Close Encounters of the Caribbean Kind

I have been working on a video/animation, which will eventually be projected on the floor of a darkened room. I have to say that I was quite influenced by the Pipilotti Rist piece at the Elles exhibition that I saw a few weeks ago at the Center Pompidou. The piece is also influenced by a couple of other things- a few I have mentioned in previous posts: Mister Wister Time Twister, time travel, the movie 'Millenium', etc. But also The Umbrella Academy: Apocalypse Suite's -

"The Day the Eiffel Tower Went Berserk" - a graphic novel that tells the events of Paris being saved from an evil genius, resulting in The Eiffel Tower flying into space. The narration style of The Umbrella Academy is also of interest to me.

I have just finished rendering the background for the piece, which consists of video shot from under the Eiffel Tower, spinning and split into four parts creating a kaleidoscope effect. The image is also inverted and some motion/wind blurs and lighting filters have been applied as well. Here are a couple of screen shots. Im hoping that sharing my work in the blog will help me make better sense of it as I continue to work on it.

The video moves verrryyyy slow and took a while to render, so hopefully I will keep it "as is" for the background so I can move on to the actual animation. I wasn't too surprised to how easily the Eiffel Tower can look so spaceship - like with just a few tweeks. It's actually quite captivating as is...

The video also spins on an axis in the middle from the anchor point of the kaleidoscope.

Earlier this week I took a trip to Pere Lechaise Cemetary located on the 20th arrondissement of Paris- a popular "must see" spot in the city, for there a many famous peeps buried there. I visited all the main ones, but was particularly interested in looking for one, which led to an adventure. After checking out Oscar Wilde, Jim Morrison, Edith Piaf, Jacques Louis David, Delacroix and Chopin, I decided to find the only Puerto Rican supposedly buried in Paris: Ramon Betances, the grandfather of Puerto Rican nationalismo; a.k.a: the father of the Puerto Rican peoples- as they say.

As you would have guessed - he wasn't listed in any of the visitors maps, so I had to inquire at the information services office. First, the office was not easy to find, even with a map. If you've been to Pere Lachaise you know how gigantic that place is. Then, they were not too crazy about helping me figure this out.  After getting the run around for a while I was led to this great gentleman who informed me that Betances was moved to Puerto Rico on a special request and that this happened long ago, but that he would be willing to show me on a map to the area where his remains once were.

Again, the map didn't work...It took me over two hours of searching and all I found was this half opened mossy old crypt, which looked as if Betances had crawled out of there himself. It was kind of like entering the 'barrio' part of the cemetery- all broken down and dilapidated. This shot is actually from some of the video I shot there.

Having journeyed for so long, I decided to stay a while and use some of the environments growing on the tomb for my "red men" I found at the toy store a few weeks ago. The moss seemed to create these beautiful miniature landscapes and the stone of the tombs looked like ruins. Some of these shots have not made it into the video piece, which I think it's a related piece, but not the same as the floor projection that I mentioned above- but I wanted share an idea of how insane I must have looked offering little red men to the memory of Betances as opposed to flowers.  I would like to think that I am offering my work to his memory with these- at least.

These distanced binocular shots are fitting in with some of the other shooting I did earlier this week when paying homage to Amelie of Montmartre- the part when Nino Quincampoix (who worked in pigalle!) looks down to the bottom of the hill with the observation binoculars from the top of Sacre Coeur.

(Above: Stills from "Amelie")

Ok... two other reoccurring/connecting factors to end the post. 'Red' and 'Pigalle'. A friend from grad school: Shana visited me in Montmartre last week, she was in Paris for a performance at the Cote Court Film festival. We hung out in Pigalle, which is just a few blocks away. It's the "red light district" of Paris. Its actually not as 'seedy" as I thought it would be and it's where a lot of the fun night spots are- we've hung out there quite a lot actually.

I leave for Venice in a couple of days to check out the Biennial, so check back. I have also been meaning to cover some of the street art / wheat pasting going on in Paris, so look out for that.