In this weeks installment of “Art I’m Digging,” I’d like to point out a few things that inspired my recent art and music series The Origin of Waking.
The Adventures of Baron Munchausen
The Adventures of Baron Munchausen is a beautiful often cheesey film by Terry Gilliam. It’s a great example of the magical and quirky visual style that can be achieved with miniatures and other practical effects.
A scene from "The Adventures of Baron Munchausen" compared to my Origin of Waking photograph it inspired.
The stage play that takes place at the beginning of the film was a big influence on the visual style of my photographs. The use of flat planes create an illusion of depth in the sky and the hand cranked waves of water show how imperfect representations of reality can often times be more engaging than perfect ones.
Last weekend, I was experimenting with a DAW called Reaper and my Korg x50 keyboard, and this song was born. It’s a campy, sci-fi, adventure, techno song. I convinced my sister to do the voice of Dr. Willoughby’s computer. Take a listen.
Boilerplate is the name of a life sized robot soldier built by Archibald Campion in the late 1800s. Throughout his known lifetime, Boilerplate fought in many wars and visited most of the world. The book recalls every known event in the Boilerplate saga. All this information is supplemented with archival photographs, period illustrations, maps and more.
The Devil’s Backbone takes place during the Spanish Civil War as a comic book reading child name Carlos arrives at an orphanage. During Carlos’ time there, he comes across strange fetus-based elixirs, hidden gold, the ghost of a murdered child, and the centerpiece: a defused bomb in the courtyard.
In September, I will begin attending the Cranbrook Academy of Art on a track to earn a Masters of Fine Arts degree in Photography.
The Cranbrook Academy of Art was founded in 1932 and is part of the Cranbrook Educational Community, a national historic landmark. Each year, only approximately 7-10 students are accepted into each program (photograph, 2d design, 3d design, etc). It is the #4 fine art grad school according to USNews’ 2008 Graduate School ranking.
From what I’ve read and been told, Cranbrook is very focused on interaction, critique and, most importantly, making art. There are no classes. Instead, learning is done through individual meetings, group critiques, reading groups and field trips. The rest of the time is spent in studio working on art. I’ve always been pretty self-motivated as an artist type person. Cranbrook’s big sellers for me were the focus on studio time and their non-traditional grad school structure.
I am Matt Glass. I'm a photographer currently living in Utah. This blog contains information about my photo shoots, gallery shows, art I enjoy and more.
