What does it mean to artistically interpret something?

PART A

Research: Internet

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aesthetic_interpretation

“An interpretation in philosophy of art, is an explanation of the meaning of some work of art. An interpretation expresses an understanding of a work of art, a poem, performance, or piece of literature.”

http://artculture.com/opinion/artistic-interpretation

http://musiciansway.com/blog/2012/02/7-essentials-of-artistic-interpretation/

Evaluation for Research

For the first part of the assignment, I researched the question ‘what does it mean to artistically interpret something?’. From that gather screen grabs which gave you several different meanings of what the being artistic means and of what being interpretative means. I visited Wikipedia for research as well as musiciansway.com and artculture.com. I used some of this information in the rest of the assignment.

My own analysis on the question ” What does it mean to artistically interpret something? “

In my own words, I think to artistically interpret something means to interpret on how you see something in your own way in an art form. It’s a particular view on an artistic piece of work from an individual that you may admire. However the artist presents/conceptualizes their idea by their meaning of art. I also believe it means to express what you feel about the art and analyse the meanings behind the art for its true value.

Quote:

” Good artist borrow, great artists steal ” – Picasso

The quote above is one of the most famous quotes in the world which was quoted by Pablo Picasso; one of the world’s most famous painters. When you analyse the quote and try to convey the inner meaning of the quote you come to 2 conclusions about what the quote could potentially mean. The first conclusion that I came to was that Picasso was trying to interpret that in order to become a great artist, instead of borrowing you must steal. Whatever it maybe, whether it’s in music, art or film you should steal something worth stealing from another person and make it you own. To me personally, that quote is somewhat understandable. In order to be the best that you can be you must out-do another person who is/or doing something just as good as yourself. The second conclusion I came to when I read this quote was Picasso was advising those who looked up to him as a genius on what his techniques were on his infamous art pieces.

Picasso himself was a well loved genius within the art industry so by quoting something that could possibly make you question his artistry puts a different thought inside people’s minds. When trying to find an example for the quote, one person sprung to my mind and that was Hip Hop musician Kanye West.

kanye-west-animal-album-holding

Kanye West is heavily known within the music industry for sampling other artists/musicians music which he then applies to his own music. This is his own style of creating music by sampling somebody else’s work. In an art form ‘artistically’ Kanye West is a genius. Not only does he sample the music, he mixes it into his own style. By taking something that is a classic and making it modern proves that artistically Kanye has the ability to recreate something and make it popular again. When questioning on how artistically clever Kanye is you have to research on where he samples his music from because a large majority of the time he samples music from artists and songs that a lot of people are not necessarily knowledgeable on. I’ve decided to research Kanye’s sampling and look deeper in depth on what he samples and how he makes it his own.

Research on Kanye West’s sampling:

Each album that Kanye release’s feature different samples from different artists all over the world. Here is my research on the sampling for each of his albums.

THE COLLEGE DROPOUT (2003)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_College_Dropout

LATE REGISTRATION (2005)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Late_Registration

GRADUATION (2007)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graduation_(album)

808’S & HEARTBREAK

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/808s_%26_Heartbreak

MY BEAUTIFUL DARK TWISTED FANTASY

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/My_Beautiful_Dark_Twisted_Fantasy

WATCH THE THRONE (COLLABORATION ALBUM WITH JAY-Z)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Watch_the_Throne

CRUEL SUMMER (GOOD MUSIC ALBUM)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cruel_Summer_(GOOD_Music_album)

VIDEO EXAMPLE OF KANYE’S SAMPLING:

The video above is an clear example of Kanye’s sampling. When you watch the video you can see the exact songs from an particular artist that Kanye has sampled from. I feel that the video above definitely gives you a clear insight into Kanye’s sampling as well as it showcases the meaning behind why I chose to analyse Kanye for this assignment. I felt that Picasso’s quote “good artist’s borrow, great artists steal” really applies to Kanye West and his history with sampling other artists music.

Pathway – Art Theme

PART B

FILM: Runaway

DIRECTOR: Kanye West

PRODUCER: Jonathan Lia

WRITTEN: Hype Williams

STORY: Kanye West

MUSIC: Kanye West

STARRING: Kanye West & Selita Ebanks

RELEASED: October 5 2010

SCENE/SEQUENCE RESEARCH

The video/research below is conducted video research on the film as well as the scene/sequence artistry.

http://www.mtv.com/videos/movies/588319/what-is-kanye-wests-favorite-scene-in-runaway.jhtml

http://hiphop-n-more.com/2010/10/kanye-west-runaway-qa-with-mtv-interview-with-rocsi-on-bet/

CONVEYING THE MESSAGE AND SCENE ARTISTRY

When trying to convey the message behind the film, I had to research and look deeper into the film to uncover what was being portrayed. The film depicts romance between two main characters; a man and a half-woman half-phoenix. Because there are only two characters in the film, they are the only main focus throughout the film. When watching the film I felt like each scene depicted a theme and displayed a different art form. The art theme of the film was dark fantasy, love and affection. I also felt that the message behind the film was love and acceptance. I’m going analyse one scene from the film that I personally think is the most artistic visually.

