Tuesday, October 18, 2005

 

Scenographically Embarrased

Ignorance can be very embarrassing - especially if your in the company of people sharing a common interest of which your knowledge is scanty/or - have not bothered to learn more about. My housemate is a German guy (Dirk) in the Urban planning Architecture field of work & at the same time a technology freak, apart from spending some lazy evenings discussing the technical aspects of Nuclear Energy and how much carbon is emitted by all the processes that lead to its production (including figures)- I have learnt how to become a technical map reader - able to separate outlines of random aspects of society simply by looking at the shades and codes of a map, discovered why if you design a parking lot in a particular way next to a supermarket in a space deprived city like Amsterdam - you are bound to have a rebellious community - basically the sociology of architecture (dont know if that terminology exists but atleast it helps define what im trying to say)- Have you heard of the theory behind 6 degrees of separation? well it says we are separated from each other as humans by virtually 6 degrees (long story - u can google for more info) but considering these strange aspects of man made things - Its led me to believe theres 4 degrees of separation between man and the objects/things he creates (notably the parking lot story) Anyway - deviating from my story isnt helping - Dirk has many friends, most of whom are in the several sub fields of Arts and Architecture so you can imagine a room full of artists together with an ignorant ecologist. I got myself an invitation to visit one of Dirks friends (Annabel) Art Exhibition at the old (and ugly) post office building in Amsterdam - I was excited, mostly because i can brag about knowing one of the "stars of the show" so over the weekend I made my way to the "VolumeAmsterdam" curator fair. It was about "Scenography" sce·nog·ra·phy ( P ) Pronunciation Key (s-ngr-f)n.
The art of representing objects in perspective, especially as applied in the design and painting of theatrical scenery.

Ah well, I was expecting some exhibition full of artistic scrolls and backdrops with imaginative and wierd pictures (my belief is that all artists are wierd)so since she was "designing" the art behind the movies or plays - i didnt read much into what all this was about.

All guests were welcomed with a glass of sparkling wine and bitings before entering the main exhibition hall by suprisingly friendly dutch ushers - I was to meet the gang inside the exhibition hall so i walked in slowly looking out and about for them without spotting them, I noticed that we were in some really dodgy looking hall with wierd noises and with no fancy scrolls and backdrops nor people explaining them so i walked back to the ushers and asked them where the exhibition hall "really" was and they pointed back in the direction i came from. I went back and even tried to open some door in the corner hoping thats where it was but nope. For the third time - i impatiently went and made my case to these girls and told them they have been pointing me towards an "empty" welcome hall without any art !! The girl smiled at me and offered to take me in and explain to me what the "ART Exhibition" was all about. I was not prepared for this.

In essence, there were 5 main contributors from different parts of the world to this fair and under the theme of scenography, they had designed various "ambiances" to project their creativity, the first piece was the noise manipulation one done by an American student. He basically placed mobile microphones around different parts of amsterdam close to the exhibition building - he placed them under a bridge, by a canal, by the train station, by a hotel so basically all the sounds were caught at the same time and using some PC manipulation reflect back the sound into the room producing very strange sound effects.

Item no. 2 was Annabels' she had played about with mirrors and foil paper and random bits of wire and batteries - jungled them together so that they had 2 effects in the room we were standing in - first it appeared smaller than it actually was, secondly, it looked like summer daylight in the room (considering the dull amsterdam weather in an autumn evening outside)

The 3rd piece was from China - the curator recorded the tick and gong of the Beijing clock so that ever 20 minutes you could hear the loud speaker outside ticking nervously and "gonging" intermittently giving a communist aura to the whole setting. This one was particularly interesting.

My favourite was the 4th piece which was a dutch guy copying the walls and pillars of the exhibition hall and making the exact wall and pillar effect with cardboard and placing them in the building - there was no way on earth you could notice this - the cardboard walls looked extremely real and the chipped cement effect made them match those of the hall.

Lastly was the "conceptual" piece (to me this was just an excuse from the curator to a job not well done and replacing it under a complicated category name last minute) apparently his piece of art was the fact that he would advertise the very same event, the same day, same newspaper, same ad banner for the next 3 consecutive years. Ah well - these artists are all wierd anyway.

All in all - besides this being one of my most embarrasing moments in my life - I enjoyed myself and learnt a great deal.

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