Chris Cunningham Live

Went to see Chris Cunningham at the Royal Festival Hall.   Man.

Well, I thought I was in for an experience.   I told my girlfriend that she might not like it but it will be interesting.   I was right!

The show started with a performance by Beak>.   This was quite an understated affair with the band taking up a corner of the massive stage.   Their music, a mixture of analogue electronic and instruments, created a sound that built throughout the performance so that a song would end up being something completely different from where it started.   The singing was digitally processed to become another instrument in the performance.  

On to Chris Cunningham.   I've seen most of his previous work and enjoy the extreme nature of a lot of his videos.   I found that most of the visuals of his previous work are very interconnected to the music as though the video was born from the music.   His show music was written by himself or remixed, which seems to have given him free reign over the music that was in the show.   So for this show, the visuals have driven the music.

This show was a hellish experience but was clearly meant to be one.   I thought about walking out a few times just because I felt like I couldn't take it any longer.   Some of the key moments were a naked man and woman viciously punching each other and drawing blood, woman dancing until all her intestines came flying out of her body and a child lying in bed and being cut open and dissected by an unseen force.   These scenes can not really be explained in words.   These were all timed to massive flashing lights, some incredibly violent noises that made up the music.   In fact, at one point a light socket fell out of the roof due to the base of the music.   It was a horrific experience that was far worse than any horror film I've ever seen.   Saying that, I think that Chris Cunningham produced the result he desired from the experience.

The visions and violence shown was far more extreme than anything that he has produced before.   Removing the constraints of creating a video for another artist allowed him to create an undiluted experience that has only briefly been seen in the nastier parts of his other work.

I can not say that I enjoyed the experience in any way other than leaving the hall and getting out into the beautiful streets of London.   Everything seemed so much nicer after this show!

Well, it was an experience!

Irving Penn & A Positive View

Irving Penn exhibition at the National Portrait gallery was very interesting.   The exhibition showed his work throughout his whole life, in chronological order.  

The first thing to strike me was the fact that his style never moved much throughout his whole life.   He worked in black and white, had a minimalist studio and focused on capturing the person through their expressions and posture.

Initially, he tackled the portraits with the subjects full body framed in the shot.   The persons character was mainly portrayed through their body language.   At the time he shot both celebrities and also many of the poorer folk from the city.   His work was consistent, but somehow each photo is both similar and unique at the same time.

As he progressed he moved in closer and closer to the faces of the sitters.   This allowed much more character to come through.   He said in a quote that he would sit the person down, start chatting with them and take a few snaps to try to start a bit of dialogue.   In this time, he would be deciding what kind of attitude he wanted to capture for the particular sitter.   He would then start shooting and would try out many different poses and gestures and would progressively move towards capturing this chosen attitude for the person.   

This was a real insight for me since I've never shot any formal portraits.   The idea of figuring out a persons attitude and then working towards capturing it is a very interesting idea which opens up the mystery of good portrait work for me.

All of his shots definitely had an indescribable quality of something more that just the shot.   His work was impressive, coherent and worth spending time looking over.   Each portrait captured a mood of the sitter and had something more than most portraits I've seen.

Here's some quotes:

'I invite the subject to the camera, I begin to search for an attitude, and then begin to expose film.   I follow my plan through to what may be a dead end or to success....   I have found that for me it is fatal to change directions radically in the middle of a sitting.   I lose the subject.'

'In portrait photography there is something more profound we seek inside a person, while being painfully aware that a limitation of our medium is that the inside is recordable only in so far as it is apparent on the outside.'

I also went to Somerset House to see the exhibition, 'A Positive View'.   This was much less coherent and more of a mishmash of different photos.   There are some exceptional work in there but also a lot of less impressive work.   There were some stand out images from Henri Cartier-Bresson to be seen but I left a bit confused as to the point, other than showing a wide range of photos.

