Ephemeral Situations (fireworks & doves), Awarded
It’s always a bit strange to get so many random emails about great work, and so often there’s not enough time to really explore. Today, though, I’m glad I took a couple minutes to look this over.
The Szpilman Award is awarded to works that exist only for a moment or a short period of time. The purpose of the award is to promote such works whose forms consist of ephemeral situations.
Above, Péter Szabó lit fireworks and fired confetti-canons and smoke-machines for the workers who arrived early in the morning at factories and a bus-station in Romania and Hungary. As some of these factories were to be shut down soon, his labor of love towards the stressed and worried workers appears almost like an alien artistic ritual in the midst of a hopeless daily routine.
The winner of the award, Jaroslav Kyša uses doves as living barriers in the city of London by secretly scattering their favourite fodder in front of shops or across busy streets.
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Interesting choice for the filmers of “the barrier”. It seems candid, almost as if it was taken on a phone. I think it’s part of it. I wonder if this was the submission video.
I really enjoy the surprise element in fireworks. It must have been such a mundane place to walk to (most of the time).
It makes me want more video documentation of things.
It also makes me want to play with fireworks, I think.
But, back to the idea of documentation — what do you like best in documentation? The process? Photos, video, interviews? Just final “products” so to speak? Physical copies of things, or is digital enough?
These are both pretty fantastic indeed.
Documentation is a good subject. For filming’s sake: I used to film and edit a lot more than I have in recent, although I remember quite enjoying the process of filming in a moment of presence.
Maybe it’s a satisfactory thing because one knows while filming that once it’s on the the net, someone will probably enjoy the video. For me, I enjoy seeing things in motion as well. Although with filming and editing, it gives me the excuse to utilize sound or music; which is a model for viewing that if done correctly, I quite enjoy. I’m sure something silent can enhance a viewing experience as well, but for viewing models’ sake, music is fun.
I think there’s a balance with photography accompanied by writing, and a video post accompanied by writing. Time and place I guess. Or whatever one feels compelled to do is always fun.