Terry Gilliam

Terry Gilliam as an animator produces a unique, abstract and surreal blend of recontextualized photo's and graphics images from the media and his own drawings

A quote from Salman Rushdie talks with Terry Gilliam from The Believer - March 2003 issue, found at:
http://www.believermag.com/issues/200303/?read=interview_gilliam


"TG: But with storytelling, we do suspend our disbelief, and we go with it. As long as it’s truthful, as long as it’s based on truthful things, we can go anywhere.
SR: Well, it’s exactly that. It’s the difference between what is naturalistic and what is truth. And in a way fiction—movies, books, whatever—allows you to get to certain truths which you can’t get to so easily by naturalistic fiction. I mean, the world is not a naturalistic place. Buildings may fall down. The world is not like kitchen-sink drama; the world is this weird, operatic place.
TG: Well, I really want to encourage a kind of fantasy, a kind of magic. I love the term magic realism, whoever invented it—I do actually like it because it says certain things. It’s about expanding how you see the world. I think we live in an age where we’re just hammered, hammered to think this is what the world is. Television’s saying, everything’s saying “That’s the world.” And it’s not the world. The world is a million possible things.
SR: And the world is about the way in which our dreams intersect with our real life. Endlessly, the world of the imagination changes the world."

A photograph of a histortic statue as I've already said, carries a huge context already with it - The images I'm projecting on to them are to show an alternative perception of the same subject; whether it be war (an easy target), fantasy (including mythology and religion), a blend or anything else a monument could represent. 

I thought of using computer games as the alternative, but any media can be used.  Computer games have the advantage of it being an immersive simulated reality - and the possibility of using a 3D model to create a trick that's hard to explain, but easy to show if I can create an example (coming soon!)

In reading on Gilliam's philosophy I come across the philosophy of Mark Weber's 'Iron Cage' - a subject of the containing of our perceptions of the world -I should look into further.

Projection Mapping & Technique

3D Projection mapping is a technique where a video is projected on to a 3D surface, often using the shape and features of the object as part of the projection.  Its been used quite a bit in advertising, using buildings as the canvas (often called Architectural Projection Mapping)


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2W6Eabefezg&feature=player_embedded - H&M advert in Amsterdam, the windows are used as part of the projection.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BGXcfvWhdDQ - Architectural Projection Mapping @ Branchage Film Festival 2009


More interesting is when more than one projector is used together to completely surround an object - 


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0wcFWLhzTNI&feature=related - Using 4 projectors linked up to a computer using a 3D model of the car to project, in the same way that texture would be applied to a virtual 3D shape on screen.


http://vimeo.com/16964831 - What David Hall calls 'Anamorphic Architecture' -

• "Process -
• Artists developed low polygon forms from basic primitives and through a series of deformations and replications produced a structure with minimal data. These structures where then developed (made planar) in order for them to be printed two dimensionally.
• 
  
• This enabled the surface to be re-constructed backto its original 3D form. As the object exists in 3D in both digital and analogue form this allows us to project animations and graphic back onto the object from the digital version with relative accuracy. In effect the form exists in digital and analogue spaces simultaneously.
• 
  
• The analogue and digital spaces are converging into what has become known as Augmented Space or Augmented Reality. This convergence will accelerate in the near future as LED architectural surface technology and motor actuators become cheaper."

The technology to do this is on a small scale is possible, but would take alot of development of technique which I'm not willing to do (again) so will stick to a still image.  What it does is inform of the ways object are distorted and played with by projection.  Unfortunately I don't have the equipment to effectively project on to a very deep 3D object because of a the shallow dof used - I should seek advice on equipment to get a better dof regardless.  Although using 2 projections on one object, possibly with a double exposure is possible.

I realise to make the image successful I need to stick to some of my original intentions of distorting space, not just a flat(ish) image juxt'd against the monument / person.

Two paths

I have two paths I'm following at the moment -

The first - Projecting on to historial monuments - at the moment the images and idea's I've mocked up are very interpretive; There is no specific meaning, or if there is then it's easily seen as something else, depending on the viewer.

