Fernand Léger

Fragmentation of the pictorial surface, distortion of the perspectival space and contrast of dimensions, a preference for peripheral or close-up vision,  f flattening of volumes, disappearance of the background  which gets the whole pictorial content of the picture to unfurl on a single level... The presentation of the object or figure based on several contradictory simultaneous viewpoints produces an impression that the object is revolving on its own axis. 

Contraste de formes 1913

Moï Ver

Moï Ver  Paris. 80 photographies, 1931

"Photography, which is until recently had a merely illustrative and documentary value, has proceeded to research of a plastic nature, which is extremely interesting. It is indisputably the cinema that blazed the trail for photography; but, by that it 'keeps,'  that it 'fixes' stereotyping, it seems to me somewhat contray to the cinematographic 'fact' which is moveable and successive by definition", wrote Fernand Léger in his preface to Moï Ver's Paris. Through the thickness of the book and in the processing of he pages the photographer rediscovers the relationships of succession perculiar to the cinema.

Fernand Léger and Dudley Murphy: Ballet Mécanique (1924)

In Fenand Léger and Dudley Murphey's Ballet Mécanique (1924) we see  animated cut out of Charlie Chaplin in a sequence called "Charlot cubiste". Esther Leslie in Hollywood Flatlands noted that the film featured close-ups of domestic items. "The simple act of close-up in itself" Leslie observes, "acted as an animation of objects , an endowment with  life and personality" (2002, p.20).

Unfortunately this does not feature the score by George Antheil with was described as a "futuristic score of the mechanical era", a piece of musical engineering. .

Current Listening

THE WIND-UP BIRD CHRONICLE - film footage

Film footage from Stephen Earnhart's multimedia stage production based on the international best-selling novel by Haruki Murakami, first presented at The Public Theater's "Under the Radar Festival," New York City. Footage was later used as projection elements during live production.

This seems to recall films like Dark Water, The Grudge and The Ring.

THE WIND-UP BIRD CHRONICLE

This week Edinburgh hosted the world premiere of a new production based on Haruki Murakami's novel The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle. It's the story of an unassuming everyman who is thrown into a state of confusion following the unexplained disappearance of his wife and his cat. As well as being a portrait of a marriage in crisis, and a Chandleresque detective story, the play also explores wider issues, reflecting Japan’s wartime horrors and questioning its place in the world today. The production, by Greg Pierce, and former head of production at Miramax, Stephen Earnhart, is a technically challenging fusion of live action, film, puppetry, dance and projection.

New Work for the Final Project

New street photography work more to come with comments.....

Theme to All Watched Over by Machines of Loving Grace and Leela's theme from Futurama

Pizzicato Five-Baby Love Child