for those of you who are anticipating the arrival of the iSlate, i have a few questions.

what is the islate trying to be? is it really going to bring about a new wave of innovation, as many predict?

is it an iphone on steroids? or is it a smaller, more useful version of the macbook air? or is it a kindle-crusher because it can do more?

from what i can tell, the islate will incorporate many aspects of the iphone, using a similarly designed interface and many of the iphone’s core functions. furthermore, it will look like a larger iphone but will boast the computing power of a macbook. it may have some additional functions, like being useful as a tablet (so that one can use a stylus on its interface – which i would welcome) and i’ve heard that it’s going to be useful for teleconferencing. great. built-in camera too. maybe it will be good for games as well – bigger screen than the iphone, feels more substantial… nice. and, i suppose, it will also be a nifty e-reader, which is one of its core selling points.

in terms of size, it will be thin like a kindle, and about ten inches across, right?

are people really going to carry around with them their iphone, their MBP and their islate? three devices that do many of the same things? that seems a bit silly. who would carry around all three, especially all the time? when you travel long haul, will you have all three with you? when you commute?

perhaps one takes it completely for granted that consumers will happily haul around all three but i’m not so sure.

does anyone today carry around a kindle, a laptop and a phone? anyone outside of the social media vortex?

if not, then which device gets fired? which one becomes less significant? it would seem like one of the three needs to go.

one can’t get rid of the iphone because it’s small and handy and works kinda nicely as a phone… if i ditched the iphone, would i carry around this tablet-device as a de facto phone, propping it on my shoulder like a boom box while i had voice conversations? (i mean, if i was walking and talking, where else would it go? i can’t hold it front of me and talk into it, i’d bump into things… so, i’d want the speaker by my ear… oh great, headphones)

i don’t know if i’d get rid of the laptop, because i’m used to sitting down at a desk, doing work with a keyboard and my stylus, and it’s pretty darn portable so that i can work anywhere… but not so portable that i’d take it out on the subway and work on something…. besides, isn’t the iphone there for just that kind of need?

so, where does that leave the islate?

it will be the third device that i leave at the office, and when i want to do a show and tell, i might grab it… and if i want to take notes in a meeting, i might grab it… maybe i’ll take it with me to lunch, which i wouldn’t do with the laptop (i’d read magazines just like in the mag+ video by the berg boys)…. but when i go home at night, i think i’d take the laptop over the islate… that’s my guess. i wouldn’t lug around all three…

i’d leave the islate behind because if i left the laptop behind, then what’s the use of keeping a laptop around? might as well get a desktop then.

now, if the islate can be set into a keyboard (like the old palm pilots were top mounted onto an external keyboard – which looked really funny but i loved them…) then, i suspect that it’s the laptop that becomes a bit clunky and less useful.

i might be overlooking something substantial, but the arrival of the islate reminds me a bit of that skit by eddie izzard in regards to the spanish inquisition. cake or death? nobody wants death, but choosing cake isn’t really getting to the heart of the issue.

do you believe that life will always let itself be mocked?

do you think you can slip away a little before midnight in order to avoid this? or are you not terrified by it?

i have seen men in real life who so long deceived others that at last their true nature could not reveal itself… in every man there is something which to a certain degree prevents him from becoming perfectly transparent to himself; and this may be the case in so high a degree, he may be so inexplicably woven into relationships of life which extend far beyond himself that he almost cannot reveal himself. but he who cannot reveal himself cannot love, and he who cannot love is the most unhappy man of all.”

- søren kierkegaard

i’ve known many frauds in my life. this much is true. some of them have done immensely well for themselves. i wonder what makes them tick and if they ever find happiness? and then i put those thoughts away.

one day, however, i will write about some of these frauds. not out of anger or disdain, but sincerely, out of the desire to understand the root causes of their behaviour. we’ll see.

a few thoughts on the christian bale controversy

no matter the budget, every live-action film is immensely dependent upon the performances of the actors.

this is an obvious fact.

as such, everyone involved in the film is at the service of the story while their next most important task is to provide the best possible environment for the actors to do their work. this starts with the director, the producer and the entire cast, and it continues all the way down to the extras and the production assistants.

for example, a production designer creates an environment that serves the story, but works closely with the actors so that this environment supports the actors’ needs. it is a fruitful collaboration.  

