Der Zauberberg: Sketches and First Block

How to vizualize a 1,000 page novel in twelve images? I spent December and the first part of January trying to figure that out. Right away, a dozen or so crucial scenes popped to mind. But then when I started sketching, I quickly realized I didn't want to portray "scenes" in the typical book illustration fashion, for which I have neither the technical competence (of drawing inanimate objects) nor the interest. But I was definitely not interested in the opposite-- some kind of interpretive flight of fancy where I draw a pile of crap to express my own personal feelings about the novel. I still wanted to represent identifiable characters, experiences, and ideas that Mann put into the novel, but in a more iconic portrait-heavy way that suits my own aesthetic inclinations and abilities. After selecting source material from old photos, books, and the google image machine, I came up with twelve images plus a 'frontispiece' to make up a series of thirteen woodcuts. At this point I have ten more or less workable sketches, two rough idea-based ones, and one carved woodblock. Hoping to carve one a week and print one a week from here on out.

Here's a pictorial log, from early brainstorm debris to carved and printed block:

My tentative list: a baker's dozen of prints

crude sketches

Rejected!

Peeperkorn sketch-- face is wrong

So I slapped a new one on.

study for Naphta--based on Georg Lukacs

Naphta sketch with cake-- a little too Lou Reed-like.

Final Naphta sketch

Rough doodle for Settembrini

Italian writer Giovanni Verga--looks just how I imagine Settembrini

Final Settembrini sketch

My friend Simon. I think his Germanic high cheekbones and sober gaze will work well for Joachim.

Final sketch for Joachim--on his death bed (must add gold coins over eyes)

Frontispiece/Title print-- I found my image for the protagonist Hans Castorp in a 1912 recital program of a Norwegian Men's Singing Society, which performed in SF at the Swedish-American Hall (oddly enough, where I got married). Bought the program at an antique store, but now it's gone missing, so I can't scan it to show you.

This old timer, a prominent German citizen of 19th-century Indiana, is just as I picture Hans's grandfather, Hans Lorenz Castorp.

Mazzini, the natural grandfather image of the liberal humanist Settembrini.

Sketch for the Two Grandfathers-- living genealogical tree.

Naptha's suicide at the Duel

Dueling pistols-- reminds me of the end of Ibsen's Hedda Gabler: "There she goes, playing with those damn pistols again!"

Hans and Dr. Behrens in the X-ray room--- my somewhat fabricated though factually-based imagining of a pre-war X-ray machine. The novel takes place in a Swiss sanatorium from 1907-1914, so I want at least one image to portray the medical environment.

source image for the dining hall. I think this is somewhere in Wyoming.

Final sketch for Walpurgis Nacht

rough sketch for the Lindenbaum chapter- the bare linden tree coming out of the record player as a symbol for the morbid Romanticism Hans has to overcome.

rough sketch for Hans's catarrh- fueled fever dream of Mdme Chauchat as a lusty personification of life.

I'm using bygone supermodel Tatiana Patiz as my model for Chauchat. She has what Mann describes as Chauchat's "Khirghiz eyes"

another rough sketch for Hans dreaming Chauchat as lusty life. Here she looks way too much like a stilted version of the bikini model she's drawn from.

photo of real Swiss sanatorium patients taking the rest cure outdoors.

final sketch for 'the horizontal'-- the rest cure.

the carved and inked wood block after the first test print.

First test print of the block. Reasonably satisfied.

Stay tuned for more...

Dead Towns: Developing ideas

I discovered that I want the project to be centered around a fictional story that I create about people visiting ghost towns. I think this idea raises several questions – who would visit these random little towns in the middle of the desert? What quirks would they have as characters to motivate them to do this? What would they observe as outsiders about these ghost towns? Are there particular details that stand out?

Hopefully, I’ll be able to answer these questions in the story.

What I’ve been doing this week is finishing my impressions of the towns and picking out the photographs I might want to use for the project:



I took multiple shots of some fascinating places and it's quite hard picking the ones I'd like to display.

I also edited the original proposal and Stephanie and I had in mind to see what would be feasible for me to finish as a solo project.

Of the features of the previously proposed project, I’m going to adopt these:
1. Travelling arbitrarily to little towns (except in SoCal rather than NorCal).
2. Using 100-word snippets to match every photograph (except maybe for one last longer piece that links all the photographs together and gives a bigger picture.)
3. Using photographs to illustrate features of the ghost towns (only I’m going to use a disposable rather than a fancy analog camera that was proposed).
4. Recreating a living room space (a limited rather than entire one).

