The Steampunk Universe - Part Two / Sculptural

Pierre Matter - "Hommage à Barcelone" (2010)

I'm a Steampunk lover. I have to admit. Why? I guess it's about the same notion which I described in previous posts. This notion is more like a kind of feeling. A dream. Imaging a world, which is set apart from any known human culture, or things invented by humans, empty and abstract. An endless space, ready to be filled with my own landscapes, objects and artificial life. The absolute space of creativity. 

It may sound quiet strange, but if there would be any objects in this space at all, left or created in there by somebody or whatever, they could easily be Steampunk-like. A giant iron kraken, emerging from the water, or a robot, wearing a big hat, glasses and a dress coat from the 19th century with mechanical joints, whatever this Steampunk visions might be, I'd love to build them and welcome them in my personal realm of imagination. You too?

Museums. Basically, I always liked them. I still like the presence of old objects or stuffed animals, the smell of past times. It literally haunts me, just as I love the old, classic horror movies, set in an english, victorian country residence. It's the patina of things that fascinates me, and the 19th century has its very own charm. Combined with my passion for robots and monsters of nearly every kind, these preferences seem to be the perfect conditions for a true Steampunk lover.

I still think about Tik Tok. Dorothy's metallic (but living) companion in "Return to Oz" (1985), who can think, speak and fight despite his clumsy and rather slow moving stature. (Believe it or not - Ironically, I even started to like mustaches a bit more, just because of this purely artificial movie character, although I never did before.) When Dorothy discovers him in a hidden corner of a dead city, Tik Tok has been "sleeping", covered with dust for an unknown period of time. She first has to wind him up like a clockwork. I also very like this clockwork-like nature of him. An artificial soldier, skilled and loyal, but always dependent on someone who "resets" him. Of course it's a very simple analogy, nevertheless very effective in my opinion. Tik Tok often appears like a statue or metallic sculpture, resurrected by Dorothy. The sculptural variation of Steampunk culture is very, very popular. Specifically objects, weapons and installments, made by people who adore Steampunk and the playful possibilities of it, are wide spread on the internet and in exhibitions. Personally, I prefer the images and movies, referred to the Steampunk universe, but the sculptural aspect is undeniable and essential too.

I'm gonna show you some examples of Steampunk objects, some of them already quiet famous, not only among the Steampunk lovers: 

Pierre Matter - "Diane le buste" (2008)

Bob Basset - "Steampunk Gas Mask No.9" (2008)

Eric Freitas - "Mechanical No.5" (2008)

Greg Broadmore / Doctor Grordbort - "Righteous Bison" (2010)

Stéphane Halleux - "My little robot" (2010)

Greg Brotherton - "The Calculator" (2011)

Greg Brotherton - "Pushed around" (2009)

I studied Scenographical Design, which is actually a special branch of the Industrial Design section. That may be the reason why I'm basically more interested in the spatial aspect of Steampunk - landscapes (which will be the next part of this post series) and sculptural creations within Steampunk spaces. The objects which I showed you above are fascinating as well, like parts of this gigantic Steampunk universe. It's the space (including all the details objects, drawn or handmade) of Steampunk that interests me so much.

As I said, for my next Steampunk chapter, we will enter the bigger scaled dimensions of this complex, 19th century-future tech-based fantasy: Spaces, rooms, entire worlds of Steampunk, including gamers' territories ...

See you there !

All copyright for the images: 

Greg Brotherton (http://www.brotron.com/)

Eric Freitas  (http://ericfreitas.com/blog/)

Greg Broadmore / Doctor Grordbort (drgrordborts.com)

Stéphane Halleux (http://www.stephanehalleux.com/)

Pierre Matter (http://pierrematter.com/)

Bob Basset (http://bobbasset.com/)

The Steampunk Universe - Part One / Introduction

Still from "Sucker Punch" (2011, Directed by Zack Snyder): The imagination of a (Steampunk-like) WWI soldier

I remember the first time when I saw "Return to Oz" (1985), the sequel to the legendary original film, and my favorite character in it was definitely "Tik Tok". This bold, mechanical soldier who helped Dorothy to find her friends again. Speaking with this voice of steel, moving stiffly and vivid at the same time. Since then, I was eager to find a Tic Toc miniature figure or any more information about him. I wasn't aware back then that this metallic being could be easily taken as a part of the Steampunk culture, which started to evolve just a few years after the movie's release.

Some describe it as the "Art of Victorian Futurism". The creation of machines, cyborgs, objects or landscapes which seem to be built with the technology of the 19th century, but obviously far more sophisticated and advanced than they could have ever been back then. Truly utopian. There are many variations of Retro-Futurism. Steampunk is one of the most popular and versatile ones these days.

