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Creative Response

The Project

For this project I reflected on the clash between ethics that take place when a government is/is turning authoritarian and people are oppressed. While it’s easy to judge people behaviour when events are long passed, analysed and inserted in an historical context, most of the choices that we make every day are almost immediate and not always logical. I think ethic is an extremely personal and subjective thing, the instrument that allows us to filter the information we receive and elaborate an opinion on them: generally, people behave in the way they consider best basing on their set of morals, elaborated through learning and personal experience; it’s rare for people to perceive themselves as the bad guy and following our ethic, drawing boundaries between what is acceptable and what isn’t, allows us to always find a justification in the choices we make, even if that will damage someone else. I find the setting of an authoritarian society to be tricky and interesting in that matter: those who hold the power may think they’re in the right because they are maintaining order and making the society work, those who fight for change have no guarantee of choosing the mean that will prove best in the end and most people might not even realize that their rights are being taken away. To convey that, I created four panels in stencil art stile, that are to appear on the walls of the city the game concept I elaborated for last year course Quality Assurance and User Interface, Twisted Wishes. Through these panels I represented the four archetypes that would have a conflict in an authoritarian society (even though I believe it happens in any kind of society, in a milder way): the Rebel (panel 1, badger), the Dictator (panel 2, hippopotamus), the Enforcer (panel 3, boar), the Protestant (panel 4, sloth).

Panel 1: I choose the badger because of its high resistance against bigger attackers, its fierce behaviour when threatened and its independency. The painting I used is The Fourth Estate (1901), by Pellizza Da Volpedo. The Rebel is a someone who struggles for important causes (freedom, rights, land, food) and is determined to reach their purpose with -almost- any mean. It’s the voice of the voiceless, the rage of the oppressed. It has a violent response toward authority, and this likely leads to collateral damage.

Panel 2: the Dictator is represented as an hippopotamus because of its territorial and defensive nature, and the fact that is more dangerous than generally perceived. For the panel, I used Golconda (1953) by René Magritte. The Dictator firmly believes to be protecting the society and its subjects from grave external - and internal – threats, and that it is the better option, or the lesser evil. It holds on its shoulder the fragility of the society it created will go to any lengths to maintain the order it obtained.

Panel 3: the boar represents the Enforcer because of its aggressive but defensive nature, and the fact that its dangerousness increases with its number. I quoted Francisco Goya’s engraving The Sleep of Reason Produces Monsters (1797). The enforcer fights in name of its faith in the law. It’s determined to protect the things it deems important, and consider itself justified to use violence, as this power was assigned to it by the system.

Panel 4: I depicted the Protester as a sloth because it’s a resilient animal, with a different perspective and an ability to camouflage, but if faced directly with danger it has few means of protecting itself. I used the engraving La Reina del Circo (1819) by Francisco Goya. The Protester fights to change the society without resorting to violence. It identifies peaceful protest as the only way to create a fairer life for everyone, but is slow to move and this can damage those it fight for.

 The ethic I find more difficult to understand is that of the Enforcer, as even the most nefarious dictator wouldn’t have any power without people sustaining and supporting them. From a rational point of view, I can understand that it’s a reductive and narrow vision, but I believe that there wouldn’t be any war without soldiers willing to fight and I find it hard to “respect” a servant of the state, like a policeman, that turns their weapon against the people they should protect. This is where my project was born: ethics is extremely important, as it gives us guidelines to act in the way we perceive as right and remain loyal to the person we want to be, but it also leads us to see the world in black and white, making us forget that life has an infinite number of variables and situation that makes it much more complex than we could possibly understand.

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Creative Response

Link to Twisted Wishes

Game Synopsis MADE FOR ANOTHER COURSE

Character Sheet MADE FOR ANOTHER COURSE

I liked the project to this game concept because they both deal with people’s reactions, behaviour and feelings while living in an authoritarian society. The images I made for the project serve as a presentation for the set of ethics Mira, the character the player controls, can grow near through their choices as the game progresses, influencing the ending and relationship with the other characters. The apparition of this graffiti through the story will help the player understand how they are doing and how their actions influences the story and the NPCs attitude toward them.

