IZU - CONTINUITY - You Are What You Read.

you are what you read.

IZU- Sound Walk

November 11, 2012  

Start time: 11:30 am

My “walking meditation” took place in Long Island City, NY, specifically the neighborhood of Astoria. 

I began from Steinway Street, known for its colorful cultural shops with motifs, grocery/butchers, and restaurants mainly of the Middle Eastern and/or Islamic culture.  Car tires on pavement fill the air as does the sound of squeaky brakes. I walk pass a couple of  Middle Eastern restaurants with a few men sitting at sidewalk tables, chatting, drinking coffee or tea and smoking.  I hear an excited voice from one table expressing to his friends a story that seems to amuse them all since they all burst into laughter at once.  Some children are yelling and running in the background and I spot them across the street with their mother yelling at them.

A bus screeches to a stop to pick-up passengers.  The bus beeps as it lowers itself so that it can make itself assessable for picking-up a passenger in a wheel-chair.  I hear a car honk its horn, and like a domino effect three different car horns follow.  Car tires screech off around the bus.  I hear many conversations in many languages: English, Spanish, French, Russian, Arabic, and Hungarian to name a few.  I hear plates clatter together as a waitress gathers the dishes from a table doing brunch.  The voices from the restaurants are excited and muddled as some people are speaking with their mouths full.

I hear plastic bags from shoppers bagging their fruits and veggies.  The trains overhead rumbles as it enters the station with the conductor’s voice announcing the train stop.  I am startled when hear a small child screaming at the top of his lungs then I hear the cries silenced and notice that  the parent gives the child a cookie.  Car doors slam as I walk past a more residential area.  I hear a front door open and package is dropped to the floor. 

The sounds are becoming more spacey as I enter an area where the density of people is less.  I notice the flapping from birds’ wings and I hear the leaves rustle in the breeze.  I hear the scuffle of the feet of people walking behind me, in front of me and across the street.  The car tires on the pavement are more pronounced and I notice that each car engine has its own distinct sound.  I hear neighbors greet each other and I hear kids laughing and playing on a playground.  As I near Astoria park, the tightness and density of sounds is not only spaced out but sounds that were obnoxious are tolerable. I notice my pace of walking slow down as I near the water. 

The calming sound of the water hitting against the bridge and the water bank grounds me.

IZU - Sound Project - The Interview

Retail-Hell

IZU - Mise-en-scène project

Byzantine Deux

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jd-jkKXzPns&feature=youtu.be

Life is a gray zone….

I am inspired by the ambiguity and beauty in the space of nothingness.  The space that connects and differentiates dichotomies is the space I seek to illustrate.  This gray zone is often overlooked in the world of classification and differentiation.  

I am often inspired by images I collect from my vivid dreams.  I dream vividly and lucidly, and I find the dream world to be synonymous to the gray zone that I am trying to emulate in this dimension. Overall, I love to capture beauty.

I enjoy peeling off the layers of what is considered mundane to reveal the silent and at times archaic beauty. 

I seek to highlight the beauty in what is often overlooked, and to also create portals of beauty that can be construed as artifacts of soft power.

I find art to be more than imagery for the senses but it can serve  as a provocative platform to promote much needed dialogue on issues that may difficult to discuss outside of the Arts.

My influences cross many terrains and cultures.  I am constantly drawn to the similarities in the differences of cultures.  My traveling has only intensified my desire to help promote empathy within humanity.

I follow the philosophies of wabi sabi, which is finding beauty in the imperfections.  As time progresses, its wear and tear leaves its mark on the living and inanimate objects.  This stage of progress is the gray zone that I love to capture.  We are in the gray zone, from new to old, everything under the sun goes through the process of absorbing time’s mark.

I am inspired by films by directors such as Jean Luc Godard, Ousmane Sembène, to Yi Jae Yong.  My taste in music and visual arts are an eclectic mix that has no limits. 

The differences in the world need not cause division for we are all linked.  The differences should be examined not from a point of superiority but to connect the dots of our humanity.  

IZU - Mise-en-scène analysis

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hQhpansqN1k&feature=relmfu

The Color of Paradise (Rang-e Khoda) by Majid Majidi is an Iranian film about a blind boy named Mohammed.  Mohammed is the protagonist, who goes to a school for the blind in Tehran, and he is contrasted sharply with his father, whose values spiral downwards as he seeks to take a wife at the expense of eradicating any indication of having a blind son.

There were so many great sequences to choose from in the film for this mise-en-scène blogpost, but I selected a clip that perfectly contrasts Mohammed to his father—from the beginning of “part 3 of the clip sequence” till 3:12.

The clip opens with a medium close-up shot of Mohammed’s grandmother as Mohammed is giving her a gift.  His love for the women in his family is clearly evident as is his sensitive nature.  The shot cuts from a group shot to a MCU of each relative then to close-up shots of the gift given by Mohammed.  The close-up is done to allow the viewer to see that Mohammed gives thoughtful gifts of beauty though he is blind. Since he is blind, his other senses of touch and hearing are enhanced and this is evidenced throughout the film through enhanced sound effects which allows the viewer to be in the shoes of Mohammed. 

Mohammed is always seeking to decipher the “language” of his environment. The scene where the grandmother and Mohammed are walking towards the tree that he planted the previous year uses the rule of thirds with the placement of the tree. The bond of the grandmother and Mohammed is further elaborated through a wide shot cut of them walking through the farm of planted grains.  As Mohammed asks his grandmother what she planted, the camera cuts to a shot of the grandmother’s hand guiding Mohammed to “see” through the sense of touch, the grains planted. Overall there is a sense of discovery and hope with Mohammed.

From Mohammed there is a cut to a high angle, extreme long shot of Mohammed’s father shaving at a river.  The distance from this character is significant as it translates to the viewer not knowing and/or understanding this complexly flawed, but forgivable character.  While preparing for shaving at the river the shots change from ELS to medium close-up, to extreme close-up.  The extreme close-up coincides with the father hearing an ominous sound and nicking himself with the razor blade.  The sound is only heard by him as evidenced by the juxtaposed shot of the horse that stands calmly by the riverbed.  The ECU of the father’s image in the broken mirror also serves as an omen of negative things to come in the film.