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Posts Tagged ‘Fictional’

Anime Architecture: Exhibition Showcases Japan’s Fictional Buildings

03 Aug

[ By SA Rogers in Art & Drawing & Digital. ]

Visions of fictional cities – whether optimistic, realistic, fantastical or dystopian – tend to take on a haze of mystery and grandiosity in Japanese anime, as epitomized in ‘Ghost in the Shell.’ Dark jumbles of nearly-identical skyscrapers lurk over the protagonists in futuristic metropolises, often emphasizing feelings of desolation, industrialization and technology run amok. If you’ve ever sighed over a particularly incredible work of fictional architecture, you might be interested in an exhibition currently on display at London’s House of Illustration.

‘Anime Architecture: Backgrounds of Japan’ is the first UK exhibition of architectural illustrations for classic anime films, featuring over 100 technical drawings and watercolor illustrations. Most of these works come from series that debuted or were most popular during the anime heyday of the 1990s, including Hiromasa Ogura’s paintings for ‘Ghost in the Shell’, Takashi Watanebe’s pencil drawings from Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence and work from the films ‘Patlabor: The Movie’ (1989) and ‘Metropolis’ (2001) by Mamoru Oshii and Atsushi Takeuchi.

Sure, there are great anime works that came after these with fictional architecture that’s just as beautiful, but these days, artists use computer animation instead of hand-painting the backgrounds. In an interview with It’s Nice That, curator Stefan Riekeles explains that it took quite a bit of nudging and late-night meetings at bars to convince the artists that people would want to see these works outside the context of the films, and that they’d translate well to gallery walls.

“[Ghost in the Shell], released 1995, was the continuation of [director Mamoru Oshii’s] reflection of the Asian mega-city, which he started with Patlabor in 1989 and continued after Ghost in the Shell: Innocence in 2004. Patlabor is set in a realistic urban depiction of Tokyo. Innocence is located in a purely fictional Asian world. The world of Ghost in the Shell is a hybrid of these poles.”

“The idea was to evoke a feeling of submerging into the deep levels of the city, where a flood of information overflows the human senses and a lot of noise surrounds the people. The artists were looking for an expression of a crowded space. They found a blueprint for such a place in Hong Kong, which is exotic enough for a Japanese audience to evoke a feeling of alienation and strangeness but familiar enough to relate their daily life to.”

Anime Architecture: Backgrounds of Japan will be open through September 10th, 2017 at the House of Illustration in King’s Cross.

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[ By SA Rogers in Art & Drawing & Digital. ]

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Fictional Libraries: Images Make Information Inaccessible

19 Sep

[ By Steph in Art & Drawing & Digital. ]

fictional libraries 1

All of the books in the world still exist, yet are just out of reach, locked up in an impenetrable fortress or stacked so high we can’t hope to reach them, in this dystopian vision by Shanghai-based artist Jie Ma. The series of fictional libraries renders information inaccessible, teasing us with glimpses of what we could have but always keeping it just beyond our grasp.

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Combining futuristic fantasy art reminiscent of movie or video game concepts and architectural assemblage, Ma’s series envisions libraries as stark structures that haven’t quite been abandoned altogether, but aren’t exactly in great shape. Human figures mill around in seeming frustration, stopped from actually finding anything by darkness and disorder.

fictional libraries 5

In some of the images, books are scattered around in spaces that look as if a storm has just ripped through, or they’ve been left to deteriorate for decades. It’s impossible to see the spines of any of the books, and there are no ladders offering access to shelves that tower many dozens of feet into the air. In a bibliophile’s worst nightmare, walkways to rooms full of books have crumbled away.

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In others, the libraries are like off-limits military facilities, surrounded on all sides by water or mud, frustratingly devoid of actual entrances. One of these works, entitled ’Eclipse VII: Deep Reverence for Arnold Böcklin,’ pays tribute to a famous painting known as ’Isle of the Dead.’

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Yet, in contrast to these scenes are more hopeful ones, in which people examine oversized books with gigantic magnifiers in orderly rooms overlooking concrete landscapes. The series seems to suggest a sense of hope for human curiosity, driving us to keep seeking knowledge no matter how many obstacles we may encounter.

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[ By Steph in Art & Drawing & Digital. ]

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Your Neighbor Darth Vader: Doorbells for Fictional Characters

24 Jan

[ By Steph in Art & Street Art & Graffiti. ]

the ringer 1

Only particularly perceptive passersby would even notice that they’re standing outside the residences of Marty McFly, Luke Skywalker and the Teenage Ninja Turtles, as labeled on doorbells and mailboxes on the streets of Paris. These subtle guerrilla installations by street artist Le Sonneur will make you wonder what could happen if you actually rang the bell.

the ringer 2

‘The Ringer’ is presented in four sets. The first, Everyday Heroes, makes icons like Superman, Batman, Doc Brown, Darth Vader and Han Solo seem more accessible, as if they might actually appear at any moment if you press the button.

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But you might not want to come face-to-face with most of the names featured in the Neighbors Charming series, which include Patrick Bateman from American Psycho, Alex Delarge from A Clockwork Orange and Hannibal Lecter.

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The Lovers series makes these fictional residents overly familiar with labels like ‘My love,’ ‘Prince Charming’ and ‘A pretty girl’ while the Boxes series takes the opposite tact with complete anonymity, telling you only that ‘A man’ or ‘A stranger’ live inside.

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[ By Steph in Art & Street Art & Graffiti. ]

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Fictional Bridges from Euro Banknotes Now Built in Real Life

31 Dec

[ By WebUrbanist in Architecture & Public & Institutional. ]

fictional bridge really built

In a strange case of fact following fiction, a Dutch designer was inspired to create physical versions of faux-historical bridges first drawn on European currency in 2002.

fictional crossing aquaduct style

fictional bridge suspended structure

The original two-dimensional illustrations of Austrian Robert Kalin were intended to represent periods rather than built objects, spanning Baroque, Classical, Gothic, Romanesque, Rococo and Modern 20th-Century styles.

fictional bridges being built

fictional bridge euro notes

Their three-dimensional counterparts, meticulously designed by Robert Stam draw on every detail of the notes, right down to the colors used. His works were erected as part of a housing project in Spijkenisse, Holland (near Rotterdam).

fictional bridge color study

fictional bridges notes side by side

The European Bank wanted infrastructural art that would (so to speak) span cultures and nationalities, thus avoided mimicking existing structures in the semi-abstracted bridges on their new banknotes.

fictional bridges from banknotes

fictional bridge holland design

While they may look garish in color and strange in scale at first glance, pedestrians, cyclists and visitors reportedly appreciate them once they understand the unusual story behind their creation.

fictional bridge design diagram

fictional bridge illustration

More from their designer: “On the first of January 2002 new banknotes were introduced in Europe. In addition to windows and gateways, these seven banknotes also depict several bridges. Each bridge has an individual appearance, all of which can be recognized as having originated throughout certain periods in European cultural history: Classical Antiquity, the Roman period, the Gothic period, the Renaissance, Baroque and Rococo, Iron- and glass architecture and lastly contemporary, twentieth century architecture. Now wouldn’t it be amazing if these fictional bridges suddenly turn out to actually exist in real life?”

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[ By WebUrbanist in Architecture & Public & Institutional. ]

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