Work, Rest & Play

A video trypdich made from archival footage of people at work, rest and play. A comment on technology.

"This is the first in a series of films using documentary, industrial and educational film footage from the Prelinger Archive and The Internet Archive. The film explores the theme of technology, showing how the future can be edited and manipulated through advances in computer science. As the narrative in the film says "The art of computer graphics is only in its infancy yet it is already stimulating creative thought in far out areas where research is likely to get complex and unwieldy". Commissioned by Lovebytes http://www.ubu.com/film/plu_work.html

'The Family, Leisure and Recreation'

The New Zealand Ministry of Recreation and Sport defines "leisure" as "an attitude and an experience encompassing a myriad of feelings which contribute to well-being" while "recreation" is defined as "a freely chosen activity done in free time". Those studies which have distinguished between the two terms have tended to use "leisure" when writing about time spent in informal relaxing at home, and "recreation" for time spent outside the home engaged in activities.

Research on family leisure and recreation falls broadly into the following categories: the family life cycle, social class, socialisation, family authority, and family cohesiveness. The first four of these deal mainly with the effect on the family on leisure while the last is concerned with the effect of leisure on the family.

There are three amin influences on an individual:
Work, Family, Leisure

Among young single people the greatest emphasis is given to physical recreation. For women this generally changes swiftly at marriage to an interest in home based crafts, hobbies, television watching and social life. The change for men, from physical recreation to television watching is more gradual but is accelerated by the birth of the first chikd. Children appear to have a much greater influence on their mothers' recreation than on their fathers'.

Old family photos retouched

Just playing around witht the colours of old family photos, making them look more bright and happy by enhancing the colours

Drawings

Experimenting with drawing from old family photos. Looking at particular part of the images that are most interesting, the faces, and giving just enough other detail to show what they are doing. If these were paintings they might have a detailed area in the face, but the rest almost blurry or out of focus. This was also an exercise to get back into drawing, and work on my line technique. I think there is a big difference in line from the first drawing to the last.

'Naive' Painting

Last semester someone mentioned Henri Rousseau in relation to my work, which lead me to look into naive painting. I don't really like that term as I don't think there is anything naive about the way most painters who are catergorised as such paint. Why does something have to look exactly as it does in real life, with exact proportions, when you can still tell what it is? A painting isn't a photograph and shouldn't really try to depict things as realistically as photos can because it will never be an exact snapshot. I really like the decorative qualities of the colours used in these paintings, and the harmonious compositions. I also think naive painting is interesting because most of the time these painters were painting their lives, scenes from everyday, but with a narrative within them, this is something I am trying out at the moment.