Morocco

Bustling city streets with cars, motorbikes and people all competing for the same space.   Bags of spices fill the air with exotic fragrances.   People shouting and vying for your attention so they can show you their latest wares.   Smoke billowing from makeshift kitchens fills the air as people pour by.    Old men and women in vibrant clothing wander through the streets of the old souks.   The sun sets on Marrakech, lighting everywhere with reds and blues as the lights cast from lamps glow in the streets.   These are some of the experiences of Marrakech.

A week in Morocco is an experience in imersing yourself in life.   The country offers so much diversity.  I flew into Marrakech with little idea of the country or people. 

Me and my girlfriend Magda spent a couple of days in the whirlwind of the Medina in the centre of the city.   It is so easy to get lost in the souks and find yourself back where you were twenty minutes ago.   We were taken out to the leather tanneries by an old guy for a crazy tour of the area.   The sights and smells overwhelming as vats of chemicals are used to process the leather.   Mess everywhere and some hard looking men point their hands in my direction for money as I take a photo.

Next we headed to the South and the Atlas Mountains.   We travelled over the Tizi N'Tichka pass, reaching the snowline at 2260 metres, before plunging down into the valleys in the South.

We travelled down to the old ruin of the town of Ait Benhaddou before heading East through the Dades Valley.   We ended the day, as the sun set, at the top of the Dades Gorge surrounded by its massive red walls.   

The next day, the Sahara.   After bumping along in the bus for hundreds of Kilometres through barren landscapes, we finally glimpsed the edge of the Sahara on the horizon, above the black stony ground inbetween.   The sun was low, lighting up the dunes to an almost red glow.   We grabbed an overnight bag then went to meet our camels.   The camel train was assembled, we got onboard and headed off, led by one of the local Tuareg guides.   Half an hour later we were out in the desert, leaving behind the noise of the small town of Mergouza that was in the midst of an invasion of 1000 French men in four by fours who were tearing about on the edge of the desert and getting stuck in the dunes.   Silence, apart from the movement of our packs and footsteps of the camels.   The sun set behind us turning everything but the sky red.   Red and blue.   Sensory deprivation.   

We arrived at our camp, a few tents hidden in a dip in the dunes as the last light of day dissapeared.   The Tuaregs busied themselves with preparing the food as eveyone gazed up at the dome of stars that was appearing above us.   The faint glow of the Milky Way created a band through the night sky surrounded by bright stars.   We ate in a large communal tent with both the floor and walls covered in colourful patterned rugs then sat listening to the Tuaregs as they sang and beat some songs out on the drums, before we turned in for the night.

Next day started before dawn.   Breakfast as the sun rose and lit up the world around us, then back onto the camels for the trip out of the desert.   As we moved on, massive shadows were cast across dunes as the world warmed up around us.   Civilisation loomed back into view and simplicity was left behind.   Although the experience was short-lived, the memories will stay with me for a long time.   I think I might be back out their some day again.

A day of travelling took us past the oases, back through the desolate plains and valleys and over the Atlas mountains to the bustle of Marrakech.   Next day, early in the morning we headed for the coastal town of Essaouira.   On the mid-journey stop we got off the bus for a breather only for Izzy, a friend that I travelled with through Australia, to suddenly appear!   She happened to catch the same bus to Essauoira on a short break from Madrid.   An almost overwhelmingly bizzare coincidence.

Essaouira is a beautiful town of white and blue.   After inland Morocco, the sea breeze came as a refreshing change.   The people are more laid back and the atmosphere was relaxed.   On the coast the waves crashed against the rocks as people stared out over the battlement walls.   In the harbour, the road was lined with people selling all sorts of sea life.   Both old and new boats sat within the harbour walls, all painted with the distinctive blue of the town.   

Morocco is a land of contrast.   Snowcapped mountain peaks hang as a backdrop over the desert valleys.   The old wear traditional clothes whereas the young have started following western tastes.  The noise of the streets of Marrakech create a greater peace once back in the quiet of the Riads.    Coastal towns create a refreshing splash of colour after the dusty inland cities.

A week is not long enough in a place like this.

Check out my photos from this trip here:
http://james-watt.squarespace.com/gallery/morocco/

I hope they have captured some of the magic of the Morocco.