January 8, 2010

First link to a video.




I've resisted linking to videos because they load on the page slowly, breaking the visitor's pace of browsing from site to site. They don't have a preview function to see if you actually want to waste your time watching. On top of it all, they require time to take in. You can't speed-read one. In all, they seem contrary to everything about the web many people have become accustomed to.

In spite of all that, I'm linking here to an astonishing work of art. In fact, I'm inclined to say I'm linking to it because of all that.

It's meant to be taken in slowly, to unfold. Like a rosebud on a bright summer morning.

All the more remarkable: despite its strikingly life-like imagery, it's created digitally.

Turns out even electrons can be caressed to create a soul-satisfying, breath-stopping experience. In the hands of an artist.

HD On will take you to the original posting site, for High Definition. Turn your sound up a bit--the music is perfect. Right-mouse and select Full Screen.

This is another story of the beauty of the built world. The lighting is heavenly.

Think of this as a mental health break in your journey through a busy life.

Take a deep breath.

Slow down for a few minutes.

Enjoy.

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Want to know more?

A website offers tantalizing glimpses. Not much more.

But a bit of probing around reminds us that this is a Computer-Generated (CG) tour de force.

Here's a bit more, enough to whet my curiosity.

Hints of scratchy film, images of Kodak, strips of drying filmstock, closeups of cameras--a vintage large-format treasure and a Polaroid film camera--this is brilliant sleight-of-hand, classic distraction worthy of Harry Houdini.

What's real?

The Third or the Seventh?
It's a take-off on a discussion begun by Friedrich Hegel in the 1820s, as to the proper ordering of the primary art forms: architecture, sculpture, painting, music, poetry.

"Alex Roman" asks of the proper place of architecture--third or seventh--in a more contemporary listing of the primary art forms: architecture, sculpture, dance, music, painting, poetry, cinema.

Pretty heavy underpinnings for a work of such silence-commanding elegance.

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