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Ran across this today, and never seen this before. But it is amazing how we hurry along through the day, with so much art all around. I would not have known who Joshua Bell was, but I hope I would've stopped for a bit to take it all in, especially if I had my kids with me. Probably a bad place to experiment like this, I think it's a given most people wouldn't stop, at that time and location. I'd bet they would get a greater response in a park, or street.

""In Washington DC , at a Metro Station, on a cold January morning in 2007, a man with a violin played six Bach pieces for about 45 minutes. During that time, approximately 2000 people went through the station, most of them on their way to work. After about four minutes, a middle-aged man noticed that there was a musician playing. He slowed his pace and stopped for a few seconds, and then he hurried on to meet his schedule. About four minutes later, the violinist received his first dollar. A woman threw money in the hat and, without stopping, continued to walk. At six minutes, a young man leaned against the wall to listen to him, then looked at his watch and started to walk again. At ten minutes, a three-year old boy stopped, but his mother tugged him along hurriedly. The kid stopped to look at the violinist again, but the mother pushed hard and the child continued to walk, turning his head the whole time. This action was repeated by several other children, but every parent - without exception - forced their children to move on quickly. At forty-five minutes: The musician played continuously. Only six people stopped and listened for a short while. About twenty gave money but continued to walk at their normal pace. The man collected a total of $32. After one hour: He finished playing and silence took over. No one noticed and no one applauded. There was no recognition at all. No one knew this, but the violinist was Joshua Bell, one of the greatest musicians in the world. He played one of the most intricate pieces ever written, with a violin worth $3.5 million dollars. Two days before, Joshua Bell sold-out a theater in Boston where the seats averaged $100 each to sit and listen to him play the same music. This is a true story. Joshua Bell, playing incognito in the D.C. Metro Station, was organized by the Washington Post as part of a social experiment about perception, taste and people’s priorities. This experiment raised several questions: In a common-place environment, at an inappropriate hour, do we perceive beauty? If so, do we stop to appreciate it? Do we recognize talent in an unexpected context? One possible conclusion reached from this experiment could be this: If we do not have a moment to stop and listen to one of the best musicians in the world, playing some of the finest music ever written, with one of the most beautiful instruments ever made… How many other things are we missing as we rush through life?"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=myq8upzJDJc

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pretty damn awesome

If I'm not mistaken he was playing one of Nicolo Paganini's Caprices. Amazing works of musical art. Pagini was an amazing violinist who died in jail. He was incarcerated for being such an amazing violinist that people said they saw the Devil feeding him music. He only became a better violinist while in jail. He was allowed to have his violin, but not allowed to get new strings if and when they broke. He learned to play everything he knew on one string.

Most of his violin pieces often sounded as though they were being played by mutiple violinists, but were only played by one. Truly amazing stuff. The movie "Cross Roads" (with Ralph Maccio, not Britney Spears) in which a teenager from NYC takes off to the south with an old blues man in an attempt to learn how to play the blues, uses one of Paganini's caprices in the final scene as Ralph Maccio's character plays in a guitar battle and out does the Devil's guitar player. Worth a watch if you've never seen the movie.

Just thought I'd throw that out there.

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If I'm not mistaken he was playing one of Nicolo Paganini's Caprices. Amazing works of musical art. Pagini was an amazing violinist who died in jail. He was incarcerated for being such an amazing violinist that people said they saw the Devil feeding him music. He only became a better violinist while in jail. He was allowed to have his violin, but not allowed to get new strings if and when they broke. He learned to play everything he knew on one string.

Most of his violin pieces often sounded as though they were being played by mutiple violinists, but were only played by one. Truly amazing stuff. The movie "Cross Roads" (with Ralph Maccio, not Britney Spears) in which a teenager from NYC takes off to the south with an old blues man in an attempt to learn how to play the blues, uses one of Paganini's caprices in the final scene as Ralph Maccio's character plays in a guitar battle and out does the Devil's guitar player. Worth a watch if you've never seen the movie.

Just thought I'd throw that out there.

That's a pretty amazing story, thanks. I'll have to look into Pagnini, and that movie. Did a job where we did a bit at the Cross Roads while traveling through Clarksdale, MS. Interesting stuff!

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This makes me sad :mellow:

Music has power. It can actually slow the aging process. What an amazing (and telling) experiment. Regardless of the genre, in a way, this experiment speaks to the level to which 'modern' society has become so enthralled by the idea of net worth that we forget how to actually live. Everyone's too busy.

Eric is right as well -- (I hope) if the same experiment were conducted with multiple genres of music (or any performance art, for that matter) in a variety of settings -- shopping malls, promenades, maybe airports (but the idea is to find a setting where perhaps people aren't quite so governed by their schedules) and if the content were a little more conducive to a larger demographic...

