Enter, the idea

Enter, the idea, or ‘the thesis’. The thing of knowledge, the starter of conversations, and often, perhaps, the end (or beginning) of ultimate confusion.

Life and it’s many twists and turns seems to always beg the question of what reality is and what is merely imagined within our own minds. Plato, the legendary philosopher philosophized endlessly on this topic. He came up with the allegory of the cave. In layman’s terms, this is simply a story about a cave.

“In the allegory, Plato likens people untutored in the Theory of Forms to prisoners chained in a cave, unable to turn their heads. All they can see is the wall of the cave. Behind them burns a fire.  Between the fire and the prisoners there is a parapet, along which puppeteers can walk. The puppeteers, who are behind the prisoners, hold up puppets that cast shadows on the wall of the cave. The prisoners are unable to see these puppets, the real objects, that pass behind them” (Cohen, 2006). The story goes that these prisoners – living in these conditions – would begin to ultimately mistake this for reality. If only ever looking in one direction, devoid of perspective and former knowledge or experience, you begin to perceive reality as simply what is in front of you. You ask no questions, imagine nothing more, think plainly about what you merely see.

In the allegory of the cave, Plato speaks to how the people in the cave relate and react to stimuli around them. A book gets passed around and casts a shadow on the infamous wall in front of them. When talking about the book they are in fact actually talking about the shadow it casts on the wall. A break in reality perhaps as they are speaking not to a real, tangible item but rather to an illusion of what could be real. When we talk about things in daily life we often refrain from talking about the actual thing itself and merely – in the allegory of the cave scenario – we talk to and about the shadow of the item. A figment of what could potentially be real.

We need to learn that having our knowledge of things based on the idea of it (the shadow) we cannot fully acknowledge that we know it. The prisoners could say that they knew about the books but only from their experience of the books shadows. If they maintained that the actual book was something that they experienced and knew, they would be wrong.

Cohen, 2006. The Allegory of the Cave. [ONLINE] Available at: http://faculty.washington.edu/smcohen/320/cave.htm [Accessed 5 August 2015]

Being & Time

It has always fascinated me how certain people can be so driven to determine the meaning of life, what it is we could be doing to make us happier and so on while I can only ever manage to jot down a few silly phrases about my own life that could be considered to be vaguely poetic but, more realistically, they are really just nonsensical ramblings.
Martin Heidegger, a philosopher of the twentieth century and all round seminal thinker of his time developed a few (to what I believe) universal truths. Firstly he thinks and examines what it means to be a modern human being, and, quite frankly, it’s a frightening ordeal. Surely paying close attention to the developments of psychological studies within his time frame, Heidegger uncovered our main dilemma and cause of modern illnesses and ailments is that we have, quite simply, forgotten that we are alive. We have become out of touch with the universe’s magic and mysterious ways. This isn’t a comment on faith or religion but rather the world’s unique fascinations that we forget to be endeared by on a daily basis: a dew drop on a leaf, slowly sliding; a bird in flight above us; the fragrance of crushed Autumn leaves beneath your shoes.
Secondly, we forget we are free. This of course, is a tough one for modern living. We are thrown or thrust into the world by birth (which Heidegger coins: “thrownness”) and into an existence not of our choosing. With this being said, Heidegger adds that although this is the case and there is nothing we can do about it, we need to be aware of “the chatter” which, by his definition, are the societal norms set up by your particular racial group or cultural code as well as what is being said on television, in the media etc. and opt to move away from what it inevitably ‘forces’ us to do or become and rather define our own authenticity and move toward that personal ideal for ourselves. He adds, that this notion of constantly and consistently doing what pleases others is futile as the ones we try so hard to impress or do well by will never be able to save us from our own deaths (death being referred to as “Das Nichts” or “the nothing” by Heidegger).
He philosophized about how all things are connected – nature to us and vice versa as an example. We are bound only by this code and we need to learn to treat nature and others as means and not ends to our existence. We are all in existence at the same time, unique to one another and mutually purposeful.
Heidegger refers to “the other” as the “they-self” and reminds us through his writings how we need to stop living our lives as the “they-self”, a version of yourself most likely to be liked and accepted. Doing so would cause you to be inauthentic. We need to start living authentically for ourselves and only then will we learn to overcome alienation and anxiety.
I thought this was fascinating – a brief introduction into philosophy has awakened something in myself that I would have usually shrugged off as me being typically emotional and Piscean and ‘what’s-another-word-for-overwhelmed-when-you-just-throw-your-hands-up-in-disbelief-and-shake-your-head-profusely-because-life-is-confusing-but-beautiful-but-weird’ – yeah, that. I am enthralled by how such simple truths could be so complex and seemingly unattainable. We so often look at life as a mundane daily occurrence or worse, as a frighteningly big overwhelming picture where we stand at the centre of it alone and confused. I think it’s the balance of understanding that we are small and the universe around us is mighty and beautiful yet ultimately we are the centre of our own universe and at the centre of ourselves, our own authoritarian, our own narrator, our own authentic beings.