On my following posts, I want to show you my personal favorites, inspirations and famous examples of this highly interesting art. And I will also compare some details in selected movies to Steampunk-inspired objects which catched my eye in particular. Here are some impressions of Steampunk visions from different sections like landscapes, objects, clothing, graphic design, etc.

I'm gonna select some special examples which I'd personally describe as Steampunk or Steampunk-like art, which doesn't mean that they really are. You (or the person who created them) may also consider the works as a completely different kind of expression. Look for yourself ;-)

Book Design by John Coulthart: "Steampunk: Life in our new century" (2009)

3D Illustration by Meduzarts (In House Project): "Octopus"

Still from the movie "Tai Chi Zero" (2012, Directed by Stephen Fung)

Still from the movie "Howl's moving castle" (2004, Directed by Hayao Miyazaki)

Photography / Illustration by Sam Van Olffen

And finally, I'll present you the bold, metallic soldier that I mentioned in the beginning - "Tik Tok" from the movie "Return to Oz" (1985):

Tik Tok (Return to Oz, 1985)

Tik Tok's Badge of the "Royal Army of Oz" (Return to Oz, 1985)

Tik Tok's "Manual" on his backside (Return to Oz, 1985)

Tik Tok (Return to Oz, 1985)

The next time I'll dive even deeper into the Steampunk universe, with more fascinating and compelling examples.

To be continued;-)

Copyright for the picture by Sam Van Olffen : vanolffen.blogspot.com

Copyright for the picture by Meduzarts : medzuarts.com

Copyright for the picture by John Coulthart : johncoulthart.com

Big Small Worlds - Paolo Ventura # 2 / Iraq

 

Recently, I had a look again at Paolo Ventura's pictures. I wrote about him in one of my first posts and he still impresses me so much. 

Among a few others of course, he shows the world what impact some pictures of a (quiet simply produced) miniature landscape can have. His accurate arrangements are very carefully photographed and the examples I'm gonna show you here are truly contemporary (in contrast to his other famous "Wartime" series, which are set in the 1930ies in Italy). Altough the recent political and military crises in Mali, Syria, Afghanistan, and so many more are a bit overshadowing the current (and past) situation in Iraq, Ventura recaptures soldiers fighting and dying next to Sadam Hussein's large picture on a shot wall or corpses in the sand. The static and drastic character of his scenography hits me every time, leaving me thinking about the accomplished skills of this artist, the motives and the real horror and tragedy which is omnipresent in so many deadly conflicts around the world.

To me, Ventura is one of the great quiet artists and chronists of our time.

 

All pictures above are copyright © Paolo Ventura

http://www.paoloventura.com

MOODSCANNER - 1st Anniversary !

 

My Dear followers,

since one year, I've been writing about film, scenography, architecture and spatial design by various artists, designers and filmmakers, always focusing on the uniqueness and originality of these very different works.

I'm really enjoying that every time and I hope you too. I want to thank every single one of you for reading and commenting and I promise you, I'll continue scanning and posting about more interesting works of every kind.

Take care and let me know, if there's anything I could add or improve anyway.

M.

Photography - Filip Dujardin # 2 - New works

Hi there!

Filip Dujardin is gonna present a few new images at the Highlight Gallery in San Francisco, a solo show called "(DIS)LOCATION".

When I wrote about him and his inspirational works of illusionary power mixed with classical architectural photography, a lot of you really, really liked that post. It became of one of my most visited posts, right before the one about Paolo Ventura and his miniature-based pictures. Now, I'm gonna show you some new photographs by Dujardin. They were mostly taken on location at the French coastal town of Deauville and at the Guimaraes area in northern Portugal.

Again, every single picture has the same highly fascinating, suggestive impact on me. I remember myself, walking at a beach on the Philippines, or along the grey, suburban streets of Zurich and imaging the wildest, but also most subtle buildings and constructions right in front of me. But they were never there. Of course, rather challenging to build, maybe impossible to bear up against the forces of fierce nature in reality. But I always love to dream of them.

Have a look at these new works and tell me what you think about them ;-)

All copyright © Filip Dujardin

www.filipdujardin.be/

 

Concept / Digital Art - Daniel Dociu # 4

 

Hi there ! 

Daniel has posted some new concept art images of the Guild Wars realm, especially the first one above keeps me thinking about my own dreamworlds constantly. Check out Daniel's official website if you wanna see more of his masterpieces .. ;-)

tinfoilgames.com

Concept / Digital Art - Daniel Dociu # 3

 

Recently, I visited Daniel Dociu's website again. It was redesigned and some new works are featured on the frontpage.

I picked a few of them which, in my opinion, are true "dreamscapes" and simply look fantastic. As I wrote before, in my big post and a smaller one about this extraordinary artist and visionary, the pictures are stunning and unique.

 

All Copyright

Daniel Dociu / tinfoilgames.com

Social Space - Antilia (The Ambani Skyscraper)

Mr Mukesh Dhirubhai Ambani is India's richest man (as of 2012) and second richest one of Asia. 