Questions I have: What section of a living room space should I use? What furniture should I buy? What would most effectively showcase my project? I'll figure these out soon.

Fluorescein Matrix Interactive Display - Cesar Torres - Progress Report

Hey everybody,

Just posting a bit of the progress I've made with the Interactive Matrix Display. A large part of the project is waiting for materials, but the electronics behind it is relatively tame, so I have posted a couple of conceptual sketches.

I was able to acquire the fluorescein chemical from a river studies company. Apparently, the chemical is used to dye river systems and check for flow and contamination. This translates into a relatively small amount of dye (10 mL for every gal, roughly) and it produces an amazing effect. See video :)

So, after careful deliberation, I realized that the fluorescein has to admirable properties. It can fluoresce under the proper condition very large containers and it is able to create very intense and aesthetically pleasing flow patterns, however this is ephemeral. The circulation of water through either filtration or a pipeline to some water source would be outside the budget of the project. Hence, I have decided to use the apriori property: container lumination.

I have decided to use these PVC jars

that I found at a very reasonable price. They have the stability to endure holes and wires and such; plus the are relatively easy to transform into some other assembly than the one I have drafted further below. As the diagram says, I will be making about 64 modular lights from the water+fluorescein mixture and a UV Leds.

I plan to finish making the modular lights by the end of the month.

The more difficult part will be wiring the pieces to a MAX7219 chip, which I have done before, but on a smaller scale. Once this is wired, I need to code the serial input (translating what I want each light to display) and then make some UI so that I can easily change the image displayed.

I will be connecting proximity sensors and pressure pads to be the input mechanisms for the matrix display. To be decided still.

FILM WORK.

Over the break I began the first part of my documentary project: meeting with the organization which I hope to collaborate with. As a reminder, my documentary will be on how ethnic youth and recent immigrant generations have created a sense of belonging and history in the city of Richmond, CA. My objective is to recruit 2-3 youth participants and one adult for interviews. I specifically interested in recruiting youth artist from an immigrant family, as well as immigrant participants. My intention is to parallel their experience, either the youth's creation of sense or the immigrants adaption to America, with the migratory experience of Richmond in the 1940's during World War II.

I met with the executive director of ArtsChange, an arts organization for social justice that allows and mentors youth artistsand helps develop the artist's theme or message in their art. In our meeting we discussed my interests for making the documentary, the planned projects for the organization, and ways the documentary process can benefit the youth artists. Being that it was winter break, all the youth and staff of ArtsChange were on break and would return after the winter break. We agreed to schedule a meeting where I could pitch my project to the youth artists.

After our meeting, I sent out a letter explaining my interest and project to be solicited to the ArtsChange youth artists. I am hoping that with the newly formed team of ArtsChange youth artist activists, the documentary can be moved further.

Why youth artists and why the topic "sense of belonging"? The reason being is that Richmond is undergoing a change in preserving its history, however the World War II history, like all histories are turned into narratives, nostalgia and myth. Growing up in Richmond, I, as a latino, queer male, and son of immigrants, felt that my presence, and those belonging in the various communities I identify with, thrived on the margins. Immigrant history and youth culture in Richmond is not recognized, and often met with negative reactions and media coverage. My purpose is to provide a space, a product that will contribute to adding these stories to the narrative of Richmond. The city has focused its efforts in recognizing the past and its participants, that is has forgotten about the youth and immigrants and their perception of and history in Richmond.

I will be posting more updates throughout the quarter, possibly uploading idea photos, and video clips as production starts in mid february. Below I have included a summary of Richmond history. I will also post my Urban Studies Senior Project paper which is the first part of my Richmond project.

Peace,

E.

Richmond History

Richmond is best remembered for its involvement in building liberty ships for the military. Along with other East Bay cities and ports such as San Francisco, Oakland, Vallejo and Marin, Richmond underwent radical changes in the influx of population. The large incoming wave of black, asian, and latino migrants from all over the U.S and California altered the landscape of Richmond. The war skyrocketed Richmond's population from 23,000 in 1940 to over 100,000 in 1945. The large diversity of people intensified racism and racial tensions, xenophobism, rebellion of youth and women challenging socio-economic and gender expectations. The industry sector on Richmond's waterfront developed. Among the notable companies that resided in Richmond are the Ford Motor Company (closed in the 1950's) and Chevron, still in operation. After the war, industry declined and against all guesses, a large number of the diverse migrant groups remained yet, restrictive convenants, removal of urban "blight" and segreationist practices in labor, schools and housing continued. However, during this time, progressive civil rights coalitions emerged ensuring housing, education and fair labor laws for racial minorities. Since then, the current history of Richmond has been marked by the decline of the city's center, minorities on minorities crime, gangs, disparities in education, and health.