Touch the Earth Lightly

Lexical Concept: Gentleness

Theme: “Touch this Earth Lightly” – Glen Murcutt

Thematic Statement: We live in a frightening time for ourselves, and our relationship with the earth is compromised daily. Global warming, pollution and natural disasters are but a few examples of how our earth is warning us against catastrophe. Green architect Glenn Murcutt has been saying for years how we should begin to touch and tread the earth lightly. This is relevant to me and people living in this day and age because it pertains to the most important common denominator we all share: our lives and it’s existence on this one planet, Earth.

FASCINATOR: 

I wanted to create a modern version of the classic fruit headpiece. I find the idea fun and quirky. I used recycled boxes that I painted Cubist inspired fruits such as apples, grapes and a banana.

We are consumed by consumerism and materialistic ideals, which makes it difficult for us to tread the earth in a gentle way. By recycling and being more conscious of our greedy ways, we can become better advocates of the earth’s needs.

JEWELLERY:

I created these earrings from existing hoop-like earrings and added recycled cardboard and semi-precious stones wrapped in coloured string.

The semi-precious stones remind me of my childhood spent at Scratch Patch, searching for precious mementos. They stand as a symbol for my childhood, the fleeting feeling of time quickly passing.

SHOES:

I made these orchid shoes from up-cycled ballet shoes and fake flowers used as decorations at my 21^st birthday last year.

“The most highly coveted of ornamental plants, the delicate, exotic and graceful orchid represents love, luxury, beauty and strength” (Unknown, 2015). The combination of the ballet shoes and the orchid make it the perfect footwear option for graceful outings spent treading the earth lightly.

The Shape of Things

(‘The Shape of Things’ is also the name of a really good play converted to film in 2003)

 

Previously I spoke about our lecture on lines and what they inform, point toward and away from. In our next lecture we addressed what lines inevitably create: shape.

I love that shape can be structured to the point of being geometric, giving the impression of control. However shape can also be fluid and organic allowing the idea of motion and freedom to surface.

They tell a completely different story yet both ascertain the importance of adding form to our lives.

Shapes – as are lines – are everywhere. Each of us has a specific facial shape and body shape that informs what would and wouldn’t look good on us. A predetermined fashion police official. When it comes to film styling this knowledge helps us immensely as it’s not always imperative to make a character look the best he/she possibly can. It’s about unpacking their inner turmoil and workings to outwardly portray that in a succinct and understandable way for the audience member. This way the audience member is actively involved in the character’s journey – perhaps subconsciously but involved nonetheless.

 

|||L|I|N||E||S||

“Line is the most basic art and design element, the foundation, that other elements are built on. If you were asked to make a drawing, most likely you would use it at least to start with. The simplest and most fundamental form of communication” (Unknown, 2015)

We encounter lines everyday – in art, architecture, design, fashion, furniture, civil engineering and even nature to name but a few. Lines add dimension, they point to structures and lead away from them too. They create interest and order. Lines can even add invisible matter to shapes such as horizontal lines on clothing can make one appear bigger than one really is. I especially love lines in art – I based my design concept for my experimental film project on lines in art (see below) and the way they interact with the viewer and how feelings of entrapment could be devised from the use of lines on the artwork. I used namely Piet Mondrian’s seminal ‘Composition’ works (see below) which captured colour entrapped by harsh, solid black lines. The trapped colour made me envisage a world devoid of emotion or empathy, that happiness (portrayed by the colour in the paintings) was censored, suppressed and ultimately not allowed to be a free and liquid emotional state of being. This was the kind of world we were trying to portray to the audience in a nutshell.

