As a film teacher (or probably more relevantly, a film geek), I watch just about as many films as I can. I often mean to include suggestions of films to watch in class here (including a constantly changing list of films about artists that every art class should have). Long story short- I was reading an interview with Danny Boyle when he came here to host the Shanghai International Film Festival last year. In response to a question about his favorite Chinese film, he mentioned Devils on the Doorstep as one of the best films to come out of China.

I'd never heard of it, but as the serendipity gods are always looking out for me, I happened to spot it at one of my favorite DVD stores just a day or two after I'd read the interview. Then it sat on my shelf for a few months. I just got around to watching it recently, and I have to say that its one of the best films I've ever seen.

Its also one of the most surprising films I've ever seen. The movie that you end with is so far from the movie that you started with, that its an incredible feat of creativity and vision that the director is able to pull of such a transition. The hard thing about recommending a film like this is that I can't say too much about it- what you will appreciate most about this film is the unexpected directions that it takes. That being said, understand that it is not for the faint hearted; taking place during the Japanese occupation of China, this film does quite graphically depict some of the horrors of war.

That being said, it is a fascinating film from a cinematic perspective, as well as a historical and contemporary socio-cultural perspective. Director Jiang Wen has been banned from making any more movies in China. Although he is married to a French woman and can work outside of China, he refuses. His stories, he says, take place in China, and that's where they are meant to be filmed and shown.

A Rant

The other day, I was catching up on some of my news podcasts which are always a day or two late for me (hey, how'd that election in Massachusetts turn out)?

One of my favorite podcasts is NPR's On Point with Tom Ashbrook, but my one big beef with his show is that in the interest of being 'fair and balanced' (now there's a loaded phrase), he often lets some pretty nutty folks say some pretty nutty things without too much challenge. I often wonder if they do this simply to prove that they don't have a liberal bias*.

The show I was listening to recently was one of those shows. In an episode titled "Where the Web Went Wrong", author Jaron Lanier was on the show promoting his book "You Art Not A Gadget**", the central thesis of this is that participatory communities online create a 'hive mind' in which we are sacrificing our creative energies in the service of companies to which we owe nothing.

In this discussion, he lambasts 'Web 2.0 proponents' as religious cultists who contribute their time and energy, not for their own personal gain, but in the interest of creating a god-like singularity of utopian participation. To me, this argument reeks of the conservative fear of the commons. I like to share my thoughts about art education with the greater community for my own personal interest, and all of a sudden I'm handing out flowers at airports and promoting a socialist agenda.

Well, I do live in China, after all. I can see how that could be confusing to some.

While some of the points that Lanier makes are just plain wrong and some just plain silly (and quite often both), some fall into the realm of the "wha...?" One of his most awkward points is that people feel free to "mash up" the creative efforts of others, but that the ads that regularly appear on the sides of the webpages that these mashups appear are somehow sacrosanct, and 'above' being modified for creative use. This idea is based on two false premises: (1) That ads are not mashed because we hold them with some sort of respect, and (b) there is anything useful in these ads to 'mash'. Sidebar ads aren't seen as 'holy', they aren't even seen as 'useful' for a creative endeavor. At most, I'd say they were seen as a minor inconvenience or annoyance. In fact, I'd argue that they aren't even seen at all. I don't have ads on this site and if you think back to the last site you were on, what were the ads for? Do you remember? I don't either.

Further, it shows a fundimental misunderstanding about the purpose of a mashup, which is to celebrate or satirize the derivative work in a way that creates something that we haven't seen before.

With a nod to the serendipity gods, I happened to find this wonderful Mashup of the movie UP over on the always fascinating Learning IT on the same day that I listened to this podcast.



I could just listen to that song all day.

If there is any doubt in your mind that mash-ups are somehow by definition 'less creative' than their derivative works, this video should dispel that notion. It also should dispel the notion that the creation of projects like this one are in service to some corporate monolith that feeds off of our creative juices. Pogo, the 21 year old creator of this mash up is now being wooed by corporations to make Mashup videos for them... the one above was commissioned by Pixar itself.

My friend Kate McCormick Torres recently organized this great student project, called Share Your City. Students from around the world submit images of their cities to her project, which she will then display on a Google Map, linking artwork and geographic location. This promises to be an exciting way to experience a global display of student work.

I had my IB students work on this project in the medium of their choice. In their workbooks, they described what they love and hate about Shanghai; what they think is amazing about the city, and what they think is bizarre. They thought about what medium would best express their ideas, and how to show the city from a perspective that was uniquely their own.

Busy preparing for the Paint the World with Light project? Maybe you saw that it was mentioned as the best new student art challenge of 2009 and want to get involved?

Check out this great 'behind the scenes' video from Freezelight:



Now that you know how its done, you'll still be amazed by their Magical Forrest:

Much apologies for the slow posting here recently... I guess everyone was right about the whole association between new babies and sleep deprevation. Who'd have guessed? I'll be posting more shortly, but in the mean time, here is an excellent list of readings in Photography.

Link via Photojojo

...and here's one more good article to take a look at: Seven Ways to Create Powerful Photos with Color. Nothing surprising, but a well organized explanation for students.

This is not your ordinary flip book:



Flip-Ball anyone?