Tuesday 31 March 2009

annie leibovitz in berlin

in berlin, nils and i visited the exhibition "a photogrpher's life" from annie leibovitz. the exhibition was highly recommended, and she is often called one of the best photographers of our time. after seeing her work, i considered her THE photographer of our time. maybe a bit exaggarating, but i think she is at least in the sector portait/people.
the exhibition itself was located in a beautiful old post office, a nice place, espacially for displaying art.
annie leibovitz' pictures, reached from panoramic landscapes to close ups, but most of them were portraits. many works were exposed she had produced in the 30 or more years she worked for different magazines, like the rolling stone, vogue or vanity fair. for them she had the chance to photograph many famous people all over the world and make a name. what i like about her portraits is, that they are simple, but powerful. she often uses simple, personal surroundings, and natural light. she doesn't use the studio so often, or stages her pictures, she says it would feel wrong, or fake then. using so simple means, she still manages to capture the character of the person she photographs, or pic out a special side or aspect of him or her.
she also exposed many personal pictures of family and friends, that are even more moving on an emotional level. for example she photographed a series of her dying companion in life, susan sontag. the pictures are really touching, and of great emotional power.
this is the only picture i took inside, photographing was not allowed (and i photographed anyways, shame on me).
when nils and i left the building, we were pretty surprised. the street in front of us was full of people (this time it was not the line for the exhibition, we had waited 45min in, earlier). it was a big political demonstartion of "die linke" (socialistic party in germany), with some extreme liberalists inbetween, against capitalism and for communism. i don't like communism, if we had planed economy, i would be rid of job ;)
anyways, still induced by the exhibition, i took the chance to take some documentary pictures.

Sunday 29 March 2009

berlin cross media


berlin was great. it was my first trip there, and i love it. i could write a lot about all the things i saw there in the past three days, but it's late now and i'm tired, so here's the short version.
except from the typical tourist attractions, like the reichstag, brandenburger tor, siegessäule and so on, we visited some interesting museums and exhibitions. it was the perfect tour for a cross media design student.
first, we were at the overwhealming photography exhibition of Annie Leibovitz. she's one of the most famous photographers of our time, and her work is really creative and emotional. i recommend the exhibition or her books to everyone.
then we were in the "haus der kulturen der welt" (house of world's cultures), in an exhibition about graphic design, and characters in media and advertisement. very interesting and funny, and also interactive sometimes. there were for example autoscooters with funny designs, like fluffy animals and stuff, that nils and i actually drove.
we also saw "deutschland 09", a compilation of 13 short movies by famous german directors, about the actual situation in germany. the project was initiated by tom tykwer, and the movies were really inspiring. many different opinions and styles.
so, summing up we covered graphic design, photography and moving picture, cross media design thouh. i'm going to upload some more pictures and write about some more things, like street art in berlin, or it's people, next week. now i'll catch up some sleep.

Thursday 26 March 2009

berlin, berlin

today, nils and i planned our trip to berlin, that we are going to go on tomorrow. we will stay there for three nights. we already have tickets, that can only be used until the end of this month, so it's about time. we are going to visit different museums, and the city itself. of course, we are going to work for our final exams there too. nils is going to film things and i want to photograph graffitis to animate.
i am very curious already, because it's gonna be my first trip to berlin, so that is about time aswell.
that also means, there probably won't be any new posts till sunday. sorry.

Tuesday 24 March 2009

the junkie is done

today, i modified the OLD "blitzbattleplayer" i had created, to fit the NEW "junkie-battle", i was busy for the last few days. the player is dynamic and loads automatically the movies that it's fed, so if every battleblogger uploads his in time you won't see anymore black gaps with names on, on the screen.
i changed the design a little and had to edit the script. check it out on the BATTLEBLOG.

Monday 23 March 2009

don't metion the background...

