I have finally succeeded in composing some kind of a reply to the
comments concerning "Contemplation" (take 2).  I spent two weeks
at perhaps the best chamber music festival in the World, the Kuhmo
Chamber Music Festival, attending six concerts a day, a total of 84
concerts, after which I really needed some time to recuperate --
and also to think about what to reply.

Replying to Ben T Scheele:

 > That is a very beautiful image.  It looks like it would be a space
 > that would be very pleasant to sit and contemplate in.  The artworks
 > featured in it are very interesting.

Thanks!

 > I recognize a lot of your props from other scenes.  Maybe you could
 > try varying their color or texture to make them look new.

I have some three or four colours and textures which I'm using for
the instruments depending on the surroundings but not in order to
make them look new -- an instrument is an instrument, one doesn't
vary the colour of e.g. a violin or a grand piano just to be
different.

 > Is the view outside the window a sky, a sea, or is it incomplete?

It's just one of my standard skies, almost featureless in order not
to distract.  I did experiment with various alternatives but came
to the conclusion that a sky like this was the best alternative.

   ------

Replying to Slime:

 > This is really good. The window glass has significantly improved;
 > I much prefer the new reflections over the old bumpy ones, and the
 > sort of watery look it has is very nice.
 >
 > The way you've completely ignored things like gravity - to some
 > extent - as though it was a perfectly natural thing to do gives
 > the image a very interesting feel. It has a consistent visual
 > theme - colors and shapes complement each other throughout the
 > image. Overall it's very pleasant.

Thanks.  Gravity plays no special role here, c.f. my responses to
Shay and Jim.

   ------

Replying to Shay:

 > For me, the whole thing falls apart below the floor line.  The
 > strong horizontal, vertical, and diagonal lines disappear, leaving
 > the floor looking empty,

I'm still experimenting with the floor. It must be rather empty for
various reasons, e.g. for the shadows and the overall lightning.
See the next WIP version for my present solution, a single, narrow
band of gold with visual and symbolic meaning only.

 > and the electric, illusory surrealism of the composition and your
 > familiar yet alien musical instruments is IMO stomped to death by
 > the more mundane surrealism of the floating game board.

I did not think in terms of surrealism when composing the picture
and placing the objects, it just felt right to do it this way.
Try to see the floating as some kind of a focal blur effect which
raises the chessboard and the flute to a separate level, adds focus
without hiding the surroundings.  Even forgetting any surrealist
notions, the mood of the picture changes ever so subtly if I put
those objects on the floor, either directly or on a support, the
objects become in a way a part of the room, not separate from it
as they are intended to be.

And, besides, this is contemplation, which perhaps is always surreal,
those objects needn't even actually be there.  This picture is full
of visualized symbolism in the guise of (semi)realism.  OTOH, even in
reality one isn't necessarily aware of a table beneath the chessboard
when concentrating on the game, the game becomes the whole reality.

 > HOW DID THE SHOW TURN OUT!?? You mentioned that it was coming up at
 > p.o-t, but I never saw any report of how your images were received
 > by the public.

Quit well, thanks. I'll write a short report when I've grokked it
in fullness. The making of this picture is part of the process --
and so is this discussion.

   -----

Replying to Jim Charter:

 > Shay, you've inspired me to try a little harder and give Veijo some
 > responses myself.  Even though I grow a weary of the presumptuous stuff
 > that comes from my "mouth", Veijo's work deserves some effort be made.

Some effort you certainly made, thanks.  I don't know about the
presumtuosness, but you sure do use words which even I have to look
up in a dictionary in order to be sure to understand you correctly.
I must also confess I feel a little bit flattered by the effort and
your words, which make me feel I might, with my pics, slowly be moving
from mere craft towards art--whatever that is, that is, today.

BTW, thanks also for your previous analysis of Simplicity, which I
didn't happen to read at the time, only several months afterwards,
googling into it.  I must say you got it better than anyone else.
The simplicity is there, but I tried to create something akin to
the "studied" Japanese simplicity with all its hidden complexities.

