Blog post written by Amber Thibault, Cinema and Photography ’15, FLEFF Intern, Lewiston, Maine.  

Upon a further conversation with Anne Spalter, artist of Sky of Dubai, she divulged more about why she was inspired to recreate the modern landscape:

"Part is trying to acknowledge what the landscape looks like and then also technological ways of moving through the landscape. So some of my earlier work I have drawings that are of mountains but I took all the photos from an airplane. So it's about that perspective you never could have had before. The viewpoint is modern. I take photos and shoot video driving in my car flying in a plane, helicopter, from high rises in the city. Points of view and ways of moving through the landscape that are modern."

So your videos were prints originally?

"Originally I scan in charcoal and pastel drawings and made prints. But it seemed like without the 3D perspective and just the pattern, it got very flat. I wanted some way to have some sort of motion and space in it and that's when I began doing the videos."

Can you tell me more about 3D perspective and why it is so important to your work?

"When you look at a photograph you have a sense of space because things that are parallel in the real space converges at a point. If you use a camera or do a drawing, an aesthetic representational western style, you have that way of making a sense of space. The receding lines are joined together, objects are overlapping, there are a bunch of visual cues that give you a sense of 3D space. 

In Islamic artwork they are mostly not interested in representation. Their religious artwork is forbidden to use representation. So their art is more abstract. Calligraphy and patterns, a lot of interesting tiling and geometrical patterns. Some of it's intuitive mathematics, and I was a math major as an undergraduate at Brown so it's always really appealed to me. It's just a sense of organization, a higher order and rationally describing space."

Is there a reason that the last shot of the film is static?

"When you're experiencing the landscape in the artwork, there's all different types of motion. Such as in a painting you might have different types of brush strokes to evoke different feeling. For me working with the video the different types of motion are like the brush strokes of the video.

For me it's sort of more the internal part, that's all from me and not from the landscape. It's more of the subjective internal feeling about the experience and the straight video shots are made to be more objective. All the pieces are a back and forth between external and internal landscape - the objective thing that you see and also the internal part for me as an artistic, how I'm feeling and experiencing the landscape. It's not like a documentary, it's very personal."

After talking to Anne, I feel enlighten about the intricatcies of the modern landscape. I grew up in the middle of the digital age, but, after talking to Anne, I feel like I've never really seen the world around me.  I've never thought about how artistic all the different modern structures around me can be. I've, also, never known a time when I couldn't use computers to create media, so I've taken for granted how powerful they are in creating a relationship with the world around you and sharing that relationship with others.

How do you, or would you, use art to personalize your own experiences in our modern world?

Blog post written by Amber Thibault, Cinema and Photography ’15, FLEFF Intern, Lewiston, Maine. 

Interviewing Anne Spalter, artist of the the Sky of Dubai, was an incredibly insightful experience. In my previous blog I talked about her work and in some ways I was correct in my analysis. However, as I expected there were certain nuances of her work I missed. 

What theme were you going for with the piece?

"All of my work is about modern landscapes and the Dubai landscape is super modern. It's basically all high rises. I think they are building a park now but when I was there, there was no greenery. It's like a science fiction environment so it really appealed to me."

Why does the modern landscape appeal to you so much?

"When people think of the landscape they have a sort of nostalgic, romantic version of the landscape - they edit out the technological things in it. I am fascinated with those things. When you're driving and you see the grass and the cows and the trees I would be looking at the telephone poles and the water towers and the radio towers and all the weird technological stuff in the landscape. One of the best things anyone's said about my work is that they see the landscape differently now when they drive through it that they see those elements more."

How did you get interested in the kaleidoscope effect?

"I was invited to Dubai two years ago and we [her husband and herself] were part of a cultural exchange weekend and my husband promised them the gift of artwork as a thank you. At the time I was doing a traditional western 3D perspective and drawing representationally and I thought 'Oh if going to involved the country I should bring something less representational, more patterned.'

I used my drawings, I scanned them into the computer and I began to play with them and started using the kaleidoscopic pattern and I really like them. I love islamic artwork so that was the beginning of it and I made a portfolio of prints to the head of the media there and he loved them."

Was the helicopter ride part of your cultural experience?

"I went two years in a row, the first year I wasn't making the video work and I just went on the tour and I thought it was very cool and the second year I was like oh this is perfect I'm gonna videotape from the helicopter. I'm there with all these super rich executives and I elbowed my way through the crowd so I could sit near the window of the helicopter. I was like, "No I have to be here."

I put my camera up against the window and I found out, which I didn't remember from the first time, that the helicopter windows are tinted blue. I tried color correcting for it but I ended up really liking it so I went with the blue. It makes it feel like it's sort of underwater almost, like other worldly feeling and you're in the sky...

<pause>

It just seemed to fit the feeling of the piece."

Part two of my interview with Anne Spalter coming soon. In the mean time:

What does modern landscape mean to you and how do you feel about the modern landscape we live in today? 

Blog post written by Amber Thibault, Cinema and Photography ’15, FLEFF Intern, Lewiston, Maine.

Entrancing.

That is the first word that came to mind when I watched Sky of Dubai by Anne Spalter. This work is part of the Distributed Microtopias Exhibition. I feel this film really lends itself to this theme as the city literally feels like it's being distributed.

Click here to watch the film.

After I got over the dizzying effect and utter hypnosis I thought about what I had just seen. 

The film starts out "normal" but quickly grows into a more abstract, borderline in psychedelic, piece. At one point you have no idea where you are anymore. The original image of flying over the city disappears and you are left with swirling objects and spinning images.

It took me watching it a couple times to realize that the last shot is a static shot - the only static shot in the piece. I believe it serves to brings the viewer back to reality, so that the viewer doesn't walk away completely disorientated. 

I'm not sure what to think about the blue. I couldn't decide if it made me feel calm or added to the dizzying effect. But overall, the piece swallowed me whole. I felt absorbed by it and found myself asking, what does this mean? What is this film calling attention to? I felt like it had my attention and I wanted to know more.

I will be interviewing Anne Spalter, the creator of this piece, next week, but in the mean time:

What do you think the piece addresses?