Francois Ozon - X2000

Director(s): Francois Ozon
Actors: Lucia Sanchez, Lionel Le Guevellou, Flavien Coupeau, Denise Aron-Schropfer, Bruno Slagmulder
Languages: French
Subtitles: English
Screen: Color
Length: 61 minutes
Country of origin: France
Year Filmed: 1998

想不到這次到廈門參加親戚的婚禮，竟有機會看到Francois Ozon的舊作X2000，他執導的電影我看過三部，這是第四部。

《最後的晚餐》

『有人走過同時有另一個人在看，就已構成劇場的所有。』
－彼德‧布魯克

"A man walks across whilst someone else is watching, this is all that is needed for an act of theatre to be engaged. "
- Peter Brook

應好友之邀，第一次參加劇場創作，沒甚期望，倒是怕自己外行，連累他人，畢竟是場比賽，總不能馬虎了事。我負責的是舞台／佈景設計。剛開始時先問自己：甚麼是劇場？恰好在一份宣傳品上找到這句子。構成劇場的最基本元素只有演員和觀眾，舞台上的其他東西相對而言只是陪襯品，最「簡約」的時候都可以刪掉，正如默劇，演員的身體語言已足夠傳情達意，不一定要有椅子，你才明白那人正在車廂中看報紙，“意會”有時候比“看見”來得有趣。那麼，一個舞台在甚麼時候需要加插佈景／道具／燈光？為何今天當我們一提到劇場，這些都似乎缺一不可？

二十世紀德國著名的劇作家Bertolt Brecht在完成了The Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagony之後論到當時的歌劇均為娛樂而生，難逃被商品化，其講究的是“經驗”所帶來的快感以及“品味”的培育。但當劇目的“娛樂性”越強，其距離“真實性”便越遠：一個將死的角色是真實的元素，當他同時歌唱的時候，便引領我們進入一非理性的層面去詮釋內容，有時候這種處理手法甚至會為故事帶來顛覆性的效果，當各舞台元素的互補關係被瓦解後，觀眾便不再單純地坐着被餵養，而是被邀請進入思考批判的層面，所謂的“諷刺作品”[Satire]便是這麼一回事。

看過劇本後，已粗略知道需要那些道具，用以交代場景變化，使之更具真實性，但若要進到另一層次，刺激觀眾思考的話，佈景／道具／燈光便不能跟着劇本走。全劇讓人最深刻的，不正是開始時最不真實的一幕？（上圖）

Adobe CS3 Launch Seminar

oh... i want to be that lucky winner for CS3 Premium Pack!! To be honest, CS3 is a quantum leap forward. At least AI won't shut down again when working together with Photoshop, but all those fantastic features seemed to facilitate works on multi-disciplinary design, which was used to be delivered by several design firms at the same time. Now, design firms that mainly specialized in editorial design may well be entertaining clients with all sorts of design deliverables ranging from web design to video promos.

Guided by such phenomenon, fresh design graduates are mostly equipped with various kinds of design software so as to maintain fair competence among peers, which is in some ways more and more difficult for students who entered the field not until F.7 to catch up with peers that had already gone through basic design thinking and technical training in their earlier years in IVE or other design institutes. Then does it mean that you had better quit your normal education and focus on design training if you find your interest in an early age?

For me, the answer would be fifty-fifty. As learnt from my past experience or even based on my recent research project, students who receive design education after completing high school are usually found to possess strong conceptual thinking ability and develop a more sophisticated project that produces fruitful research on a wide range of social and cultural issues. In return, they may lacked the ability or skills to actualize their design concepts. Sometimes they even struggle a lot on how to translate those rich research materials into visible design ideas. But this is seldom a big obstacle for students coming from IVE or high dip. They used to move on to execution stage earlier and spent most of their time working on a presentable outcome. Their concepts may be comparatively shallower but audiences were often satisfied by what was presented in front of them. After all, they had skills.

Cape Farewell

Newsweek, 2007 April23

是近年來本土文化意識抬頭，還是這類題材太嚴肅、不夠切身？總覺得香港很少會策劃這種面向世界的展覽或藝術活動。曾聽過一位藝術家分享：「要做出令人深刻的作品，你自己必先對該事物有深刻的感受。」難道這些世情都離我們太遠？

今天在街上看見許多「吊帶人士」，還是四月天，我想，夠切身的了。

DHL's ambient ad in MTR

看過多少次了，還是覺得DHL這個廣告一定會獲獎。

Excuse me...

passed by this advertisement a day in Lan Kwai Fong, both functional and fun...i'm sure HK would be a more interesting hub if more ideas of such kind could be injected into this concrete garden.

Victoria Prison Art Museum

沒想到自己對中環會是如斯陌生，與友人圈了大半天方到達展覽會場，還給一名內地阿叔（踫巧問着一位國語人）誤以為我們是港燦，竟連「域多利監獄」也不會去！

細雨紛紛，要不是參觀者眾，會場定會格外肅清。被囚者的天空，我想，本來就是這樣的吧？多位本地藝術家嘗試帶領觀眾進入他們的天空，一個給世人遺忘了的國度。

難忘從那狹小得僅容一人擠身的木屋往外看，不變的尺寸、不變的角度、不變的內容，變的是分秒的流逝，光華的不再，黃國才的作品正不斷地試探着觀眾的能耐──你，可以在這樣的空間逗留多久？走過數間囚室，奇怪作品的表現手法竟會如斯類同，大家都不約而同地用到塑膠玩偶：被肢解、侵犯、襲擊，這是再一次控訴被囚者的惡行還是他們當下的心情？血紅色的調子叫人不願久留，走廊盡處卻是柳暗花明，一群潔白的鴿子沿梯而上，象徵着無罪與釋放，空間運用得宜，亦擺脫了各囚室的沉重，要是多一點這樣情緒的作品，我會喜歡這個展覽多一點。

二零零七年四月二十日

David Smith. (American, 1906-1965). Australia. 1951.

Painted steel on cinder block base

don't know why but all of a sudden, i want to start a blog...
just drop by MoMA's website and find a sculpture by David Smith, which is so much similar to a sketch bull by Pablo Picasso! (it's been my wallpaper for quite a while already)

no wonder why...

"I do not recognize the limits where painting ends and sculpture begins." So said Smith, who, in making Australia, used thin rods and plates of steel—simultaneously delicate and strong—to paint in space. Like a painting, Australia must be seen frontally if its form is to be grasped. It has been identified as an abstraction of a kangaroo, and its lines have that animal's leaping vitality. Though he began his career as a painter, Smith was inspired to make welded metal sculptures in 1930 when he saw those made by Pablo Picasso and Julio González. [extract from MoMA's website]