video

The Piano Creatures video

Posted by hil

I’m excited to present the video of The Piano Creatures that accompanies the creatures when they are on static display! At the moment they are in my show Glimpses of a Seabird Flying Blind at the Pinnacles Gallery, Townsville, until 29 April. The creatures exist somewhere between sculptures and puppets, so the video captures some of the moments when they move and come alive.

I had brilliant colleagues making the video, and it was a real pleasure working with them! I offer them all many thanks for their skill, patience and enthusiasm, and such a great outcome!

Puppeteer: barb barnett
Video filming and production: Chris Hahn
Music composed by Alex Raupach
Performed, recorded and produced by Joe O’Connor (piano)

Behind the scenes: Fantastic Mr. Fox

Posted by hil

Here are two behind-the-scenes video clips from the makers of the Fantastic Mr Fox movie, showing more of the puppet making, among other things.  In the first, Roald Dahl’s wife Felicity thinks he would have loved it.

Previously: Fantastic Mr Fox trailer

The Nano Song: puppets explain nanotechnology!

Posted by hil

This cute Sesame Street style video won both the Critics’ Choice and People’s Choice awards in the ACS Nanotation NanoTube ‘What is Nano?’ competition for a video tutorial about nanotechnology. It was a ‘collaborative effort by a group of researchers from University of California, Berkeley including Patrick Bennett, David Carlton, Molly Felz, Nola Klemfuss, Glory Liu (singer), Ryan Miyakawa, Stacey Wallace, and Angelica Zen’.

Now playing – strange trajectories

Posted by hil

Now playing – strange trajectories, the 2007 ANU School of Art Emerging Artist Support Theme (EASS) award exhibition currently on at the Alliance Francaise in Canberra, is featuring the work of Michal Glickson (painting) and Anna Madeleine (photomedia). Anna is my daughter. She has two cool new video art pieces in this exhibition. She has also recently done the album art for Casual Projects new CD, No Rest, and is showing one of those images at PhotoAccess’s Open all areas 2008.

Previously:

Handspring’s Woyzeck on the Highveld

Posted by hil

Puppet from Woyzeck on the Highveld

On the last day of Unima 2008 Gary introduced me to his friends Adrian Kohler and Basil Jones, who co-founded and continue to run Handspring Puppet Company, and I was lucky enough to go backstage to see the puppets from Woyzeck on the Highveld. Thank you all!

The play itself had been a festival highlight for me. First staged 16 years ago, it tells the story of Woyzeck, a man of sensibility and principle, who is brought down by jealousy; but his struggle is informed in every way by the hardships of the migrant labour system under apartheid in the South Africa of the 1950’s.

Two aspects of the show intrigued me in particular.
One was the power of director William Kentridge’s back-projected animations which formed part of the backdrop to the set. They provided not only physical settings to the action and shadow puppets, but at times gave excruciating visual metaphors for what characters were thinking and feeling. For instance, in one scene, Woyzeck is worrying about setting his master’s table. He is doing fine in reality, but in contrast, as he gets increasingly anxious about doing it perfectly, the animation shows great smudges and spills amassing into a chaos that ends in, among other things, a plane crashing and burning.

The other was, of course, the puppets. They are bunraku-style puppets, with beautifully expressive carved (and hollowed out) wooden heads and hands. Adrian is the master puppet maker and designer. He explained how after touring Woyzeck extensively for some years, the company saw selling the puppets as the only way to move on to doing new work. Their latest production, Warhorse, would have been too big to tour, and fortunately, to their surprise, the Munich City Museum was happy to lend the puppets back for the gig at Unima 2008.

Margaret (?), Andries, with the accordion, and Maria with her baby:

Puppet from Woyzeck on the Highveld

The Miner:

Puppet from Woyzeck on the Highveld

The mysterious newspaper death-like character:

Puppet from Woyzeck on the Highveld

Adrian Kohler with the Miner, explaining how the implements in his hand can be changed:

Puppet from Woyzeck on the Highveld

The rhino, showing the rods and mechs on the operator’s side. There is a universal joint in it’s sternum. The red bulb is it’s bladder! (not to be confused with the 2 red chairs in the background).

Puppet from Woyzeck on the Highveld

Here is a video of the rhino in action. You can hear Gary and Adrian chatting.

I loved the rhino most, because it has so much character, and moves in such a life-like way, while being impressionistic in style. I’m very interested in this. Kohler has developed the style much further, too, since building the rhino, as you can see if you look at the horses in Warhorse. Warhorse is the first production where Handspring has moved away from performing their own work, and Adrian commented there were advantages in being solely a maker at times, rather than being a maker/puppeteer.

Incidentally, Handspring is hoping to bring out a DVD of Woyzeck, including the animations, and there is to be a new season of Warhorse in London later in 2008. There’s just a chance I might around to catch it!

Articles I enjoyed reading about Handspring:

Paul Vincett: Monster Workshop puppets

Posted by hil

Million Puppet Project

I was very taken with the cool Monster Workshop puppets, particularly the leathery demon puppets (above and below right), that were sent in to the Million Puppet Project at Unima 2008. They were made by Paul Vincett, a 3D illustrator and puppet maker. They were behind glass, so difficult to photograph well, but you can find great pictures on his website, for example here or here.

