What If Metropolis; Online Green-light Review (OGR)
The OGR for the What if Metropolis project.
The travelogue is not present atm; in all honestly I partially forgot about it, and don't want to rush to finish it, because I like writing. It should be up within the next few hours. Although I doubt anyone is going to crit my OGR between now and tomorrow morning, I realise that for official deadlines, I need to tighten up on this, because I'll get no leeway.
But hey, on the bright side, it's an improvement on my invisible cities OGR.
I think I have some strong ideas to move forward with, at least more than I though I'd have, considering how different Bowery's art is to what I know and am comfortable with.
...
EDIT:
I'm putting this here; it's an excerpt from the Travelogue that I was writing, but have now decided to take in a different direction, and this would no longer fit in. I think it's still valuable in helping visualise the city.
"The city has no patience for those with fragile sensibilities.
Wriggling its way into the minds of new-comers, it roots out their deepest
discomfort and insecurities, making a mockery through the shapes and textures
of buildings as if some kind of ritual to rid a person of their taboos, since
these have no place here.
The curves of
buildings romp and lustfully curl around each-other, and despicable sexual
thoughts haunt negative spaces. Precariously placed patches of balanced yet blinding
primary colour taunt the visitor, threatening to tumble and clash into an
un-slightly horror of chromatic spew.
Although highly raw
and primal, the city is cunning, and despises the hypocrisy of the self
confessed righteous. The aura of the city always feels on a
knife-edge between its raw un-pleasantness, but somehow also from those same
elements, a strange frenzy of excitement and curiosity, as if sadistically
testing and teasing the divide between the id and the ego of the helplessly lustful
adult mind."
its ironic, since now i have a city lacking in colour and your one is full of it XD
ReplyDeleteits a shame that i cant read the travelogue,was looking forward to see what kind of chaotic madness it will be.
Yeah, perhaps we should have done a film-noir style 'briefcase swap' with our blue-box picks, haha. Probably works out for the best in terms of learning though.
DeleteOGR 02/11/2018
ReplyDeleteHey Tom - I always really enjoy your research-focus; you commit fearlessly to 'learning about new stuff' and there's nothing superficial about it. Students sometimes worry about what 'showing interest in something sexual or provocative' might say about them - so don't look too closely, but in this case I'm 100% satisfied by your engagement with your artist. You may have only completed a small part of your travelogue, but it's enough, in so much as it broadcasts your knowledge and sense of this place.
I think your instincts are right in terms of juxtaposing your Bowery district with the more uptight aspects of the city around it. That would be one way certainly to speak to Bowery's 'shock value' and disdain for all things suburban. I think the challenge however is to treat your collaboration with Bowery as truly architectural, in so much as moving your imaginings towards some 'real world' detailing and an engagement with materiality and construction (or risk creating a set that looks 'fun' and balloon-y, but which doesn't communicate the scale or city-ness). Take a look at the following architectural categories for a sense of what I mean and also for visual cues in terms of construction and surfacing:
http://www.kuriositas.com/2011/01/blobitecture-rise-of-organic.html
http://www.architen.com/articles/basic-theories-of-tensile-membrane-architecture/
https://www.kingspan.com/esea/en-ph/products/architectural-facade-systems/materials-colour
Another factor to guard against a kind of balloon-y/sexy aubergine genericism is to give some thought to the function/characterisation of your 'hero prop' building - or the focus of your scene. For example, if sex, drugs and exhibitionism is the 'belief' system of Bowery-land, does that mean the night-club or similar venue would have the scale, size and importance of a mighty cathedral - or would the Bowery blobitecture be kind of pushing the original cathedral over, absorbing it? As you've stated previously, I think confrontation/contrast/clash/juxtaposition are important to your mise-en-scene.
I'm excited to see you develop your concept art stages now - and I'm also excited that your collaborator is so 'technicolour' and garish - looking forward to seeing you dealing with all of that too!
Thanks for your feedback Phil! I understand what you mean about balloon-y genericism, it felt like much of the time I was drawing abstract scenes that could be taken as generic modern art more so than a city.
DeleteI think I can better solidify my ideas as buildings by pushing the themes to be even more subtle, and focusing on how I can clearly portray that these objects are large structures that exist within the real world, by showing their material-ity via some finer detail and refinement.
I'm still working on my travelogue! Honestly, it's wondered off in a slightly distracted tangent, and I shouldn't let it hold me back from moving forward. But if I do get it finished, I'll be sure to post it on my blog!