The Arts Catalyst

 

This week we have a Folded Wing inspiration from Eliza…

“Wednesday night I could have quite easily been on planet Jupiter, whilst actually in an airy room in Clerkenwell, due to the wonderful organisation The Arts Catalyst. The Arts Catalyst are an organisation that provide a crucial link between the often polar opposite worlds of science and art, as they commission artwork that engages with science.

Last night, the theme was Microgravity: it started with an aspirational astronaut and ended with us listening to transcendental free-jazz outer-space band leader Sun Ra. How did this happen? The Arts Catalyst actually took artists into conditions of outer space with zero gravity, and they came back to tell their experiences.

In Russia, Kitsou Dubois and Dragan Zivadinov made flying in microgravity possible for artists. If chosen, they could step upon parabolic aircrafts which go through phases of around 25 seconds where there is zero gravity. We watched a video of inside the aircraft, and it genuinely looked like a sci-fi film where people float about airlessly. Some of the artists even took carpets with them so it looked like they were riding magic carpets!

Ssome of the artists and scientists involved relayed their experiences inside the aircraft for us last night, and it was fascinating to hear what’s been going through their minds since experiencing microgravity.

Edward George and Anna Piva (Flow Motion) actually recorded the sounds inside the aircraft and played them to us – and they totally betrayed the idyllic feeling nature of the film as what it sounded like inside the aircraft was actually just intensely loud noise! Going from that to playing Sun Ra to us made complete sense, as hearing the spatial sounds of free jazz after having heard a whole night of zero-gravity tales somehow summed everything up perfectly.

Here’s a video of the night for those that missed it…

And there’s loads of amazing talks coming up at The Arts Catalyst, keep an eye out!”

Hoop Dreams: The unsung heroes of documentary

Eliza Lomas from Folded Wing shares her recent influence:

“Looking back on some of the best film releases of 2011, the real winner for me was the documentary Senna. This was a hugely moving film about Brazilian Formula One racing driver Ayrton Senna, who won the world championship three times before his death aged 34. As someone who pays little interest to the world of sport, especially that of Formula One, I was surprised to find how much it affected me – driven mostly by the charisma of Senna and the effort on behalf of the producers, trawling through hoards of archive footage to find some beautiful clips of Senna’s interviews and races.”

“As the Oscar nominations were put forward last month, it was massively disappointing to see that Senna wasn’t put forward in any of the categories. Film critics seem to be in unanimity that this was in very bad taste, and they likened it to a similar scenario in 1994 with Steve James’ documentary Hoop Dreams. Never having heard of this early 90s doc, I was inspired by everyone’s huge passion for it, and rented it out that week.

Hoop Dreams follows the lives of two African American boys who struggle to become college basketball players on the road to going professional. The boys are of different ages, but very similar inner-city Chicago impoverished backgrounds. Again, it’s an unlikely choice for a sport-unenthusiast, but equally like Senna, Hoop Dreams tapped into the core elements of an amazing documentary, with beautiful footage and insight into the lives of real people with super-human ambition and talent. The creators of Hoop Dreams worked for years to follow the journey of two guys who would have seemed very ordinary to the normal eye, but it’s a perfect example of how dedication and immense effort can provide wonderful results.”