Million Puppet Project

About 40 of the puppets that were sent in to the Million Puppets Project were auctioned at the end of the festival, and I think the one above right brought in the highest bid of the night. Below you can see two of the furry monsters who had just been adopted on auction night, and the very pink Loverly Gloverly who also went for a top price.

Auction night

There are two videos of the demon puppets online (I love the way one of them shakes its ears in such an animal kind of way):
Buried and forgotten and this one:

A tiger by the tail?

Posted by hil

(My favourite so far: Steve Gillmor)

Despite my own mixed feelings, I’m expecting Loren Feldman’s Shel Israel parody to become the hottest puppet video show around while it lasts. Feldman has caused mischief and grief by taking the piss, and nicking the real Shel’s domain. You can read about it at Techcrunch or Karoli’s Bang the Drum, and here Feldman explains his initial impetus.

But it’s funny. As Steve Gillmor says in NewsGang Live (04.02.08, about the 45 -55 min mark), it’s the kind of thing you feel guilty about laughing at, but you can’t stop yourself. At first I was nitpicking the lip syncing, but Feldman is a quick study, and seems a natural for what works dramatically. (Update May 09 : not quick enough – he still can’t lip sync.)

I’m not sure if it’s so funny if you don’t follow the tech scene, but it’s interesting to see such a connection drawn between the tech world and the online puppetry world. There are precious few of us that follow both. I am intrigued to see who is willing to be interviewed, their differing comfort levels, and of course the power that resides in the way a puppet can ask questions and go places that a real interviewer can’t. The tech world seems to take itself fairly seriously much of the time, and I think Feldman may have a tiger by the tail with his entertaining and cutting take (though I’m sure it’s also going to be unkind and is already feeding into personality feuds). No wonder he is buying more puppets today.

A big day

Posted by hil

Yesterday’s apology to the Stolen Generations felt momentous. I had read the official words that would officially constitute the apology, but I hadn’t reckoned on the speech that the Prime Minister went on to deliver (full video and full transcript). It was breathtakingly good, unexpectedly ballsy in it’s directness and honesty, and struck a fine balance between a personal sincerity and respect, and government responsibility. I hadn’t anticipated getting teary, but did at the point when Rudd said

As Prime Minister of Australia, I am sorry. On behalf of the Government of Australia, I am sorry. On behalf of the Parliament of Australia, I am sorry. And I offer you this apology without qualification.

Euphoric, we watched and cheered as parliamentarians stood to applaud the speech and the indigenous guests in the house, and saw the exchange of hugs between the leaders and the guests (the most touching was that between Jenny Macklin, Minister for Indigenous Affairs and Lowitja O’Donoghue).

Then Brendon Nelson, Leader of the Opposition, gave his right of reply speech. It’s amazing how quickly a mood can change. We knew he should be politely let to say his piece, knowing he would have to appease the naysayers in his own party (after all, he was one himself a couple of months ago – it was the issue that gave him the edge to win leadership over Turnbull after the election – an intersting reflection!) . If Nelson had had any sense of what had just happened, and the wits to think on his feet, he would have realised he had been completely gazumped, and that anything that he said short of ‘We agree, we are sorry for our part in it, lets pass the motion’ would seem mealy-mouthed.

But no, as his speech, delivered in a kindergarten teacher tone, went on it became misguided, then inappropriate, and finally offensive. On the lawns outside where I was, the euphoria and celebration dissipated, replaced with some anger but mostly a quiet, almost desperate determination not to pay attention to those things that he was trying to rub our noses in. As Ampersand Duck relates, we momentarily thought better of turning our backs, but as things got worse, it was necessary. Apparently crowds all over the country chose to do the same, a reference to the occasion in 1997 at a reconciliation conference when the audience turned their backs on John Howard. Nelson’s speech was a blight on the day.

(Update: I forgot to say that the Opposition actually voted to support the apology. What Nelson said amounted to excuses: ‘I’m sorry , but…’)

The crowd turning their backs:

Sorry

Sorry

This guy was giving the finger in double proportions:

Sorry

I dropped by again a little while later in the day, and the party was still kicking on with concerts at both the lawns and the tent embassy. I wandered up to the forecourt of Parliament, listening to snatches of conversations, stories being told, interviews being given, people sitting around eating and talking and hugging. I wanted to reflect on it all, and be grateful that it had happened, and hope that it means more good will come from it in the future.

Actor Ernie Dingo being interviewed. He was one of the invited guests.

Sorry

It was fun to bump into Ampersand Duck and Crit. They both have cool photos and accounts of the day :)

Tim was also there. Isn’t this photo cool? He will probably post more over the next week or so, too, so check back on his site.

Do you dare to eat a peach?

Posted by hil

peach sculpture

There’s a giant peach sculpture in Sydney at the moment; it’s really an advertisement for Ella Bache skin products. They are real peaches, but only skin deep, being supported by a steel armature and polystyrene, as you can see from the short making of video. I wonder what kind of glue sticks peaches and if they had to use industrial strength botox to preserve them? After all it looks as if the peaches were attached before the piece was moved into place. LPlater saw the peaches being spray-painted and touched up after a week. I’m not sure whether to think that ironic or true to the nature of the advertiser’s business. Both probably. Has anyone or any creature taken a nibble? It doesn’t look like it. All very bizarre.

peach sculpture