1. THE SCENE – Dinner Party

The scene I am going to analyse artistically is the dinner party scene. This scene is one of the most popular and memorable scene’s from the film. This scene was extracted from the film and used as in Kanye’s music video Runaway. Artistically, this scene is one of the most creative scenes in the film. When I first saw this scene it remind me of the Jesus and his Disciples story. I definitely feel that this scene in particular conveys the message behind the film which I personally think is love and acceptance. In this scene Griffin (Kanye) invites the phoenix to his formal dinner party where everyone else at the party is dressed in white and the phoenix attends in her usual phoenix outfit. As they arrive at the table and sit down to eat, the guests are the table seem to be disgusted with the sight of her and continue to exchange negative comments about her around the table. The ignites a flame inside Griffin who then proceeds to perform the song Runaway in which he is accompanied by ballerinas. The set design of this scene to me was perfection. I felt that all the elements of the film came together nicely i.e. lighting, camera angles and the characterisation. When I was watching this scene, I felt like each actor portrayed there character very well regardless of whether the character was major or minor.

If you study the rest of the characters in this scene to the phoenix, she definitely stands out which brings the attention to her instantly. I get the sense of ‘acceptance’ and ‘love’ in this scene. The way that the other characters react to phoenix when they see her comes across very standoff-ish. They view her as different which in every sense is correct because she is half-women half-phoenix. The representation of love in this scene is expressed differently than in most films. In a way he sort of declares his love for the phoenix differently by performing the song Runaway.

LINKING HISTORICALLY AND MUSIC

Prior to ‘Runaway’, there have been other music related or music inspired films that have gone on to have commercial and worldwide success. Despite these other films being artistically different from ‘Runaway’ the concept of has stayed the same. Most music related films feature a main character that is one a quest for something whether it is love, success or money. Some of ‘Runaway’ is a reconstructed by not accurate representation of Kanye West’s actual life events just like most music related films. The structure of a film starts with finding love and ends with missing love.

Other music related/music inspired films that have been released and features the musician or is based on the musician life is Michael Jackson’s Thriller, What Goes Around…Comes Around by Justin Timberlake, 8 Mile starring Eminem, Moonwalker starring Michael Jackson, Glitter starring Mariah Carey, Dreamgirls (which was modeled on 60’s/70’s girl group The Supremes) starring Beyonce, Jamie Foxx & Jennifer Hudson, Walk the Line (which was modeled on Johnny Cash’s life) starring Joaquin Phoenix & Reese Witherspoon and Get Rich or Die Tryin’ (which was modeled on the life of Curtis Jackson aka 50 Cent) starred 50 Cent. Music is heavily featured in this film. Each scene in the film is followed by a track from Kanye’s album My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy in which the film is based off. The first scene, Griffin is seen driving through the forest and the track playing in the background is Dark Fantasy. Couple scenes into the film Phoenix is seen dancing to a remix version of Power. Straight after this as Griffin takes Phoenix outside to see the fireworks, the song All of the Lights is heard during this scene. In the next scene at the dinner party Devil in a New Dress is heard playing in the background. As the scene concludes Griffin performs Runaway with a piano set and ballerinas. Towards the end of this scene Hell of a Life starts playing when Phoenix screams at the sight of the main dish. Shortly after this Blame Game is heard playing as Phoenix is sitting in the garden and finally the last song featured in the film is Lost in the World in which Griffin and the Phoenix make love to.

The image above is the several album cover versions of the album My Beautiful Twisted Dark Fantasy. Each image on the album cover conveys a different image/message as well as a different meaning. The link between the album, the music, the film Runaway as well as the music videos from the singles off the album are all one story that is being told. Each cover correlates with some of the music videos that Kanye has made. Watch each music video and you can see the links between the album covers and the film. I felt that Kanye as the director cleverly chose the correct and appropriate song for a particular scene.

Experimental Photos, Video & Evaluation

The experimental side to this assignment was to recreate a particular scene from the movie that you had chosen to analyse for your pathway art theme. This particular section of this assignment was done as a joint partnership with my fellow student Dammy because we both had chosen the same film ‘Runaway’ so we asked our teacher if we could work together for this particular assignment and she agreed. For our choice of experimenting, myself and Dammy decided we were going to focus on lighting and camera shots/angles. Because we didn’t want to make our experimenting exactly the same as the film we decided to change how we were going to shoot the photos. Firstly we decided to add shadowing to the experiment because in the film there is no shadowing and we want to experiment with shadowing just to see whether the effect would be something that we would consider using if we were to recreate this scene. When it came to the lighting, not only did we experiment with shadowing but we also experimented with different colors with the lighting. We did three different effects, the first just being a normal light no color included, the second being a blue plastic color sheet which coated on top of the light and the third being a orange plastic color sheet which also coated on top of the light. Myself and Dammy asked one of our fellow students Darrian if he would stand in and be our model for this shoot in which he kindly accepted.

Another section of the experiment was to record the photo experimental process and edit the footage into out own little video which displays different angles and effects; just like the photos. Whilst we were taking the photos of Darrian, we were also recording with a camcorder at the same time. Myself and Dammy both edited two different videos from the same footage just so that you could see the different angles and effects from myself and Dammy as a joint collaboration.