+ From my book titled: Mondrian by Victor Ieronim Stoichiță. Meridian Publishing House: Bucharest. 1979.

Stills from our experimental film titled ‘One’. I used the three primary colours – usually connoted with happiness, innocence and childhood – in this form however the colours seem strained, desperate and too structured to be derived from childish freedom and nonchalance. They seem forced and uncomfortable, apathetic and hard:

Unknown, 2015. What is Line? [online] Available at: http://www.onlineartcenter.com/line.html [Accessed: 20 May 2015]

A Box is Just a Box…

Or is it? 

Furthermore in our lecture we discussed the English word ‘out’ and the containment schema.

“The notion of physical containment can be viewed as one of the most omnipresent features of our bodily experience. We experience our own bodies as three-dimensional containers into which we put certain things (food and water) and out of which other things appear. From the period of childhood we are instantly confronted with different experiences of physical containment in our environment. We walk through doors into rooms. We move in vehicles, clothes and various other bounded regions in space. We put things in and out of containers and so forth” (Johnson, The Body, 21).

We are constantly developing from a stage of being ‘in’ to a stage of being ‘out’, from being filled then being emptied. By leaving out information within a narrative we ultimately make use of the containment schema. What we leave out, is just as important as what we don’t leave out. We are therefore always in a state of flux – between being in and being out. One can fall in love or one could come out of a depression.

Coëgnarts, 2014. On the Embodiment of Binary Oppositions in Cinema: The Containment Schema in John Ford’s Westerns [online] Available at: http://www.academia.edu/6631781/On_the_Embodiment_of_Binary_Oppositions_in_Cinema_The_Containment_Schema_in_John_Fords_Westerns [Accessed: 20 May 2015]

The Gaze

Last week, to introduce us all to the second term learning objectives, we spoke about ‘The Gaze’. Looking at – not just seeing – the world around us, ourselves and the interconnectedness of the two. The ineffable way we look at things and the purpose of why we look to begin with.

In our second lecture we began discussing the line of looking. As humans we take comfort in structure and order. The world is chaotic enough what with constant disparate ideas and concepts and it’s important for us to find order in the chaos. We do this by looking and by looking we create a line – in essence, in moments of confusion we seek answers, we seek clarity.

When it comes to narrative we inevitably draw lines of various interest. It’s important to have a singular idea, one succinct concept overall. However, one overarching idea with no successful digression or differentiation tends to become boring and predictable. The one thing we do not desire in life is to be predictable! Of course, there are ways of digressing that could cause more confusion where confusion already in life seems to be so evident. I like the term “digressive texture” coined by Laurence Sterne – it appropriately illustrates the kind of digression within narrative we seek. Ultimately, one overriding idea with similar trains of thought weaved masterfully together along with it.

Fractal-spiral ways of storytelling also create interest and depth within a narrative structure. The story circles a central idea or theme but spirals away and toward it constantly. When creating characters within our minds we can so quickly jump to assumptions. We do this via the use of our cognitive memories and ultimately, this exercise is not a bad thing. However, this simple human way of doing business so to say means that often we end up creating very two-dimensional characters and personalities that wouldn’t win over audience’s empathy or sometimes even their sympathy. In terms of schemas, this idea is illustrated in the form of a star schema. Simply set out, the star schema states a fact in the middle and protrudes from that fact, a further dimension of that initial statement. This gives us an uninspired impression of a character. For example: the mention of a prostitute immediately brings up the image of short skirts and tight-fitting clothing, underwear showing, high-heeled shoes, sloppy posture and smudged makeup. This could be generally true but sweeping statements when formulating characters is never a good idea. We know deep down as humans that other human beings are three-dimensional, complex and emotional organisms. Portraying a two-dimensional character like this will never bring feelings of empathy to the forefront of the audience’s minds’. A much more realistic view on character dimension is the snowflake schema. Drawing influence from the star schema, the snowflake schema builds dimensions onto dimensions creating dimensionality and interest and ultimately relevance within a character.

One

+ Photos from our test shoot on Sunday, 15th March.

DADDY&FOX

Sometimes I do some work for Daddy & Fox – locally produced lounge and sleepwear. Here are some pictures I’ve taken:

MOODBOARDS