 > Raytracing is a synthetic means that produces strikingly naturalistic
 > effects.  This mix can be go beyond being a compelling means to create
 > "worlds."  It can establish its very own reality.  A reality in which
 > a floating object may not signal much mystery at all.

I'd underline this, I sure do agree.

 > Light is filtered, content is filtered, in a sparse world, carefully
 > constructed, and minutely adjusted.  Veijo contends that he is
 > constructing, not picturing.  I don't think it is quite that easy.

It is quite hazy.  I'd say the picturing is to an extent unconscious
as I do not necessarily set out to express something, not consciously.
I start constructing, and at some point the thing just begins to live
a life of its own, kind of.  This specific picture has grown out of a
simple radiosity experiment.  Probably my whole cultural background
is lurking in the shadows behind my back, whispering all the time, my
head is full of images and imagery, which I distill and then dilute
again--my way, transfigured.

 > It is a world populated with finely constructed objects, but it is
 > a setting comprised of pictorial solutions.  Backgrounds in this
 > synthesized world are a vexing problem.  An expansive world of
 > infinite density cannot be constructed.
 >
 > But it can be alluded to, possibly, on a chessboard.  The pieces are
 > complex and inscrutible, suggesting unfathomable regressions of scale,
 > iconography, and cultural effeteness.   Their arrangement is difficult
 > to make out,...recorded arcanum from the history of the game.

That is one way of putting it.  Another way would be to say that the
chessboard is the rucksack of culture the prodigal son (the wayfarer)
is carrying, the things which are not ephemeral, the things which he
carries with him wherever he goes crossing the meridians of his life,
looking back to things long past or unattainable, seeing the now
with its realities.  The flute--perhaps falling--hasn't yet reached
the ground and thus may be grabbed, there is still time to seize it
if he is quick enough.

 > Veijo's raytracings suggest to me something of Kubrick's controlled
 > use of artifice.  It is unafraid of the pithy, the pretentious,
 > and the personal.  It is crafted to produce a synthesized reality
 > immaculate in its illogic. It's a fertile vein to mine.

Reading comments like that, I must take care not to get conceited :)
But seriously, I try not to do what everybody else is doing, there
are enough of them.

 > Veijo embraces the spirit of Surrealism, but in this picture, it
 > appears though the familiar filter of scifi.  The setting is not
 > quite otherworldly, but not quite of this time and place either.
 > There is the same easy juxtapositioning of familiar and novel
 > relics to gain effect.  There is the reliance on futuristic
 > explanations for tropes such as the floating chess board or
 > the room above the clouds.  And I say, "Why the hell not?"

I'm not thinking in terms of any specific genre or in terms of even
some imagined reality, I try to be unhampered by considerations
like that.  I have read a lot during my life, ever since I was about
three years old, fact and fiction, lots and lots of both, I have seen
pictures and taken photos, done some drawing (too long ago to be of
any use now), travelled a bit with my eyes open, fantasized. My head
is like a witches' cauldron, from which I draw connotations for my
visualizations, my "visions".  However, thinking only in terms of
the physical reality or scifi or fantasy or some specific artistic
school or mandatory technical perfection or some other accustomed
way of doing things is procrustean, an obstacle. I don't try to
find an explanation for the floating objects, they may be falling
down or suspended from the ceiling on carbon nanotube filaments or
levitating or figments of someone's imagination for all I care, it
just doesn't matter. Most spectators, of course, will try to find
an explanation, but I'm just abstracting the objects from the
surrounding semireality--or again, perhaps not :) A psychologist
friend of mine said some of my pictures are fertile ground for
interpretation, seriously pregnant with possibilities--she even
bought one to hang on her wall.

Seems I got carried away and started rambling once I could muster
enough courage to try to compose an answer to all the complimentary
comments. Thanks again,

   Veijo

Post a reply to this message