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Creative Response

VISUAL STYLE

When I started working on this project, I wanted to use human characters, but that soon proved itself to be impractical. It was necessary for the characters to be as neutral as possible, and humans always end up reminding of something in particular: all the elements that characterize humans (facial features, skin tone, hairstyle, clothing) provide too much collocation. Animals, despite being a classical choice (or maybe also because of that), work better to express archetypes, as their behaviour is most of the time an interpretation made through human eyes, and because of that anthropomorphized. The kind of animal I chose is linked to the characteristics evoked by their behaviour more than its traditional symbolism. While looking at it as an animation, I still wanted the characters to be human playing a role and I explored the idea of having realistic silhouettes wearing an animal mask (1), but I couldn’t make the style work. I kept working on that idea when I started thinking about linking the project to the game concept, leaning more toward a children’s book series, of which the player would find collectibles around. Because of that the silhouettes’ style became more cartoonish and the eye shape rounder (2). Eventually I started simplifying the style (3). I kept the rhymes I created for the children’s book in the final project as I think it provides a quick identification of the character. Given the similar themes, I wanted the project to interact more with the game concept, instead of having the role of a collectible, and after I identified the characters with the four archetypes that the players can lean toward through their decisions and decided that they would appear on the city walls, I quickly went for a stencil style, as I never explored it before and, being more immediate than painting with spray cans, it better suits a state of police, where whoever is painting the walls would want to finish as fast as possible.

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Creative Response

PANEL 1

PANEL 2

PANEL 3

PANEL 4

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Brody Condon Presentation PDF

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Critique 2 - Laocoon and His Sons

Found in 1506 BE buried in a courtyard in Rome, and now kept in the Vatican Museums, this sculptural group was one of the main influence that shaped Renaissance and Neoclassic movements. Presumably created between 42 and 20 BCE by copyist and sculptor of the Rodhist School Agesandros and his sons Athenodoros and Polydoros, the Laocoon Group is believed to be a marble copy of a Hellenistic bronze sculpture, and is because of that considered one of the finest examples of the Pergamon School, dated around 150 BCE.

Measuring 2.42 mt in height, the art piece depicts Trojan high priest Laocoon, along with his sons Antiphantes and Thymbraeus, being mangled by the sea serpents sent by Athena to stop him from warning his compatriots of Ulysses’ horse trick. The sculpture’s composition follows the diagonal starting from the fallen clothing of the son on the right, passing on Laocoon’s spread leg and finishing on his right arm, raised in the attempt to free himself and his sons from the serpents; the figures of the sons, with their garments falling vertically on the altar, balance the sculptural group, creating an approximate symmetry that contrasts with the emotional asymmetry of the piece: the dramatical tension on the left side, given by the dying son and Laocoon raised arm and writhed head, diminishes on the right side with the figure of the other son, that appears to be about to free his ankle, but still looks terrified and powerless, faced with their fate.

Lines of force I individuated

Laocoon’s figure is the pinnacle of the dramatical tension in the artwork: his body is twisted in agony as he tries to stand up and push the serpent away, but his failure is shown by the legs, bent on his throne’s steps, and by his face, framed by the big locks of hair, shaped by the use of deep chiaroscuros, and pointed toward the sky with accusative desperation, similarly to the giant Alcyoneus grabbed by Athena, depicted on the Great Frieze of the Pergamon Altar (first half of the 2nd century BC).

Great Frieze of the Pergamon Altar (Berlin, Pergamonmuseum)

Because of its dynamism and plastic intensity, the sculptural group had an enormous impact on Renaissance art, Baroque sculpture and Neoclassical art, to the point that Johann Winckelmann, theorist of the mid 1700 movement, saw it as the embodiment of Neoclassical nobility and heroism. Among the artists influenced by the Laocoon Group can be counted Tiziano Vecellio, Andrea del Sarto, Raffaello Sanzio, Gian Lorenzo Bernini and, more than anyone, Michelangelo Buonarroti. One of the first expert called to check the excavation site, Michelangelo was extremely impressed by the muscularity and torsion of the bodies, massive and sensual, and its influence carried over all his late works, apparent in the Tondo Doni (1503-1504), Rebellious Slave (1513) and Dying Slave (1513-1516).

