20 December 2014

Amsterdam Light Festival 2014-15


In November 2014 freelance filmmaker Jack Fisher was invited to the Netherlands to make a time-lapse of the Amsterdam light festival. It was the most challenging film he had made to date as he only had seven days to plan, film and edit this hyperlapse whilst battling wind, rain and everything in between.  However, I think that you will agree that the result is wonderful: the festival end of 18 January 2015.

13 January 2013

Light Emitting Dudes


Light Emitting Dudes takes a team of free-runners, geared up from head to toe with LED lights, and sets them loose on the streets of Bangkok at night. With acrobatic grace, they carved up the already buzzing nightlife spots while adding their own flair and color to the mix.

Jason Paul, Shaun Wood, and Anan Anwar are the team of free-runners whose homes are already quite far apart, coming from Frankfurt, Sydney, and Bangkok respectively. Director Frank Sauer and costume designer Christina Zahra are both from Germany so this is a truly international production!

5 August 2011

Tourist


If you have ever been a tourist in a big city you will most probably completely sympathize with the everyman hero of this very funny animated short.

A tourist braves the bustling city streets as he tries to snap the perfect photo of New York only to find that the Big Apple seems to be a bit camera shy. In a city full of landmarks, there is always someone there to ruin his shot.

Action! Intrigue! Sightseeing!  Created by Matthew K this was the winner of the Best Animation Award at The Big Apple Film Festival in 2008. It also, unsurprisingly, made the official selection at several other film festivals.

29 January 2011

The Ice Book


Technology allows performance art to do things today that were only dreams a few years ago. The Ice Book tells the story of a princess who entices a boy into the woods so that she can warm her heart of ice.

The performance merges the moving picture, puppetry, and film to take a pop up book and bring it to life in an extraordinary way. I really like the way in which lit and unlit scenes are shown so we can see the transformation ourselves.

This is the work of husband and wife team Kristin and Davy McGuire, who create genre-busting productions for stage, screen and exhibition spaces that blend elements of film, animation, theatre, puppetry, installation art and good old-fashioned illusions in to something quite new and different.

23 November 2010

Arria – Day Time Diva becomes Late Night Lovely

Cumbernauld’s newest and possibly most famous resident, Arria, has had a problem.  She has only been visible during the day - and that just wouldn't do.  Now, thanks to lighting placed inside the lady herself, she will be gloriously visible in the night time too.

The 10 meter high sculpture by renowned international artist Andy Scott was put in place this August to enhance the image of the Scottish New Town.  Yet, although available to perform her task twenty four hours a day she was hampered by one thing: the night.  And this lady demands a constant audience.  However, all that changes today.

Now, a lighting rig has been placed inside the sculpture, set to a cycle which repeats every 48 minutes.   As the show progresses, Arria can be seen in a variety of different colours.  The light seeping through her metallic structure reflects against her various segments matching her daytime resplendance with a nightime ethereality .  The textures of the design are now highlighted in the evening in a way which cannot be done in daylight hours.

This special task was undertaken by the Lightfolio company.  Based in Midlothian, the firm has previously lit up a number of Scott’s sculptures and were the obvious choice because of both their relationship with the sculptor and their own Scottish locality.

For Arria, who even has a Facebook page (see above). this means even more attention from the international press, not to mention the local community which has quickly taken the sculpture to its heart. The anticipation has been building on the page, which you can get to by clicking the picture of it above.

We think she can cope – this sixties style diva, arms outstretched and beckoning an audience looks like she can handle the attention.  Having been over a year in the making, Arria, who stands taller than a double decker bus with another double decker on top of it is part of the Cumbernauld Positive Image Project.  It is the brainchild of Campsies Centre Cumbernauld Ltd (CCCL) – which facilitates the redevelopment of the municipality.

You must admit, in her new nocturnal attire, Arria is something quite gorgeous and it sets her off against the windswept Scottish countryside beautifully.  With her distinctly retro look and diva attitude she both beckons, welcomes and (in true iconic sixties style) receives adoration from her audience while equally clasping it to her.  As such she is a great metaphor for Cumbernauld’s attitude to visitors who come to the New Town for pleasure and business alike.

