Saturday, October 08, 2005
What is Art?
According to Tan Hai Liang during a debate, Reality Shows on TV is an ART to be appreciated and is able to bring out the intelligence in the viewers.
Interesting…
Today, I’m going to talk about art in a few sense.
1. Poetry as Art
IMU Annual Art Competition came and went and I am RM175 richer. I sent in 4 poems, 3 got shortlisted, but I only get prize for one. Since Gongster put up her winning poem, I'm going to outdo her by putting up all three of my shortlisted poems.
Richard: DONNIT!!!
My blog, I want cannot ah. Those not interested can scroll down for the next part of post.
The winning poem:
THE EMPTY CANVAS
I stood upon the empty canvas
watching the lone artist
painter of colour, maestro of the spectrum,
creator of life, paint away.
Stroke upon stroke,
Pink upon yellow,
Blue with a single ray of gold,
the painter paints the dawn.
I stood upon the hill glowing red
watching him paint the afternoon
pale green darkens to lovely emerald,
amber splashes across the fields,
white lambs on pale sky blue
Evening falls and he paints them too,
muted grey for foggy streets,
shiny yellow of comfort fire,
sprays of colours for neon lights.
And as darkness soon claims the land,
he splatters silver upon black,
pale blue on the shadows,
indigo at the horizon.
And when the day again began,
I once again stood upon the empty canvas.
This one is done in 3 minutes:
THE ARTIST
The Artist paints with vigorous strokes,
Splashes of red,
Showers of pink,
Dots of yellow,
Sprinkles of green,
Dashes of purple,
Burst of blue.
Then His rival comes and pours out black.
We wonder why the Artist that created life,
Would allow such damage to His art.
But He smiles and picks up His brush,
And washes away the black
With white.
And this one got its idea from a book:
A COLORFUL SYMPHONY
I leave Reality on a single path
Walking beside Dream,
He leads me into a silent wood,
And across a silent stream.
I step through layers of sunset red,
Before me lie a marvelous sight,
An orchestra range in an enormous arc
Spreading forever to my left and right.
Violins, cellos move in great waves,
Tubas, trumpets, horns play as one,
But listen as hard as I wish I could
I hear nothing, not a single sound.
“They play the sunset,” says Dream,
“Watch.” as the flutes give a thrill,
Layers of gold, crimson, purple, pink
Pile themselves upon a hill.
Color fades from the western sky,
Slowly the instruments stop and sway,
Until the bass fiddles of somber tone
Remain to play the night away.
I watch silver bells brighten the stars,
When a fancy took me by the heart,
One by one as the hours march past,
I decide - for a little while - to conduct.
I stand on the high podium poised,
Then slowly wave my fingers once,
The musicians turn to me as one,
Their colorful eyes begin to dance.
A single piccolo plays a single note
And yellow streak crosses the sky,
Two more pipe and a flute join in,
Three more rays above me fly.
With both hands now I sweep them wide
And watch as all musicians play,
The cellos make the hills glow red
And the violas melt darkness away.
I lead the violins in a serenade
Of pale green grass and emerald spring,
Trumpets blare out the cerulean sea,
Warm yellow glow the oboes fling.
Trombones puff out clean white clouds,
The tubas tint them grey,
Shimmering harps play the silver rain,
Drums for a lightning display.
Soft muted tones of foggy streets,
With rhythmic beats of neon lights,
The clarinets tinkled a beautiful rainbow
To my wonder and utmost delight.
Parades and fireworks the orchestra plays,
From lavender to rich magenta red,
Gust of bassoons, blasts of horns, orange
And chartreuse comes to head.
Exhausted I drop my hands to my side,
And the concerto slowly fades,
Bass fiddles carry on as colors wilt,
Darkness again claims the glade.
My vision tingles with beauty unfold,
As silver bells light the sky with stars,
A shooting star flew across the sky,
Serenaded by a solo guitar.
“What a colorful symphony,” says Dream,
I bow to his applause of awe.
I have conducted the colors of the wind,
With it my spirit do soar.
I, maestro of color, director of spectrum,
Returns to Reality with a yawn,
I curl up upon the music of tomorrow,
Eagerly awaiting dawn.
So there. I never expected them to be shortlisted, so I was never prepared for the news of having to choose one and recite them. RECITE!!! I don't recite poems!! I write poems. I can't recite for nuts. Poets don't recite their poems. You don't see William Shakespeare strutting around reciting his poems all over the place. You don't expect Alfred Tennyson to stand on a stage and recite: The Eagle. John Mansfield did not parade around booming, To The Sea… Maybe you'll see Lord Byron read his poems to all his concubines, but you don't usually see poets reciting their own poems. And certainly not me.
But RM100 (first prize) looks really tempting when you have Abarat 2, Dark Towers, Garth Nix and tons more to buy. So I decided to take my chances to just read out my poem. Afterall, if the worst happens and I embarrass myself, I still get RM25 (not bad wat).
And to my horror, on that day, almost everyone had props. Jo En had music accompaniment, KR put on this whole show of angst and paint, even Agong has a prop of cloth (which I don't really get).
So I went up there. "The name's Elena and I don't have any props. This table is just a place for me to put my paper." And I began. And I ended, with the sun just nicely coming up and shining on me. What a great day...
The judge was commenting on my poems non-stop. When I went up to get my prize (I won first, duh) the judge told me: I like your poems, especially the part of having no props.
*grinning to myself as I walked down the stage* It feels good.
And I sent in 2 photos on a quick whim. And it won a Consolation and 3rd prize. Hehe... so happy.