Raffaello, Homer (Parnaso Fresco,Vatican Museum)

Michelangelo, Rebellious Slave and Dying Slave (Paris, Musée du Louvre)

REFERENCES

http://www.digitalsculpture.org/laocoon/index02.html

http://artesemplice.blogspot.co.uk/2014/02/il-laocoonte-e-i-suoi-figli-uno.html

http://www.visual-arts-cork.com/sculpture/laocoon.htm

http://www.studiarapido.it/laocoonte-gruppo-scultoreo/#.WP-J_ca1vIV

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Critique 1 - Playtime

Playtime is considered to be the masterpiece of French auteur Jaques Tati. Filmed in 70 mm, the movie depicts a 24 hour day in which are shown the numerous and casual encounters and interaction of a group of American tourist on an express Europe tour, in which sticks out curious and heartfelt Barbara, and Tati’s signature character, Monsieur Hulot, a man that can’t adjust to the frenetic rhythms of modern society and is described as a silent films’ character in the word of spoken movies, in a futuristic, but not so far in time, Paris, made of giant scyscraper and whit it’s landmark only shown through bouble exposed picture on the windows.

Filmed in two years and first screened in 1967, the movie was extremely underestimated and misunderstood at the time, to the point that it almost ruined the director, forcing him to close his production house Specta Films. The public was presumably bored and confused by the plotless and apparently dispersive continuity, as the  and the non-centrality of M. Hulot, that became extremely successful after the warm reception of his previous pictures, Les Vacances de Monsieur Hulot (1953) and Mon Oncle (1958); aware of the public expextation, Tati teases them by inserting a series of “false Hulots”, characters that have a similar appearance (long coat and pipe) and behaviour, to underline the fact that in Playtime M. Hulot is no more or less important than the various Character that inhabit the same world. Almost one of a kind, in fact, the movie features an incredible number of people moving and acting in the background, equalized by the use of an objective camera angle, the lack of a focal point and a large depth of field; the shots all use a deep focus, and mostly consist of long takes with clear cuts between sequences. There are so many things going on in the background, that the spectator will always be able to notice something new at each viewing.

Among the many impressive things about this movie though, the one that stands out the most is the set built specifically for Playtime, following the advice of the movie cinematographer Jean Badal: named Tativille by the press, it was a small city, constituted by small skyscraper that appear big in forced perspective, with wheels to move them around and improve the scene composition, and by actual buildings, roads, offices and terminals, provided with their own electrical and heating system, characterized by the modernity of the architecture and the blues and greys palette. Built in the southeast corner of Paris, in the Saint Meurile area, Tati intended for the set to be retained, free to be used by young directors, but the agreements with the French Ministry of Culture weren’t respected, and Tativille was tore down after Specta Films bankruptcy.

Expression of Tati’s perfectionism, Playtime is the apotheosis of his filmmaking style: rather than inventing a gag and then adding a proper setting, he creates an entire world in which the gag is likely to take place. Most of his gags are built in time by creating a detailed scenario, giving the audience time to forget about the setup and hitting them with the punchline in a different scene. Trained as a mime, Tati impregnates his movies with a comedy and physicality that come from an exaggerated, but nevertheless accurate, depiction of reality, encouraging the viewer to notice the humour in the daily and mundane things that surround us. In Playtime, this attention is clearly shown by the contrast between the beginning, depicting a frenetic and aseptic city, where everyone moves in straight lines and 90 degrees turns, and the ending, where an annoying and mundane inconvenience such as daily car traffic becomes a joyous carrousel, that shows all the human variety of Paris. The movie is not meant to be a critic to modernity, even if it’s often shown to value aesthetics more than human inhabitability (as said by Tati “if I wanted to do that, I would have made ugly buildings”), but is rather a love letter to the “indomitable French spirit” he was so fond of, expression of the individuality that will always emerge in a society obsessed with order, spreading its positive chaos and making life more interesting.

REFERENCES:

http://www.lesinrocks.com/cinema/films-a-l-affiche/playtime-2/

http://www.tativille.com/

http://davidcampany.com/jacques-tatis-playtime-and-photography/

http://www.dedeceblog.com/2014/11/11/jacques-tati-playtime/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2AZ0I6tFvgg