nature as well as cinematic art, though no graphics or animation were involved. In last week's NYT Magazine, I was immediately engaged by a photo spread of futuristic environmentally smart cars and car parts paired with natural elements, such as one car leaving tire treads of grass. Unfortunately, I no longer have the magazine in my posession and can't pull the article up for linking! But here is the website and portfolio of the photographer, Marcus Gaab. The more I browse, the more I love. Many of the featured pictures represent his style of blending nature with modern human culture. As I'm sure you don't have time to take it all in between Broadway shows, here are my select samples:
Note the adorable animal teetering on the edge at the top of the box stack, but there remains something about the NYT photospread that isn't be topped. I need to get ahold of those images.
Today in class we watched digitally animated shorts (with hardly any real footage incorporated) from SIGGRAPH. They were, for the most part, awesome and further inspire me to become better versed in graphics and editing (I came home tonight and set up a schedule for Apple store tutorials). However, the one video that dissapointed me? Definitely the NASA video. As the monotonous narration droned on, I could feel each molecule of air being sucked out of the room. I was embarassed for science! The earth video was gorgeous, don't get me wrong, and the information fascinating -for me. But, the fact is, for people not nearly as interested in the subject matter, it's going to take much more of an active visual stimulus to stand up next to the videos that appeared before and after. I guess the arguement could be made that the science video is science, so it's presented a little differently, then say, a science fiction story about time. But I disagree. I think "science" needs to be jazzed up. The majority of people are not going to be struck by something just from the subject matter. Presentation is most of the battle, and "science" needs to step it up.
In my free-thinking time lately, i've been imagining the junction of real-life footage with graphics and animation. For example, a car speeds past me and I envision a film clips of velocity waves streaming behind it (I just found that Gaab has approached a similar creation, but I envision more energy particles, and a car moving in a real setting). Or taking a film of dancers, maybe one could zoom in and both realistically and animatedly explore their muscular movements. Microcosmos ingeniously captured the world of insects, and the NASA film provided beautiful graphics of our earth--the two dimensions of media representation can be combined. Do you know of good examples of this already done? It reminds me of how Sesame Street made the revolutionary move of bringing together real people and fantasy.
I found a press release of Cory Arcangel's show at Team and am looking forward to going on Friday. See you there!?
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