In the last ten years, Richmond's Redevelopment Agency has enacted numourous projects to revive these once-commerical centers. In addition to the improvements, a cultural and public art component has memorialized the Richmond of World War II. As part of my senior paper, I analyzed the historical narratives created by the public art, and the values it tried to emphasize. What I concluded is that the Agency has managed to revive their center through a strategy of history, nostalgia and collective narratives/memory. Stories of long time residents define the urban spaces. In addition, the inclusion of recent latino and asian immigrants in the public art functioned as a way to unify and discourage community tensions, by emphasizing on everybody's shared immigrant narrative. A problematic function of the public is that the racist history and events of Richmond are remembered, but gleaned over for the "positive" effects of discrimination, meaning the oppressed person's determination, formation of community, communal sacrifice, collective action, and their culture's social and artisit capital such as musical and art contributions.

Dead Towns: Lots of uncertainty

So the project begins…on a poor note. The very night Stephanie and I were supposed to embark on our road trip to take photographs and write notes on Northern Californian ghost towns, Stephanie had personal problems and had to back out.

As someone who cannot drive, had no way of getting north during winter break, and had no other time to head north aside from winter break, it looked like I had to seriously modify the project. I booked a plane to San Diego the next week where a friend offered to drive me around – albeit for only a shorter time period. There, I took photographs using disposable cameras, took as many notes as I could, and decided to reconstruct a project from what was salvageable from the old one.

Right now, I’m in the process of recreating my memories of SoCal small towns and writing them into paragraphs. Here are some images from my notebook:




In the following weeks, I plan to edit the scope of the project. Originally, we were supposed to recreate a living room with objects and impressions from Northern California. As I don’t think I can do that alone, I might recreate part of a living room from Southern California as described to me by my friend. I might also take the project in a more fictional or symbolic direction and not be bogged down by realism. I guess everything is up in the air.

Designing the Diver

Back from a quarter in Australia- tried to design the piece to the greatest detail possible while Down Under- these are some of the rough models i made to get an idea for how the piece would look.
The overall layout of the piece involves a flock of segmented, origami-esque pelicans flapping and gliding in a helical motion. The scale is large- approximately 20 feet long by 10 feet tall and 10 feet wide, with each bird having a wingspan of 4 feet. Most of my time has been devoted to designing the mechanical details of the sculpture, but I have also been collecting materials for the past two weeks with great success. I am trying to use mostly reclaimed materials- using stock PVC pipe and fresh cut timber would be in direct conflict with the narrative of this piece- and I have been traveling to scrap yards and building materials wholesalers throughout Santa Cruz and the SF Bay Area to ask for damaged material or scrap. I have been really impressed by the generosity of the people I have encountered, from Gary at Gary's Plastics who gave me a TON of material for $20 to the kids of a sign maker who gave me a TON of aluminum. I went to Alan's Steel in Redwood City for the first time the other day and it blew my mind- a sculptor's candy shop to be sure. This piece has already been a great experience for me, and I haven't even started building it yet!

Snagging a subdued and Bound Rcok

2) Rock Retrieval (December 16th)

I went to Middle Town, Ca to pick up the rock.

It was just hangin' out. Slope: All sorts of trouble

Window, Foreshadowing

Backing it up

Near death by crushing.

Really Pleasing Layers In the bed, in the cage. Such is the rock.

Nick, Matt, Palo Alto

Over thought desire to get the rock >> Stress in moving maybe not being able to get the rock >> massive satisfaction in having got the rock/relief

That's what this process produced in my brain.

Creating Space

My goal was to have the space ready for dancing by the new year.

Tasks:

1) Painting

2)Rock Retrieval

3) Curtain hanging

1: Painting (December 12-19)

Photo Credits: Reed

Preparing the space required painting the mauve walls white. White white.

Model Credit: Reed

Makin' art makin' art. I do love a triptych.

Photo credit: Rachel

Painting white white.

Makes a body wonder: WHAT CAN IT MEAN!>?

It's about simplicity, not purity. Purity? Ha!

[Maybe control? And flexibility.]

Also: I am practicing my dance moves. Yeah.