Wednesday, October 29, 2014

Sense of Distance

One of very clear reason I started thinking about Distance is because I am very bad at taking good distance with others. That does not mean I have no idea how to live in a kind of society. Maybe sometimes rather I look like very good at communication. But to be honest, because I sometimes very confused and how to keep good distance with even my family or friends, I am trying to measure or observe it.
But that is not so bad, people will get better at living step by step, if they are not genius.
Conversely, Genius is the one who can keep best distance with his/her subject with one action without measuring!

Sunday, October 26, 2014

Ceremony

Sometimes we face unreasonable distance in our life.

When someone who is very important to us passed away, we are not sure what to do.
Till yesterday we believed there are some certain distance between him/her and me, but now is that all gone? Or originally what we believed as steady distance between us, is that just a fantasy?

Anyway, to mitigate such a cruel notification about distance, maybe people invented ceremony.

How to fill the gap, how to cover the distance, that is one of the aspect of ceremony like funeral.

Not only that kind of negative (?) way of filling up the lost distance but also there are way of ceremony that very positively create a new distance like marriage or birth.

In case of facing such kinds of newly created distance, we experience influence of enormous power like a Big Bang, explosion of new power.

Is "Distance" repetitive?

Our life was only one time experience for each, of course.
For example, distance as "love" between a man and a woman is also irreplaceable experience. It acts as a very fresh and only one time experience even though the distance varies depending on the time and even though people will get a bit good at handling of distance after several experience. We cannot repeat or go back.

In that meaning, we are living in an uncontrollable distance world and maybe talking about distance is just an appendix explanation.

But to represent some of the distances in the world is worth showing, because that is beautiful and dramatic as existence. (I am not pointing out the beauty of things themselves but the beauty of distance between things.)

That's why some of excellent art works show a good sense of distance, as deepness, moving, shocking or whatever. And art is repetitive experience. Human being probabley invented Art to represent the distance which is uncontrollable in life.

We cannot repeat Distance. Only in art, we can experience the distance again and again.




"Arthur Newman"

http://arthur-newman.com/


Spoiler Alert.

Story which wanted to tell about,

Distance between a man who (thought) changed his life and a man who was until yesterday.
Distance between a man who lives his own life and a man who was living another one's life
Distance between a man and his son
Distance between a man who had a dream and a man who could not achieve
Distance between a girl and her twin sister
Distance between a man and a girl who are both running away from something

Story sounds like full of distances, but actually each distance was very cheaply assumed distance. Rather we should say, "it seemed a Distance at a glance, but actually it was not" that is what this movie wanted to tell. Reason why this movie looked dull and flat is because it lacks of sense of Distance.
No drama or beautiful athlete movement in describing Distance.

At the end, did they overcome some distance after they notice no meaning of creating fake distance? Not clear.

"Colombiana"

http://www.sonypictures.com/movies/colombiana/

Spoiler Alert.

Story of,

Distance as "mafia family" between a boss and a henchman
Distance as "second family" and "master and pupil" between a girl and an uncle
Distance in a woman as "loneliness" between a killer and a lady
Distance as "love" between a mysterious woman and a steady male artist 
Totally, Distance as "revenge" between a 9 years old girl whose parents were killed in front of her and a grown up lady who ends up her anger

But most important distance may be more particular distance as below.

Distance for 9 years old Cataleya as thrilling and athletic "Runaway" from the home which is occupied by a lot of gangs to Embassy of United States!
Distance as a kind of "Defection" from Colombia to U.S. using data device as passport !
Distance as lonely "Journey" from Washington to Chicago, uncle's home!

How to overcome these apparently unreachable distances, that is the exciting part of this movie. It was as beautiful as an athlete movement.
Escaping from the window frame like high jumper, jumping over the guy like vaulting horse athlete in the market, and hiding into Drainage as a baseball athlete sliding to home base.

After grown up, Cataleya shows also a beautiful athlete movement to overcome unreachable distance at a glance.

Distance from outside to an untouchable Prisoners or Target persons.

Actually Zoe Saldana as Cataleya was so beautiful as an athlete.

Life is full of distance, of course. If showing the Distance just as it is, that is just too much boring.
Whether there are beautiful athlete movement to challenge Distance or not, is that the key for movies?



Sunday, October 19, 2014

distance between I and Giacometti

One of the trigger I started thinking about Distance is an essay about Giacometti.

http://distancology.blogspot.com/2014/10/giacometti.html

By the way, when last time I saw actual his sculpture and when?
I could not recall them.

Instead, I read about Giacometti and even tried to start writing on it!
Is that real image which I based on?
Or an image comprised from some articles which I only read about?

What is the actual distance to actual Giacometti?

How many years passed after I saw one of sculpture by Giacometti?
Where, I mean how many kilo meters away from here I saw that?
And how many kilo meters I can visit from here?
What exists between I and the sculpture?

Well above question is still just distance between I and the Sculpture of Giacometti?

So what is the distance between I and Giacometti himself or his philosophy?



Wednesday, October 15, 2014

Sport

Sorts is Physical Art of Challenging Distance.

Challenge as not only to Cross, Reach or Run away in 1 dimensional, but also to Trick, Fly or Stab in 2 or 3 dimensional as an integration of 1 dimensional basic exercise.

And Sport is Art, so no meaning if not beautiful.