He's the chairman and CEO of Reliance Industries Limited (RIL), the foremost company of the Indian energy and materials conglomerate Reliance Group. He's married and has three children. His annual salary is estimated of 150 million rupee, his asset is said to be around 21 billion US dollars.

In 2012, Mr Ambani commissioned the Chicago based architects Perkins & Will to design his personal residence, the "Antilia" building, in Dadar, South Mumbai. The Australia-based company Leighton Holdings did the construction. It was also designed to survive an 8-Richter scale earthquake.

It consists of

27 floors (equivalent to 60 floors tower)
400 000 square feet of living space
9 elevators
3 helipads
6 floors of parking area
rising gardens
1 ballroom
1 cinema

There is also a full-time staff of 600 maintains supposed to work in the building. Planing and concepting the residence, the Indian method of Feng Shui, "Vastu Shastra", was considered as well.

Mumbai's population has doubled in 25 years (now 13 million), some say 50'000 people are crammed into each square kilometre. Extreme poverty and violence is right next door to opulent, westernized business centres.

Nevertheless, till today, Mr Ambani and his family refuse to move into their new exorbitant, luxury home. Officially, they fear a curse or bad luck if they do so, because the Vastu Shastra isn't appropriate and the neighborhood not safe enough as well.

Production Design Review # 3 (Part 3) - THE NEVERENDING STORY (1984)

Landscapes of dreams I : Into the great wide open

When Atreyu starts his journey, riding on Atax, his horse and loyal companion, he crosses several landscapes of Fantasia.
Wide views on Fantasia (and later, its destruction) are important parts of its complete vision. You see endless deserts, mountains, directly shot on location or combined with artificial elements, "crystal" landscapes, lakes and of course, Atreyu enters woods again. Surely, "The Neverending Story" is not the first movie to create fascinating landscapes and fantastic dreamworlds in cinema history. But it's the combination, their integration into the storyline and the atmosphere they evoke which counts.

Landscapes of dreams II : The swamps of sadness

Fantasia is a world, full of the brightest and darkest places Bastian (or any other human being) could ever imagine. When Atreyu arrives in the "Swamps of sadness" and looses his beloved friend Atax, you feel like you're dragged down into the deepest depths of the realm as well. Swamps always had a very mystical and threatening image in stories and movies. There's hardly any better picture to illustrate the feeling of loneliness and sadness than a thick, dark swamp that captures you. Real mud and similar substances were used to let Atreyu (Noah Hathaway) struggle through the foggy field of sunken trees and branches, and finally letting Atax sink and die in the swamp. It's a highly emotional scene, full of pain and lost.
After Atax' death, Atreyu continues his journey without his horse and arrives at a giant, quiet hill in the middle of the swamp fields. Suddenly he remembers the legend of a very old, wise creature called "Morla" who is said to be living here. When he climbs up the hill, it begins to move and he realizes where Morla is.
This scene and the new character which shows up now, is one of the most disturbing moments in the film. Atreyu faces an overdimensional turtle-like creature, and the "hill" was in fact Morla's back, from which he gets thrown down. I've barely seen another comparable image of nightmarish disturbance and subtle appearance than this one. Atreyu's following talk with Morla about the mysterious force which destroys Fantasia and how he could fight it, reveals her biblical (unknown) age and the unbearable low pace of her mind and temper, what makes her mighty stature even more authentic. Later on, we see an exhausted Atreyu, crawling his way through the mud and desperately trying to stay alive and reach the far distant  "Southern Oracle", which Morla described as his possibly last hope to find answers.

Landscapes of dreams III : Out of nowhere

The G'mork, a monstrous werewolf who appeared shortly at the beginning, is serving the mysterious deadly force by hunting down Atreyu through the whole story. He almost killed him in the swamps, but Fuchur, a "Luck Dragon" (the most famous character of the story) saves him in time and carries him away to another mystical place.
Production Design and photography did a subtle, but fine job here as well. When Atreyu wakes up, he's confused by this new environment (having slept in Fuchur's claws, close to his body) and it takes a few moments for us too, to recognize where he landed. Fuchur's massive, but lean body is completely white and grey-haired, fluffy and the expression of his huge dark eyes is trusty and - of course - always very enthusiastic. Fuchur introduces Atreyu to a truly odd couple, Enymuk and Urgl, a gnomish scientist and expert of the Southern Oracle and his wife. Their little home cave seems quiet believable and really cosy, also because of the scientist's equipment and her "medical" brews she offers to Atreyu to recover. Till today, I very like the looks of their home place, also contrasting its "cold" and darker exterior under the open stars.
Enymuk shows Atreyu the path to the Southern Oracle, but first he has to pass two deadly trials who killed many others who tried to get through them.
The first trial are yellow-golden twin sphinx statues who can "look" into the heart of the one who wants to pass - If this person has enough self-confidence and a strong heart, he or she'll be able to dodge the sphinxes' lethal eye-lightnings, otherwise they kill them.
These sphinxes are very powerful appearances, full of grace (also a bit over the top), mystical ambience and deadly action. I've always been very impressed by this scene, when Atreyu witnesses a knight who tries to pass and gets killed by the statues, left in the sand between them, scattered and burnt inside his armor. Beautifully crafted and realized, the lightnings, shooting out of the closed eyes of the sphinxes even seem somehow real and threatening. Not knowing anything about the origin of this first "portal" to the oracle, or who built it, makes the design even more mysterious and compelling.

