Almost every day this past week Pam and I would wake up in the dark, drive the empty roads to the train station as the sun was rising, and sit in a quiet train car half asleep, exhausted from the previous days activities. From 4:30 AM to 8:00 AM our day was quiet and slow, and then when the train doors opened onto the platform at Penn Station there would be an explosion of movement and sound. Morning commuters rushing off to work and the swarm of tourists swallowed us up and we were whisked away with the crowed. It was quite the jump, going from something so steady and unchanging to the flux of city life, and it was often overwhelming. Moving from site to site, it was hard to take everything in. Listening to the designers talk about their designs, we got a sense of how much we were missing when there was no one there to explain: the conditions that led to each decision and the solutions that came with every problem. Some of the best moments on the trip where when all these choices were made clear, when the little details suddenly didn’t seem so little after all. I was repeatedly caught wondering how often these details went unappreciated and how often they made a space the success it was. Because sometimes the draw of a place is easy to understand: there is a singular attraction, an identifiable subject, something you go to see or experience. But other times, while a space may be designed for a certain purpose or activity, it is not the action that keeps people coming back, but the atmosphere that is created by all the pieces coming together to make a whole. I think our final day had a little bit of both of these situations. Standing on the roof of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, it was obviously what we were supposed to be looking at. The space was clearly designed, but for most of the people there it might as well have been a bare roof. The panoramic view of Manhattan and the treetops of Central Park had enough value to eclipse everything else. Our final stop however, took more effort to appreciate. Tired from that day’s walk, I wasn’t in the right mind to appreciate what I was seeing. Noguchi’s work seemed too abstract at first glance. From a distance they were just oddly shaped rocks. But after looking closer at the beautiful textures created on the surface of the stone, and stopping to think about the time and effort that went into each work, I was able to get a better understanding and appreciation of the work.
So in making the video for our final post, the focus was on this idea of hidden elements, on what isn’t immediately or readily discernable. The video consists of zoomed-in views of several of Isamu Noguchi’s sculptures. The scale, as well as the video overlay from one of Noguchi’s other sculptures, takes the sculptures out of context and allows you to appreciate the subtle differences in texture and the beauty and precision of the craft.
So in making the video for our final post, the focus was on this idea of hidden elements, on what isn’t immediately or readily discernable. The video consists of zoomed-in views of several of Isamu Noguchi’s sculptures. The scale, as well as the video overlay from one of Noguchi’s other sculptures, takes the sculptures out of context and allows you to appreciate the subtle differences in texture and the beauty and precision of the craft.
Stills:
This Tortured Earth, 1943
Cloud, 1958-1959
The Bow, 1970-1973
Childhood, 1970
Video Overlay:
The Well, 1982
*original music by Patrick Hoagland
http://www.noguchi.org/
This Tortured Earth, 1943
Cloud, 1958-1959
The Bow, 1970-1973
Childhood, 1970
Video Overlay:
The Well, 1982
*original music by Patrick Hoagland
http://www.noguchi.org/