... it's just illustrative. this movie is going to be embedded into another movie, in which all the clips from all the battlebloggers will be collected. the background will change then.
anyways, this movie is what i worked on so long for the past few days. it's for the "junkie-battle" i metioned in some earlier posts. it features real stop motion, what i had to build that robot for before, and all that took a while.
oh, and - BE WARNED, LARGE FILE - requires fast internet or a little patience

Friday 20 March 2009

finish the animation already!

i'll make it short, i've been working on the same animation as the last few days. from the picture you might be able to guess what it's gonna be like.
i transformed my flat-share livingroom into green-screen stop-motion animation studio, but again, i misjudged how much work stop motion animations are. it's not like i'm doing his for the first time, but you start animating at about noon, and the next time you check your watch eight hours have passed. now it's nearly midnight and still i'm not done yet.
tomorrow there's gonna be results. have a good night.

Thursday 19 March 2009

hand work

today i was working fo the BATTLEBLOG again, same assignment as yesterday. still i will not show results until i'm finished, but from the picture you can already guess that it is a hand-made animation. i just wanted to make something by hand again, stop motion though.
i am not sure yet, how the result is going to look like exactly, but working on it is fun already.
tomorrow it's animation time!

Wednesday 18 March 2009

junkie battle

today i did something for the BATTLEBLOG. we are having a "junkie battle" at the moment, in which every battleblogger makes a short animation for the same song from the Junkie XL workshop. it's a workshop about generating music and sounds that finds place at the aki since a week or something.
i am afraid that i am not authorized to show some results by now, because we are going to publish our work for by end of this week simultaneously, and i cannot let valuable information and ideas fall into the hands of the competing battlebloggers. sorry.
what i can state by now, is that i use stop-motion, and that it's gonna be a whole lot of work, and it's going to be totally awesome... i guess.

Sunday 15 March 2009

ruhrkultur

this weekend i visited my family in bochum. my grandmother celebrated her 92 birthday. she isn't that healthy anymore, but for her age she's doing good i think!
also i spent some time with my parents, and we visited "Henrichshütte", an industrial memorial. basically it's a over 60 years old balst furnace, with some explanations and a small museum. it's a typical example for the "industriekultur" (industrial-culture or whatever) in the area i grew up.
in the museum was a small exhibition about Leonardo Da Vinci, with replics of machines he invented, that you could actually operate. that was really interesting, as i am sort of an enthusiast for him.
i took the picture above at the museums premises. i like it somehow, i think it looks strange, with the reflections, and because the place is so unfamiliar...

Friday 13 March 2009

read and write, read and write.

i am still busy with my scriptie, so i can't post that much new stuff. i have to say, that i am making progress with writing, and want to present a pre-version (still very raw) to Karin (the teacher who guides me with writing my essay) next week.
by the way, i upgraded my favorite BATTLEBLOG animation lately. i added some higher resoluted textures and changed timing a bit. in case you might wanna look at it again, click either the image or here.

Tuesday 10 March 2009

scriptieing

i am busy with writing my scriptie (dutch for essay) at the moment (well, not on a typewriter, the photo is just illustrative). i want to finish it first of all and as soon as possible, for being able to fully concentrate on my final exam.
i am writing about James Nachtwey, a famous war photographer. i admire his courage to have risked his life several times, trying to better the world a little. additionally his photos have a strong atmosphere to them, and he manages to combine asthetics with the terrible substances he photographes, to bring over his message. i will focus on analysing how he achieves that in my essay.

Sunday 8 March 2009

battleblogging

yesterday and today i was busy for the battleblog again. we have had our first "blitzbattle", for which everyone makes a short animation about the same topic in only two days. the topic was generated randomly by wikipedia, this time it was "Derek de Solla Price".
i have also made the player, that loads the movies dynamicly, so that we can just exchange them every time we have a blitzbattle.
so, check out the BATTLEBLOG!

Friday 6 March 2009

hangman 2.0

it's hangman time again, basically the same like last time, but now with level 3. it has a new animtion aswell, so take a look!
i'm gonna continue with making hangman-riddles when i'm done with my scriptie (essay) about james nachtway, what i have started with this week.
so, be patient!

Wednesday 4 March 2009

hangman BETA

i have programmed a flashgame! everyone knows how it's played i think. it's just some sort of beta or test, with only one level/word, and an easy one too. i'm gonna see how i can improve it, got to learn some actionscript 3.0 or xml when there's time.
maybe i can connect it to a dictionary or something to get new words each time you play, but i will have to do it when i am not busy with my final exam anymore.


have fun, and watch the other ending (lose!) if you bet the game on first try!