XIII:

PHOTOGRAPHY,
CINEMA & THE
NEW ART FORM

PHOTOGRAPHY

 Photography is the art or process of

producing images through the use of
light- sensitive chemical plate or film.
It refers to an imprecise category of
photographs, created in accordance with
the creative vision of the cameraman.

 The basic idea behind the genre, is that instead

of merely capturing a realistic rendition of the
subject, the photographer is aiming to produce
a more personal - typically more evocative or
atmospheric - impression.
Photography evolved from the camera
obscura, an instrument that projected an image
through a small hole, allowing the artist to
make an accurate tracing of an object or scene.

PHOTOGRAPHY IN
THE PHILIPPINES
Functions:
Portraiture
Travel
Research
News
Documentation
Propaganda
Advertising
Fashion
Beauty pageant coverage
Artist tool
Art Medium

The practice of photography in

the Philippines was not without
the influence and influx of
Western-art concepts into the
colonized archipelago.

 Photography and painting are alike. Both are

two- dimensional. The artists hands make the
image while photographers select their subject
and use light to produce their image.
Photographers can make many creative
decisions about film development, printing and
can even add drawing or color by hand. The
process is mechanical and uses chemical
effects.

 Video artists and film makers also use photography to

record images and they ay combine visual effects
with dramatic action, narrative and music. Many
painters and sculptures used photographs to decrease
the amount of time their subjects were required to
pose. Digital art is versatile. It can use video,
photography or traditional methods of drawing. The
works may be printed and displayed like any drawing
or photographs or they remain as is to be viewed on
computer screens.

Lynching in Marion, Indiana (1930)

A mob of 10,000 whites broke down
the doors at a county jailhouse to
seize these two young negros
accused of raping a white girl.

CINEMA

 Cinema is the most popular of all art today. Of

all arts, cinema or film has the broadest
audience. There are millions of moviegoers all
over the Philippines. Most of them patronize
Filipino movies. Cinema or movies, also called
films, have many types: cartoons,
commercials, industrial films, documentaries,
educational films and even home movies.

 The cinema is a form of communication. It is a

way of conveying ideas, attitudes, feelings and
fantasies to the moviegoers through a series of
images. These images or pictures
photographed by a movie camera are projected
on the surface of a screen. Cinema uses three
elements: time, space and sound. It can repeat,
extend, abbreviate or reverse time and events
on screen without danger of being labeled
unreal.

 We can move around in the physical space

around us but spaces on the screen is flat. Our
perception of depth is only an illusion but it
can do things what real space cannot. It can
divide space, expand it, abolish distances or
shorten them. Sound is produced differently
from sound in the theater. The dialogue on the
stage is continuous while film makes use of
silence and theme melodies.

New Art Forms:

Performance Art and
Installation

A. Performance Art
Two performing artists, Gilbert and George
Passmore, became their own works of art. The
two artists performed their much repeated
piece, Singing Sculptures, in slow motion to a
recording of an old English music, Hall Song.
By describing themselves as living
sculptures, Gilbert and George explored the
transitional ambiguity between living and nonliving, between illusion and reality.

B. Installation
Installation is a three- dimensional ensemble of
objects from the environment using indigenous
and found material put together as temporary
works of art. Installation only lasts as long as
the materials and objects used last. Some
installations are degradable and will eventually
succumb to natural elements.

 Laurice Anderson made a multimedia

performance art. She used photography,
video film, and music. Her message,
delivered in spoken narrative, is political
and social.

 Luis Yee Jr. (Junyee) made temporary installations

from natural discards gathered from his Los Banos
surroundings. He transformed forest waste into
artificial without concern for performance as he says:
Everything in this world will pass away. By
borrowing elements from sculpture, architecture and
theater, he creates environmental art. Wood Things is
an installation of objects made of Kapok pods and dry
banana stalks. His body of work implicitly states his
conviction regarding unity of art and life, and the
harmony between man and environment.