Posts Tagged ‘Popova’
UNI [SITE + MOTION] – RODCHENKO/POPOVA: DEFINING CONSTRUCTIVISM
May 19th, 2009 | Richard Almond
Half-way through this animation project, I went to the Tate Modern’s Rodchenko + Popova: Defining Constructivism exhibiton.
This deeply inspiring collection of paintings by Liubov Popova and media artwork by Alexandr Rodchenko is one of the best I’ve seen. The graphical style of Rodchenko seems the precursor to the software we use today. In his Photo-Montages, the physical layering of colour, images and type relate directly to the digital layering systems we now use in the likes of Photoshop and InDesign. The work, however, has an authentic hand-made charm that simply cannot be replicated with a computer. Posters from the early 1900′s were some of the very first non-western advertisements, and show clear differences in style, being heavily influenced by Russian Constructivism. The high-contrast greyscale images, used with powerful primary colours and the aggressive Russian alphabet condure up a sense of nostalgia even from those born decades after his death.
I couldn’t help but see similarities between the forms in Popova’s paintings and my photographs of the studio space. Popova’s paintings are incredibly architectural, and possess a strong sense of 3-dimensionality. The sharp, angular geometry reminded me of the looming rooflights in the studio, and being thoroughly roused by the exhibition, I felt I had to incorporate some of this inspiration into my work.
Throughout the process of constructing my Flash animation I was continously reminded of the Constructivism exhbition by the fortuitous imagery that occured. In particular, when creating masks to limit an animation to the area of a window – see the image below.
After a lot of consideration, I feel I’ve settled on a suitable method of integrating some of this Constructivist imagery into my animations. In briefly isolating the glass in greyscale from each scene during the transition to the next, I’ve achieved some of the intended aesthetic whilst further reinforcing the concept of the windows as the focus of each scene.