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actors are fragile, sensitive people who, in real life, very rarely resemble the characters that they portray. we’re talking about actors, not celebrities.

in real life, robert de niro is not a tough ex-cop or an ex-con. forest whitaker is not a thug or a hitman. clint eastwood is not dirty harry.  christian bale is not the protagonist from american psycho nor is he batman. they are artists, all of them.

yet people lose sight of this simple truth and confuse the fictional character with the person portraying the character. sometimes, the actors experience a similar kind of confusion. often, a film’s crewmembers blur the distinction.

when out of character, actors are often thoughtful, introspective, vulnerable people who carry with them an enormous pressure to deliver their best work.

press coverage often loses sight of this. there’s a kneejerk tendency to portray all actors as unreasonable prima donnas. 

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so, the christian bale audio recording.

first off, the audio is taken out of context. we don’t know what happened over the course of the day before this incident took place – we don’t know how much tension there was on the set already. those of us who work in the business know that film sets are often intense environments where everyone works under imposing deadlines. we don’t know if there were any other disruptions that day, sudden changes in the shooting schedule, a new scene that has just been introduced, new dialogue, etc. there are too many things that we don’t know, so we don’t have a complete picture. 

secondly, christian bale is wired to a microphone while the others are not – there’s a wireless microphone on him because he’s acting in the scene and the sound recorder is taping the conversation – which is standard procedure. in the mean time, the crew, including the DP (who is the subject of bale’s tirade) and the director, are not micc’ed – their voices are only picked up incidentally.  this creates the distorted illusion that christian bale is speaking in a tone that is remarkably louder than the other people who are present, which is, in all likelihood, an inaccurate depiction of how the confrontation occurred.

it creates the perception that christian bale is out of control because his voice is, comparatively speaking, much louder than the rest.

thirdly, i think christian bale is right. he should be pissed off. he’s in the middle of a rehearsal and crewmembers are inadvertently distracting him because they don’t have the patience to wait their turn. i have worked on many sets where actors are trying to rehearse while the crew conducts their business in the background, failing to realise that the actors need silence and time to concentrate. this is serious.  there’s a reason why we respect the mantra of silence on the set.  the art department and the camera department will always have time to check their responsibilities, but this should not be done while actors are rehearsing or learning their lines or a new set-up.

we owe them that respect. it’s filmmaking 101.

finally, the subsequent press coverage of the incident unfairly villifies christian bale. he deserves better and somebody from the production should step in to defend him. leaving him out to hang sets a bad precedent for how actors should be treated.

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the film set is a workplace for an entire production crew but its primary purpose needs to be the place where actors can bring their gifts to the forefront, so that they can be captured on film.

if actors can’t have this kind of environment, then it doesn’t matter how brilliant the production design is nor how elaborate and stunning the cinematography is. experienced crew members know this.

i don’t believe in pampering actors – and i disagree with the hollywood tradition of maintaining so much distance between the actors and the crew – but all the same, it’s important to realise that most films are only as good as the performances from the cast.

it takes a lot of courage for any actor to create an emotional performance while standing before a large film crew that has often lost sight of the relevance of the casts’ contribution to the entire project. on top of that, actors often have to meet a wide variety of technical demands while performing, involving choreography, timing, taking improvised directions off-set, to name a few. there’s a reason why there are so few who are exceptionally adept at this.

actors need to concentrate. we, who work behind the camera, need them to be able to concentrate. we need them to be able to deliver. our livelihood depends on it. as such, once we’ve fulfilled our tasks on the set, it’s our professional responsibility to get out of the way and let them fulfill theirs.

