Posts tagged “art”

Maxwell Neely-Cohen:

We are on the brink of a dark age, or have already entered one. The scale of art, music, and literature being lost each day as the World Wide Web shifts and degenerates represents the biggest loss of human cultural production since World War II. My generation was continuously warned by teachers, parents, and authority figures that we should be careful online because the internet is written in ink, and yet it turned out to be the exact opposite. As writer and researcher Kevin T. Baker remarked, “On the internet, Alexandria burns daily.”

Vulture:

Suddenly, anybody could shoot and edit a video, building the vocabulary of what that could look like: transition videos, lip syncs, and green-screen-driven storytelling began to cohere as distinct subgenres. That’s only accelerated in the age of TikTok, an app that offers more and easier editing tools for users than any that came before it.

Online video is an inherently communal form; it’s defined by thousands of people iterating on the same idea. Every once in a while, though, there’s a leap forward. Every video on this list represents an evolution in the form or exemplifies a particularly influential editing style — whether the creator was one of the first to attempt it, or just pulled off a jaw-dropping editing feat all their own.

This terrific short story by qntm contemplates the hellish potential consequences of brain uploading, in the form of a typically impassive Wikipedia entry:

MMAcevedo (Mnemonic Map/Acevedo), also known as Miguel, is the earliest executable image of a human brain. It is a snapshot of the living brain of neurology graduate Miguel Álvarez Acevedo (2010–2073), taken by researchers at the Uplift Laboratory at the University of New Mexico on August 1, 2031.

Alongside filmmaker Josh Safdie, composer Daniel Lopatin sat down with us to detail the creative discoveries behind his synth-packed score for ‘Uncut Gems.’

The score is such a big part of the cosmic magic in Uncut Gems, and this short documentary does a great job at exploring some of its highlights in detail.

Simon Weckert:

99 second hand smartphones are transported in a handcart to generate virtual traffic jam in Google Maps.Through this activity, it is possible to turn a green street red which has an impact in the physical world by navigating cars on another route to avoid being stuck in traffic.

Chris O’Falt interviews Bong Joon Ho and production designer Lee Ha Jun about Parasite’s brilliant set design:

According to Bong, the challenge he gave his “Snowpiercer” production designer was not only to create a believably “visually beautiful” set, but a stage that served the precise needs of his camera, compositions, and characters, while embodying his film’s rich themes. In an interview with IndieWire, Bong described the home as “its own universe inside this film.” He added that he took pleasure in hearing that the famous directors on this year’s Cannes jury — which included Alejandro Gonzalez Iñarritu, Yorgos Lanthimos, and Kelly Reichardt — were all convinced that the movie took place in a real home. In truth, Bong asked his production designer to create an “open set,” built on an outdoor lot.

What happens when you get a kid from Brooklyn, a radioactive spider, and some leitmotifs and mix them all together?

Toy Story 4 looks incredible, almost hyper-realistic. And it’s not a simple matter of technology getting better; there is artistic intent in the imperfections that give it that edge. Among other techniques, Pixar is simulating real-world camera lenses (along with their limitations). Evan Puschak explains:

Animation has always drawn from the lessons of live action film, from the visual language of cinematic storytelling. Everyone who worked on Toy Story 4 understands that the imperfections — the way a lens distorts, or a camera operator shakes, or a light bounces — contain their own expressive potential. And when you combine these with the limitless world of animation, the results can be stunningly tactile.

I hadn’t noticed that split diopter shot — it’s brilliant.

Straight-up one of my favourite internet finds of the year. Something about it just gets to me on a deep level. I’ve looked at it dozens of times and that feeling doesn’t go away.

I first came across it on Twitter a few months ago, and it’s been on the back of my mind ever since.

Graphic design work on Incredibles 2 was brilliant, as expected. But there was one glaring exception, conspicuously missing from this post: the atrocious Edna Mode logo.

This is packed with great quotes from filmmakers that I hadn’t heard before.

David Lynch:

I never talk about themes. It’s a very big shame when something is finished and then people want you to translate it back into words. It never will work. It never will go back into words and be what the film is. It’s like describing a piece of music; you don’t hear the music, you just see the words. It’s better to let people conjure up their own ideas, having seen and experienced the film.

Kubrick on explaining the ending of 2001:

I tried to avoid doing this ever since the picture came out because when you just say the ideas they sound foolish, whereas if they’re dramatized one feels it.

Julia Wolkoff, for Artsy:

Life was cruel to French ballet dancers, and they didn’t have it much easier at the hands of Degas himself.

A look at the 12 principles of animation developed by Disney to give life to an image.

Explainers about Disney’s animation techniques have been done to death, but Kristian’s stellar editing and compositing make this one worth watching. He uses some great examples that I hadn’t seen before.

Evan Puschak:

Otomo has said that he wanted Tokyo itself to be a major character in Akira, and one of the ways he fleshes this out is with light. Particularly, neon.

Neon has a special significance for both Tokyo and the cyberpunk genre. It is the bitter, but beautiful light that signifies both the colorful radiance and the gaudy consumerism of modernity.

Man, this movie is just so cool. I rewatched it recently; it has lost none of its power to mesmerize me.

Evan Puschak:

If a basic purpose of art is to illuminate human nature, then I think Comedy Central’s Nathan for You deserves a spot in the conversation about the best TV shows of this era.