Landscapes of dreams IV : The Southern Oracle

When Atreyu also gets through the second trial, a frozen mirror gate (in which he recognizes his alter ego Bastian), he finally enters the cold, dark field of the Southern oracle.
You really feel like being at the end of the (Fantasia) world, seeing Atreyu walking towards this blue, ice version of the sphinxes which represent the ominous Southern oracle. This snow desert could be the result of the destruction by the dark menace, emptying the realm and leaving nothing else than ruins and devastation. The southern oracle itself is already damaged and broken, loosing its surface and big parts of the material (whatever it consists of). This process is very nice and impressively done by the special effects and Production Design team, supported by the fitting sounds and, again, very subtle ambient background music.
The Oracle advises Atreyu to find the final frontiers of Fantasia to fight the dark menace (called the "nothing") and find a human child which is the only being and cure which could heal the empress in the Ivory Tower.

Landscapes of dreams V : At the end of the world

Riding on the back of Fuchur, Atreyu indeed finds the boundaries of the realm and faces gigantic storms and lightnings, which are so powerful that Fuchur looses Atreyu over the troubled sea. He falls deep and finds himself alone at a deserted beach.
This sequence illustrates again the power of well made analog special effects. It reminds me a lot of Mark Mawson's photography (in a previous post of mine) and his magical, beautiful and mystical underwater images. Petersen and his team created a "perfect" storm which looks natural, mysterious, powerful and threatening at the same time. Seeing Fuchur struggling in it, with Atreyu on his back, both extremely tiny in front of the enormous landscape, is very impressive, almost shocking.

After he lost Fuchur, Atreyu enters a city of ruins.

The colours of the ruins and the dark, rocky earth resemble the swamps of sadness and Morla. Nevertheless, it's a new, unknown part of Fantasia. It looks old, destroyed, and dangerous. Like one of these illustrations of fantasy books or children literature that burn themselves into your memory, although their style has been copied many times.
After a kind of earthquake, Atreyu steps into one of the ruins and discovers some big, painted pictures on the walls - Each one represents an episode of his adventure in the Neverending Story we witnessed. We don't know who painted them or how it was possible that anyone in the movie could have observed him that closely. He sees Atax, Fuchur, Morla and the swamps of sadness and himself (lost at the beach) on them. And finally, a dark, frightening wolf-like monster which stares at him directly. At the same moment, the G'mork roars behind him - Atreyu's last challenge and opponent in the heart of darkness.
This sequence is, again, one of the most terrifying and moody ones I've ever seen in a fantasy movie. Again, the design is so beautifully created and filmed, and finally presenting the G'mork in his most stunning way. The design is epic, mysterious, dark, full of the smell of destroyed life, death and ancient walls which once could have been as beautiful as the Ivory Tower. Only looking at these painted images, the ruins and G'mork's hideout in the dark, gives you an idea of how mysterious, strange and beautiful the different parts of Fantasia must have been before its destruction.
The G'mork is an excellent example of animatronic special effects, aiming at a maximum of authentic looks. Of course, it may look a bit old fashioned today. Nevertheless, all the advantages of analog Production Design and special effects are clearly visible here. And at least the german voice of him sounds perfectly to the creature. So, the G'mork is still one of the most powerful and thrilling "villains" I've ever encountered in a movie or, in general, in my deepest grounds of childhood memories..

What follows is Atreyu's short, deadly fight with G'mork, his struggle against the tremendous forces of the "nothing" and his rescue from it by Fuchur. They return to the Ivory Tower which was spared from destruction, floating on a rock in an empty, space-like realm of Fantasia.

"The Neverending Story" is an incredibly well done fantasy film.
 

There are also many other movies which include nice analog special effects and designs, but this one beats them all. And of course, the design responds very well to the philosophical, mystical content of the story, which is highly inspiring.
I'll also write about other masterpieces of film and art in the near future, which use analog techniques in a perfect way, but this vision by the team of Wolfgang Petersen is always a very enjoyable and deeply beautiful journey into my childhood (and grown up) dreams.

All stills are taken directly from the film. 

Copyright © 1984 Neue Constantin Film / Bavaria Studios