maandag 18 februari 2008

Photographing workshop

Thursday and Friday we had a photograph workshop. Our first exercise was to take the 'baddest' picture ever. So before i started thinking of what a 'bad' picture is, I asked myself what a 'good' picture is.

For me a 'good' picture is one where the object is somehow in the centre of attention on the picture. Usually in the centre. The picture isn't overexposed (of course this depends) or moved, anyhow the object should cleary be accentuated. So i took some pictures around one who was moved, one overexposed andso forth.

The one below I like best because ususally the object which you want to 'catch' on camera is in the centre of attention. What I tried to do is to annoy the audience with accedentially put a small piece of a building at the lleft bottom and also showing the window frame at the top, slightly tilted. People ask themselves, what is that?? O it's a piece of a builing, why is it in the left corner not centered and why is the window frame on the top visible.

"Post-deconstructivism"

The workshop from Monday and Tuesday was to build an 'informal settlement' outside architecture. When I heard this I was really shocked, a slum!? here?! It turned out to be a really nice workshop because you are undergoing experiences that people in Mumbai face daily.

To give an expample, we where faced with the security guys from FM who didn't allow us to pick certain materials, so it was al about being discreet as possible. An other feeling I personnaly had was that I felt really exposed. When we where dragging al kinds of materials people where looking weird and you could hear them think 'what the hell are they doing??"

We had a group of five people and we had a budget from E 50,- (E 10,- p.p.) to spend on food, the slum, interior etc.. We spend E 25,- on the slum and E 15,- on food. We spent E 20,- for the slum on a crappy Saran plastic material which afterwards was very expensive and there was to little on the roll. We had in mind to cover the airholes with the Saran. The other E 5,- we spent on a good joining material, rope.

zondag 17 februari 2008

Benny Lava

Here's some music from India ;)

zondag 10 februari 2008

Dharavi

Here are some images from Dharavi and some other images related to the contradictions, which we are faced with, rich/poor, legal/illegal, formal/informal etc.

enjoy!

AW






week 1 thoughts

The workshops of Monday and Tuesday (experiencing space) where very inspiring. Today we live in a modern transient society. The people living in the metropools of today come across a lot of contradictions and shifts in events, ‘overexposure’ as Virillio called it in his article ‘the overexposed city’1. Therefore we (people living in these metropools) create an protective organ against all these influences. This organ protects against the profound disruption with the fluctuations and discontinuities of the external milieu threaten it. Instead of reacting emotionally, the metropolitan user reacts primarily in a rational matter, thus creating a mental predominance through intensification of consciousness, which in turn is caused by it. Thus the reaction of a metropolitan user to those events is moved to a sphere of mental activity which is least sensitive and which is furthest removed from depths of the personality2.

What we did, in my opinion, this past two days is trying to ‘turn of’ this protective organ and experience space as pure as we can. With al our senses, especially not the ones you use daily, like the eyes, but also trough sound, through smell , trough touch.

What also was interesting was the notion of how you think of your body. Do you use your legs only to move or do you really live ‘inside’ your legs. Becoming more aware of your lungs, breathing, smelling, touching, experiencing your body. Becoming more aware of the spaces you are in.

1.: The metropolis and Mental life - Georg Simmel (blz. 12) 1903
2.: The Overexposed City - Paul Virilio (blz. 544) 1984