Artist Research

EMPIRE

ANDY WARHOL

Empire is an eight hour and five minute long film consisting purely of continuous slow motion footage of the Empire state building. It was produced and directed by Andy Warhol in 1964. The sheer length of this movie makes us really consider what film is. Upon watching it we are forced to observe in a way which humans are unaccustomed to doing and therefore we see deeper than just the surface. That is the brilliance of 'Empire' by Andy Warhol. It opens up another vision of the world and we begin to realize things that we would not have previously passed our mind.

THE MAN OF THE CROWD 

Edgar Allan Poe Photographer

'The Man of the Crowd' is a short story written by Edgar Allan Poe about a narrator who follows a man through the crowded London. The key part of this story to me is the emphasis of namelessness and observation. The narrator is nameless and he finds himself in a nameless coffee shop observing other people and his surroundings before focusing on the 'Man of the Crowd'. This emphasis on namelessness takes away a key specific of a story and gets the reader to search deeper than just the surface to uncover the world they are being presented with. This brings in the aspect of observation that is so contextually prominent in this story. To uncover the mysteries of the world and learn our surroundings we must stop being part of our surroundings and simply observe them, which is exactly what the 'nameless' narrator in this story does.

 

SWANDOWN

Andrew Kotting

'Swandown' is a 2012 film made by and starring Iain Sinclair and Andrew Kotting. The film consists of the two men taking a pedalo swan from the Hasting seaside to Hackney in London via the inland waterways. The film documents their journey and experiences and is a perfect example of flaneuring. The two men do not know what they are going to encounter they are simply wondering in the boat and taking life as it comes, observing time and their surroundings and everything that happens around them in the course of their journey.

 

ROBERT FRANK

Photographer

Robert frank is a photographer who was born in 1924. He is particularly famous for writing the book  'The Americans'. As a photographer Frank had a different outlook on the way in which an observer would view the American way of life and a more stripped back one at that. He removed the traditional high class glamorous front that is so pushed by the media and instead showed a more realistic, grungy America. His work led him all over America photographing different people and situations and essentially experiencing life as it happened whilst documenting it with his camera. Through this flaneuring he effectively delved below the surface and revealed a more true to life America and one that can be seen reoccurring through his thousands of photographs.