Sunday 18 November 2007

In Rainbows

Good evening everyone. I'm usually apologizing for a lack of updates, and I could continue this trend but beating a dead horse isn't very fun. I'm in that last year of school where you have to decide what the hell you want to do with your life and apparently there is a lot of work to go along with that. Had a nice holiday in the form of a school trip to Italy, it was real nice to be somewhere else for a while. Plenty of shots on flickr from that trip, and there'll probably be more come Christmas when I get a full account. Here are some pretty examples:






So with my mind still in other places and boat loads of work ahead of me, LEGO has essentially been put on the back burner. I haven't even really been keeping up on most everybody else's work. So far be it for me to try and keep you posted and informed on current works, when I myself am not. This would be a post where brickshelf's random feature is highly lucrative and ideal - however the days where said feature would be ideal and the days where said feature actually produce ideal results must run on separate calenders. Instead, I did indeed find a recent piece. A piece, as in one, so I'll try and make this long winded.

I don't really think the Arvo brothers have actually ever made anything that on some level (most often on many) I don't love. I choose the term love over like here because there's a hint of jealously and admiration, as opposed to just general interest. Their recent make of Giger's Alien is creepy, smooth, and organic and inorganic in the same TV dinner. There's a certain feeling in this, and most arvo pieces, that every element put into place on the final model is the only one that would work. Every element flows so well that you stop looking at the model as a collaboration of different shaped ABS blocks and more as something that has been sculpted. Each section moves so seamlessly into the next that the model transcends its own medium - which I believe is a concept I've ushered as one of instant gratification on this blog. Adding to this is the idea that the build itself still isn't enough. If the Arvos had simply built this Alien, posed it in some classical contrapposto with less movement than a mortared brick and taken the photos in a gloomy basement apartment with the flash on - chances are it would still be seen as a high point of building achievement. That, however, is not what we get. What we get is an Alien in some sort of dynamic post-kill contemplating pose (with drool for extra glam) captured with such beautiful photographs that even if I put the Lego builder in me aside, the photographer in me steps forward to give worship. All this knowing how hard black Lego bricks are to photograph.

True to Giger's vision (award for the most phallic head ever), the Arvo's produce another stunning work. And with that I'll probably be silent for sometime again, so if you would mind Laura, get me home tonight.

2 comments:

Andrew B. said...

Fantastic analysis of the Arvo brothers' Alien. This is why I read your blog.

Anonymous said...

Thanks for your words...Sincerely, thanks!