2. Books as Art
And with that money + RM50 book voucher, I've decided to get:
1. Dark Tower Series 6: Song of Susannah by Stephen King
2. Abarat 2: Days of Magic, Nights of War by Clive Barker
3. The Elder Gods 2: The Treasured Ones by David Eddings
4. The Book of Atrix Wolfe by Patricia A. McKillip
5. Crestomanci: Conrad's Fate by Diana Wynne Jones
6. The Abhorsen Trilogy by Garth Nix
I'm a happy kid, indulging in art.
And I’ve finally gotten back a book that I bought back in Form 1 (1997), and never held it again after 2 weeks until today. Most of my ex-classmates should still remember the Red book titled: The Cult, The Triad and Inspector King.
Peter: Oh… the cult.
Elena: Don’t worry. It’s not a satanic cult.
Peter: Oh.
Elena: It’s a sex cult. (very matter-of-factly, like stating: It’s a car)
I could still remember many friends going bazooka over the book after reading the first 3 words: A half-naked Jacqueline… if not the first 3 words, it’s the first 2 paragraphs. When I got it back, I sat down to reread the whole book and realized how kid-dish we were last time, getting all excited over half-naked girls and not really well descripted sex scenes. And the plot is good, but the idea of delta state consciousness and universal being and strange chemicals that arouses the females, hahaha, I couldn’t help but laugh over it now. Well, certain scenes are pretty erotic to the imagination back then and now, but growing up makes us either desire more, or finding sex a very monotonous act.
But it’s interesting, the idea of adding chemical compounds together, put it into a capsule and inserted it into a female sex organs thru the vagina. The female has to be in a high arousal state before putting the capsule in as the blood would clot if not so. When the capsule is inserted, it will melt and enter the bloodstream where it would stay undetected. By using radiowaves of fixed frequency, you can control the arousal state of the female. Wonder if I can really do that, hehe.
By the way, Kamasutra is an art.
3. Porn movies as Art
I recruited Prasad as the star of my new upcoming porn movie and Yee Siong and Vasan as co-stars. My, a triple male cast in a porn movie. Interesting. Vasan was all eager for it. When I broke the news, I expected outcries (What's so bad about outcry?) and Vasan trying to whack me, but I did not expect Vasan starting to practice right on the spot.
Vasan (while seductively unbuttoning his shirt and suggestively fingering the top of his pants): Point sir.
*Shivers*
His take on it was that it would generate a lot alot of money with his good looks and Prasad's cuteness. Somehow I saw that coming. Ceh.
Which bring me to post about someone coming up to me with this conversation:
A: Elena, do you have any porn movies to lend me?
Elena: Umm... I don't think so. Can find for you tho. Full length or clips?
A: Anything.
It did not help with my cousin calling me the next day with:
Cousin: Elena, I need some porn movies for my social science assignment.
Elena: WHAT???
Cousin: I need heterosexual, homosexual, bestiality and necrophilia.
Elena: I'll try my best to find.
Suddenly, in just a week, I became the source of porn movies for my friends and cousins. What the hell... So I decided to try my luck with my friend in Australia. MSN conversation.
Elena: I need porn movies.
A: Sure. You can get from this website. (some asian website)
Elena: I don't like Japs.
A: My cousin has some of mine. You can get from him.
Elena: (cousin's name) in KL? No thank you, not going to bother going around finding for him.
A: Ok... no help then. Search on Limewire.
Elena: No full length movies.
A: Buy from pasar malam. Clips should be enough for you anway.
Elena: Oh, ok.
Noticed something? After the initial 'I need porn movies', there was no "WHAT?!!", no "WHAT THE HELL FOR!!!", no "SERIOUSLY". Just a direct "Sure". Frightens me abit. The conversation sounds like someone asking for porn is a simple thing, but then I am a girl, so that's what I find really strange. Do you guys really see me as a source of porn and me asking porn is normal??? But again, I don't mind having conversations like that with friends.
Like this one about Bible Black. (It’s strange that of all animes I’ve watched, I’ve never gone around watching this famous anime. Strange…)
Elena: Hey, ____ do you have bible black?
A: Sure. I’ll bring tomorrow. Why would you want a black bible?
Elena: No. Bible black, as in the hentai anime.
A: Oh… nope.
Elena: Damn.
A: But why Bible black? There are other animes like that. (shoots off a long list of anime)
Elena: But Bible Black plot interesting ma. About a book and strange powers.
A: True, true, but Bible Black abit too much right. With demons and all.
Elena: Not true. La blue girl also about cacat.
A: Yup… Bible Black got the best graphics tho. But sometimes the people too shiny.
And this conversation happened right in public. It was a normal conversation, like talking about a movie, except the movie happened to be about hentai.Well, I finally downloaded the Gaiden and soon be getting the 6-episode series from my friend. And funnily, the plot held my interest more than the sex scenes themselves. It’s really intriguing plot, I can’t wait to download the following episodes to find out what happen next. Well, the sex scenes are quite okay. (There is nothing more monotonous than the act of sex). To quote a reviewer: “The genitalia are beautifully drawn”. Ah, I see.
And that ends my rattling on ART.
Before I sign off, I'm thinking of adding another poll and as usual... need a sample of 50 ppl. This time, I plan to include guys. It's under In-Flight Survey at the side-bar and don't forget to vote.
I was lead to make this poll by a friend and the need to prove my hypothesis to them. The hypothesis will come later as it may delude the results of the poll. A sample of 50 ppl is really easy to get, I think. So bring your friends along and contribute.
And till I receive 50 samples, I will not rest but continue to bug you guys forever. Mwahaha...
*raises goblet of champagne.* To art...
Be careful of forgetfulness. Your lucky color is... blue?
- Cait Sith, Final Fantasy VII
<< Home