I can't escape the historical context shooting using monuments imposes, a large percentage of them are war related, the others are mostly religious and mythical.  I choose to look for the comedy juxtaposition, this isn't set though, I'm sure more idea's will come as I experiement. 

One mock-up in photoshop (below) shows a group of 'nazi zombies' from the Call of Duty series of games, projected on to a monument from the world wars.  It was a quickly thought up but raises an interesting link with computer game culture and it's perception of war; This is an unrealistic case using Nazi zombies but there are many others purporting to be closer to reality, but very rarely are.

My process was going to be to find a site and then to invent an image to place there, but to start with, to aid the initial production of images I'm going to pick a set of images to project and find a site to project them in.

The second, projecting on to people is also split between projecting on to people and on to the environment around people.  Putting people into a context they're not aware of - I first thought of it as having people unconsiously look at the false reality I was making, as they viewing a monument.  

To approach people in the street for portraits is a very difficult way for me to go, even though it would be the most efficient way to photograph alot of people, so I would need to use ways of shooting people unknowingly.

Terry Gilliam

At Bower today look at - Animations of mortality - 778.5347 GIL
and get the dvd, 'Mark Lawson talks to Terry Gilliam' - DVD 791.43 GIL  


Still waiting for camera obscura by ABELARDO MORELL to come back.

False realities

http://www.dwsmg.com/35-creative-imagination-vs-reality-art-work-by-ben-heine.html

A useful link to someone who's drawn in parts of a image on a piece of paper - creating a kind of false reality in that space.

New Blog

One I've done my proposal for Thursday, I should delete all the posts and actual make this into my workbook.  Have it starting with the proposal, I can re-edit the posts, it keeps the flow of the work going and highlights gaps in doing things.

Fluidity

ABELARDO MORELL

I've been advise this artist by another student in a proposal exchange -

He projects on to a room with a camera obscura and photographs the result.

http://www.abelardomorell.net/photography/cameraobsc_01/cameraobsc_20.html

London Scout

I have a technique - flash projecting onto blank spaces in the city - and a general idea - disrupting reality or creating a false reality in those spaces - but not sure what to project yet, or what those projections are going to say.

My first task was to find the kind of locations I image using.  The aestitic I'm thinking of is from my previous work 'left' - city scapes using only ambient light.  This means exposure are long, people disappear and vehicles a streak of light.

The space I shot fell in to a couple of different catagories -

First was the historical site - a statue, an empty plaque, generally an old stone structure.  One of the images has some words - 'the glorious dead', honouring soldiers killed in the world wars - I'm not keen to have text in the image but it would be easy to put an image to the caption, possiblity refering to those that died not so gloriously.
Many of the historical sites and english history are built on war, honouring generals etc. - What if I were to put the dead at their feet?

The example above doesn't really work as these are holocost victims - probably the victims of this anonymous generals enemy - but the idea of using the aspect of war that isn't celebrated.  I could imagine a title like 'a nation built on war' - not a new idea and far too obvious, but a start for thinking.
The other image I shot in London were of miscelaneous urban settings, more generaic, not so recognisable places - more a place to stage my own story.  I think of science fiction where portals open in out of way places for someone to be thrown through.  I've never been very succesful with placing people in my images - and this would require more complicated lighten, but if I'm creating a fictional reality, a person interacting with my illusion would legitimize it somewhat.

One aspect of using a flash projector is that anyone watching me take the image would not see what I'm projecting - this gives the possiblity of having passer-bys in the image not consious of an image thats projected - 'real' not photoshopped - in front of them.  Possibly for natural expression to something that could be paticularly horrific, disturbing or not normal. 

I've been advised to not just shoot in the daytime, and not to use projection unless I can legitimize its use.  Therefor I'll experiment with both - shooting the same places in the daytime and without projection (already done to some extent) to see the context of the images without these factors.