I really hope the results would be different.

In any case, it just goes to show that most peoples' taste is in their mouth. ???

~tt

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Salvador Dali was the artist that became the trigger for my love of art. His art was the first to make me look at art from another angle, and analyze art. Disney, of course, was a large part of my up bringing, but I never thought of it as art. Watching this piece, a collaboration between Salvador and Walt, ultimately finished by Roy, shows some unexpected similarities in the styles between the two. I don't think I'll watch another Disney movie from that period and not start seeing influences of Salvador in them. This is something new to me, and I've read and seen many Dali installations. Enjoy.

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Michael, what a weird movie... My wife is a Disney fanatic, and very interested in art and Dalí in particular. That's scary, in a way... She was baffled by this film.

I have to tell you guys about this art project in Sweden.

In our country (Sweden, if anyone's missed it.. Feels like I'm writing it in every post) we have quite a strong state/government funded... eh, everything/most everything. So universities, colleges and so are free.. All studies are free. And some students get education worth a million SEK (around $130.000) a year. All this to make sure the cultural and art stays progressive and daring. I love it.

Anyway, this art project was an exam from the biggest art school here, Konstfack. In short, the art was a performance act involving the artist simulating a mental breakdown and suicide attempt. This psychosis, as the artist calls it, was a reenactment of her real psychosis she had had 10 years ago;

She was found on a bridge in sort of central Stockholm (capitol), trying to climb the railing on the bridge. She was helped down, taken in an ambulance and put in an institution.

Now, part of the story is that institutions for mental and psychically (sic) ill people in Sweden have almost all perished, so there are VERY few slots for people with these kinds of disorders, and theoretically no aid or care for them. They roam the streets, the paranoid, clinically depressed, the autists... But this simulant, this white, pretty, young girl was taken in no questions asked and got the aid she needed. So, where's the art in this?

That's the interesting part. For me, anyway. Had she been a black (or worse, Iranian or Palestinian.. muslim) noone had cared at all, and she'd be a new trigger for the racist parties and movements in Sweden (we have former nazis in the government, btw). Had she been a man, this would be considered great art. Had been a reporter, a journalist, she'd be winning the Swedish Pulitzer.

Cause this is what it is, journalism. And it's so interesting that just because she called it 'art', the whole "non-cultural" part of society just exploded with comments like "Is this really art!?" "Is this what our tax money goes to!?" and so on and so forth...

I think this is really, honestly, true progressive art. Ahead of our time perhaps, but just calling a realistic reenactment art, is an artwork in itself. It states that anything can be art if we want it to, and you are the creator of your society and art is a part of it. It blurs the difference between reality and art in a provocative manner and it upsets people. Then it's good.

The only criticism I have now (at first, I hated this... then I reconsidered) is that it didn't get more publicity and that the real journalist didn't do this kind of experiment themselves, not calling it art.

http://www.konstfack...afa/anna-odell/

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  • 2 weeks later...

Doodle Mania! This is impressive! Look closely, reminds me of classic 60's band posters where you would search for little artistic nuggets hidden deep in the image.

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Here's his website, where they have several zoomed in images to gaze at. Don't get lost!

http://www.thisiscol...3/keita-sagaki/

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  • 2 weeks later...

My art is a whole lot simpler than many of these wonderful visual displays.

I too have always been interested in photography. Since the age of about 9 years old I have had a camera of some sort. Now that I have a Canon 7D, I have really gotten into the video capabilities of that camera. And that too is an "art" as we all know, but stills are always my favorite.

A couple examples found in at my Flickr site.

Flowers I find amazing!

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Their shapes, colors and size are quite different.

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And they often attract some friends.

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But I also like sports photography.

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I'll admit I took this one with one hand on my boom pole, audio bag around the middle and the other hand holding my Canon 40D with a 70-200 f4L. Yeah, Tim Tebow on his first day of Rookie training camp with Josh McDanials watching in the background. Sometimes you just get lucky!

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And sometimes I make a little money shooting production stills while I'm also doing sound. This from a cable show on DIY Network called "Cool Tools." Who better to shot stills than the sound guy. At least I know when it's safe to fire the shutter. Don't worry, I don't do this too often. I only shoot for a couple of clients where the audio set ups are very simple. In this case, these are host wraps where there is only one guy on camera and one lav mic on him. An easy days working with this talent.

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Sorry for photo bombing the thread.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Thanks for the contributions everyone, and glad you like the thread.

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But aren't you working for the love of art? We were hoping our artist would like to be part of somthing great. It's a labour of love.

Seriously though, nice thread. I love Banksys work too and his Simpsons intro, posted up above, is just brilliant.

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