Certainly the town’s reputation as an innovative area in which businesses can settle and thrive is only enhanced by the late night loveliness of Arria.

All pictures reprofuced by kind permission.
Footnote:
To say that we are fans of Arria here at Kuriositas would be putting it mildly (seen left in the daylight).  Over the last year we have posted four other articles about this wonderful sculpture.  If you want to get a fuller picture of her story, please visit them.

15 October 2010

Think Again!


Think Again is Gino Ricardo's Graduation Project which was made during his studies at the Willem De Kooning Academy. It's great fun, altogether.

Ricardo's aim was to produce a short animated series about forgotten scientific experiments. So, here we get how a lemon can produce enough energy to make a lamp glow, we see a pickle giving off light and the first battery.

Thanks, Ricardo - this is a lot of fun and brought back fond memories of the scientific experiments I had to undertake at school!

2 October 2010

The Northern Lights - Aurora Borealis

In 1621 the French scientist Pierre Gassendi (left) decided to name the strange natural displays of light he had observed in the sky. He took the name of the Roman goddess of the dawn, Aurora and combined it with the Greek name for the north wind, Boreas.

The world had a name, finally, for these mysterious light shows – aurora borealis.

For those who find Latin/Greek combination names something of a mouthful there is still the alternative name – the Northern Lights. The closer you are to the North Magnetic Pole the more likely you are to see the lights. Many confuse the magnetic pole with the geographic North Pole but they are not the same thing at all.

The Geographic North Pole is the point at which the axis of rotation of our small blue planet meets its surface. The North Magnetic Pole is where the magnetic field of the planet points down at an angle of 90° - vertically in other words. A moveable point, it is at the moment hosted by the Canadians and as such, aurora borealis is common in that country.

As you near the magnetic pole the Northern Lights appear high above your head but as you go further away from the pole they seem to light up the whole of the northern horizon. They are normally a greenish glow though sometimes red can be seen in the patterns. It is almost as if the sun is rising from a strange new angle.

Of course, Gassendi was not the first person to give the phenomenon a name – his suggestion was just the first that stuck. The Cree people of the North Americas called the Northern Lights the Dance of the Spirits which is more than appropriate as a visual metaphor.

A Norse account from the thirteenth century ponders the origins of the aurora borealis. Three possibilities are mooted – the first that the oceans must be surrounded by fires of such enormity as to make the sky glow. The next was that glaciers became fluorescent after soaking up sunlight.

The third however was a good guess for 1230 AD. It maintained that flares from the sun were so powerful as to reach around the world and illuminate the night side. This theory was wrong but given scientific knowledge of the time was as good a guess as we were going to get.

The advent of digital photography has meant that images of this amazing sight are captured on camera more often, as these marvellous photographs show. The Northern Lights can make anyone who see them excited – often gleeful. The secret to this phenomenon does, indeed, often lie in excitability.

The Northern Lights are caused atoms becoming excited. Nitrogen and oxygen atoms become excited by solar winds above the fifty mile mark in the atmosphere. This is when the energy levels of the atoms are elevated due to the higher temperatures in the atmosphere.

The Northern Lights are also a result of ionisation. An atom is transformed in to an ion when charged particles (such as electrons) are added (or removed). What causes this was a mystery for centuries. The culprit comes from the sun itself.

In the case of the Northern Lights atoms from the two elements have had an electron removed by the solar wind. When they regain an electron and return to what is known as their ground state they emit photons which is the basic unit of light. These become visible to the naked eye because there are so many of them being emitted by the nitrogen returning to its ground state.

Oxygen atoms mostly emit green light although it can be a reddish brown too depending on the amount of energy that has been absorbed. Nitrogen on the other hand appears either blue if the atom has reclaimed it missing electron after ionization. It appears red if it has been in an excited state and is returning to its ground state.

Whether or not you are interested in the science behind the phenomenon the Northern Lights remain something that, once experienced, is rarely forgotten.

Image Credit
Pierre Gassendi