the highly derivative, self-deprecating work consists of sculptures, paintings, frescoes, silkscreens and set constructions, but it should really be seen as single, very expansive installation piece. truly impressive, by virtue of its sheer volume, the skillful mimicry on display, with its sly sense of humour, is also noteworthy.

the work could be described as a three-dimensional universe that is populated with easily recognized icons of pop art that have been remixed, recycled and recreated through the mischievous eyes of a street artist, as if one has opened up an art history volume only to discover that it has been given a very playful and thorough once-over by the designers of the video game grand theft auto.

there’s a large set construction that quickly brings edward hopper’s painting, nighthawks, to mind (and perhaps unintentionally, the photography of miriam backström) yet the exterior walls have been spray painted with graffiti, the chairs inside have been turned over and the space has been resolutely converted into a wasteland. a paint-splattered police squad car is parked outside, emergency lights flashing. the scene presents itself as an abandoned urban space, riffing on a collection of dystopian views of the american city that in the late hours of night would be populated by skateboarders, street thugs, and vaguely sinister comic book characters.

mr. brainwash, also known as mbw (and also known as thierry guetta), casts a wide net in his romp through the catalog of pop art icons. here’s your reference to rauschenberg, here’s your warhol, your rosenquist, here’s the signature work by robert indiana, replacing the word LOVE with PUNK.

he makes his weapon of choice very clear: beyond the barely opened door to a vault, one spies a golden arsenal of cans of spray paint, safely stacked behind the security bars, their numbers (and potential to wreak havoc) seem to stretch onwards to infinity.

but the make-over treatment does not stop with pop art, mr. brainwash stomps through the fields of dutch masters, reworking pastoral landscapes into garbage-strewn, graffiti-ridden playgrounds, though it may be lost on some americans that many rural roads in europe actually look like this – that is, these days an ancient mill seen at the terminus of a cobblestone country lane is likely to be surrounded by the pockmarked walls that are covered with graffiti as depicted in mr. brainwash’s re-interpretation.

portraiture from the dutch golden age and the italian renaissance have also been reworked. among others, batman, hannibal lecter and run dmc make appearances in paintings, while mr. brainwash adds a can of spray paint or a table tennis paddle to riffs on the renaissance.

looking years ahead to a day when one will reflect upon this outburst of productivity, one wonders if the work will remain relevant.

surely, the set pieces, making their debuts in the city known for its false fronts, offers an interesting commentary on the cultural values of make-believe and the hollywood treatment, questioning its displaced nostalgia not only for the original work that it references but also for the hollywood/america that likely never existed.

but what about the very topical references to the tabloid stars and political figures of the day (ranging from, among others, britney spears to barack obama, hillary clinton, john mccain)? will they age gracefully? already given a mocking reception (by virtue of the warhol/banksy filter that references works to queen elizabeth and elizabeth taylor, not to mention marilyn monroe), they were likely never intended to be received with dignity, and one suspects that, after the hype, banter and inflated sales, these particular works will fade into the darkened abyss of forgotten cliché.

perhaps the most interesting pieces are those sculptural works that use books as their central motif. the library and book repository have been transformed into piles of literary garbage. a mountain is made out of cast-away thrift store books, with an apple laptop standing triumphantly on its peak. in another work, the books have been repurposed so that they form the walls of a room. they don’t sit on shelves, orderly lining the walls of the room, they are the walls, chaotically fastened, stuffed, or smashed into place, pages splayed open in some cases, and in other places their spines have been battered and bent, suggesting that the books themselves are useful only as a physical object. their contents are no longer needed and therefore their inherent knowledge and wisdom is likely lost in its transformed environment.

as for the origins of mr. brainwash, some say that the driving force behind this work is the notorious banksy. certainly, there’s a lot of similarity between the two – and if it turns out to be bansky, then good for him: he has created another spectacle. if not, then the mysteriously roguish (though carefully constructed) persona of mr. brainwash owes him a huge debt.

links:
life is beautiful at art show 2008.

– © christian svanes kolding