Aras Karimi, a Los Angeles based artist, looks at photography as a relationship between light and film: light as a playful actor and film as a serious recorder. He sees it as his job as a photographer to write the best scenario for this one-time instant play. Light itself, is the main subject of his works. He is interested in light as the story teller. In fact the scenes in his works are the medium to picture light, its mood on different surfaces and its personality in different spaces.
Recently the, Copenhagen based, Danish electronic musician Anders Trentemøller released his latest album titled “Into the Great Wide Yonder”. The Warmenhoven & Venderbos designers like the lead track and its video from this album a lot. For the albums lead single “Sycamore Feeling”, Trentemøller teamed up with Danish singer Marie Fisker. The result is a sophisticated, edgy-chic, fashionable and melancholic down tempo song with haunting vocals by Marie Fisker.
The very inspiring and beautiful music video for “Sycamore Feeling” was written and directed by video artist Jesper Just. It was shot in the abandoned town of Centralia in Pennsylvania USA. The reason Centralia was abandoned is because of a fire in the coal layers and the mines beneath the town, a fire which broke out in 1962 and which is still burning nowadays. The female lead is performed by both, Diana Wagner and a well known New Yorker drag performer, Princess Diandra. Due to the fragmented structure of the video both actors become basically one identity.
Music: Anders Trentemøller and Marie Fisker | Video: Written and directed by Jesper Just
“How You Look At It” is a short fashion film directed and created by Poppy de Villeneuve. The movie is an intriguing cross over and melting between cinema and online viral fashion advertising.
De Villeneuve is a British photographer based in New York. Her father is Justin de Villeneuve, the Sixties fashion photographer who discovered Twiggy, and her mother is the model Jan de Villeneuve. Poppy herself began modelling at the age of 17 but found it “boring” so took up photography instead. She studied at the London College of Printing, and since graduating has worked for publications including Vogue and Dazed & Confused. She also exhibits her work regularly.
Nowness on the film and its director: “Summer in the city: a bustling, stifling and less-than-calming experience. But even in the midst of blaring car-horns, sweltering commuters and dizzying throngs of irritable pedestrians, there’s a pocket of peace to be found in every metropolis. Such moments of sweet escape provide the inspiration for the How You Look At It film.”
“Poppy de Villeneuve (who has shot for Vogue, Jalouse and Nylon, among others) and starring rising Chinese fashion model Liu Wen, who was recently signed as the first Asian face of Estee Lauder. To create her moment of blissful cool, De Villeneuve took to the serene spaces of New York’s Asser Levy Recreation Center—a turn-of-the-century bath house, replete with Art Deco pool—where, in a heat-induced reverie, a Norma Kamali clad Wen is joined by former Sopranos regular and actor in the Martin Scorcese-produced HBO series Boardwalk Empire Edoardo Ballerini, for a sensual, teasingly ambiguous swimming lesson.”
Video: Poppy de Villeneuve | backstage photos by fashion blogger Hanneli | source: Nowness/luxury group LVMH
Hello World! or: How I Learned to Stop Listening and Love the Noise is an immersive, large-scale audio visual installation comprised of thousands of unique video diaries gathered from the Internet. The project is a meditation on the contemporary plight of democratic, participative media and the fundamental human desire to be heard.
On one hand, new media technologies like YouTube have enabled new speakers at an alarming rate. On the other hand, no new technologies have emerged that allow us to listen to all of these new public speakers. Each video consists of a single lone individual speaking candidly to a (potentially massive) imagined audience from a private space such as a bedroom, kitchen, or dorm room. The multi-channel sound composition glides between individuals and the group, allowing viewers to listen in on unique speakers or become immersed in the cacophony. Viewers are encouraged to dwell in the space.
Recently the Hello World audio visual installation was also used as backdrop for an interesting special on Swiss Television (Schweizer Fernsehen) called: special Kulturplatz Extra report. This TV special focused on the theme: “Living with the computer: blessing or curse?” The reports range from the hippie roots of personal computing in silicon valley, to robot therapy for the elderly.
Photos,video and source: Christopher Baker | Vimeo | Kulturplatz Extra
The Fashion Film festival in Milan is organised in collaboration with Vogue Italia and will once again feature short films, installations and documentaries. It will be held between 25Th and the 30Th of May, 2010 at the Palazzo Morando, 6 Via Sant’Andrea, Milan.