In that.meaning, who can say last night's football game between Japan v.s. Brazil a Sport Game?
That was just like a kids performance at pre-school which was totally lack of philosophy of Distance!

We are really disappointed even with Honda!


Saturday, October 11, 2014

Journey

Journey to cross Distance.

But actually, highlight of journey differs depending on persons.

A) Some regard arriving at destination is just a necessary procedure and how to spend time there is much more important!

B) But for some others, they regard how to reach there is much more important. Sometimes character of the destination is not such important.

Life is of course like a journey.

Some people put preference on the stage they are now on while the others prefer to enjoy what they are now trying.


Monday, October 06, 2014

Money

Money as a distance which enables to exchange one distance with another another.

What a system!?



Language

Distance between you and I, Language is the connection.

Communication, understanding, imagination, happy misunderstanding or others via Language.

Language not only verbal words. Written text or even by body language.

To challenge to cross distance by Language.

In a meaning, thousands of Blogs or Web sites in Internet Space, are the media which tries to connect somebody with another. Sometimes intentionally, sometimes accidentally.



Distance between Known and Unknown......

Medium of distance

Is the space between two objects, substantial or vacant?

Filled with air or liquid or stuffs?
Or totally vacuum space?
Depending on the type of existence, speed to cross that distance taking time.

Linear or Non-Linear world?

There must be some different ways to see our world.

A) World is flat and continuous. Superficial and Linear.
B) World is full of gaps and far from continuous. Full of depth and Non-Linear.

Are these just two different aspects of one same phenomenon?
At least, sometimes changing the view will help us getting a new idea for complicated problem.

And if we call these non-linear spaces which is full of gaps and depth as Distance Space, sometimes differential calculus or integral calculus to the Distance Space may be effective I guess.

By the way is any Distance between view A and view B themselves?

Front and back

Is there any distance between Front of a paper and Back of the paper?
Two sides of things which are totally free from any sense of distance, will cause Distance in a various meaning on receiving side.

Giacometti

http://www.theartstory.org/artist-giacometti-alberto.htm

"In the late 1930s, Giacometti abandoned abstraction and Surrealism, becoming more interested in how to represent the human figure in a convincing illusion of real space. He wanted to depict figures in such a way as to capture a palpable sense of spatial distance, so that we, as viewers, might share in the artist's own sense of distance from his model, or from the encounter that inspired the work. The solution he arrived at involved whittling the figures down to the slenderest proportions."

http://connection.ebscohost.com/c/articles/26853731/distance-detail-apprehension-reality-sculpture-alberto-giacometti

I haven't read above though......

Modern Distance begins from Giacometti in a sense.

100 years calender

There sometimes are a kind of 100 years calender which describes a day with dot.
But you can see total amount of days you are expected to experience by amount of dots.

And my expression on the dots was "that's it?"


http://www.vendian.org/envelope/dir2/dot_a_day/

https://www.typotheque.com/books/the_100-year_calendar

Time is limited everybody knows. But when we see figures that all dots create, we reconfirm what a limited days we need to live.


Season repeats every year based on calender. It seems time rotating in one place.

But actually we are proceeding in one direction, from birth to death.
We better say, we are proceeding in one direction with spiral movement.

Distance between birth and death is so much limited. That is not eternal. And the numbers we can see sun rise are clearly limited. That is even countable.


How should I live in this limited distance as my life??

Difference between Film Camera and Digital Camera

I used to take photos till several years ago by film camera, not by digital camera.
And much earlier period, I liked taking black and white photos and printing myself.

When we take picture by single-lens reflex camera, we see target or scene through finder. The view is almost the same as the one to projected to the film inside camera. But accurately saying, it is not exactly the same.

During the image is being projected to the film, during such a short period, our view from the finder are closed. In a sense, taking photo was an art which will reserve the view at the moment when we close our eyes like a blink......

In another words, we can also say taking picture is a technique to reserve optical movements which we never see.

That's why photos were always full of mysterious attraction.
And the key was that missing short time distance of say 1/60, 1/125 or whatever seconds.
Between I did blink and open my eyes again, world was something like this! that 's what we saw after receiving printed photos which needed some ceremonial procedure.
Recorded optical movements in such a short time distance!

All the photographers are sometimes misunderstood, that they are selling what they saw.
The opposite. Professional photographers were always selling what they didn't see......

Now things are changing so much different.
Because philosophy of Digital camera is totally opposite of that of Film camera.

Everything is too much obvious and no mysterious experience through photo shooting.
Too much exposure makes everything too much flat. No unreasonable attraction, no sense of cultural Eros.

Digital camera is so much convenient and useful, I admit. The time needed it.
But we sometimes better be conscious about how things are changing.

(to be continued......)

Distance between Film camera experience and Digital camera experience
Distance embedded in a photo
Experience of printing in dark room
Distance between Taking pictures and real life

Sunday, October 05, 2014

Meaning of Distance

Of course basic meaning of Distance is considered usually as of one dimensional Length.
But in here, I would like to expand the meaning.

Anything which exists in between two things or events.

Distance
Difference
Gap
Length
Space
Area
Volume
Time
Barrier
Tragedy
Comedy
Tear
Laugh
Emotion (Admiration, Hate, Love, Hope, Despair, ...... so many)

(in random order)

Distance in Movie

Sometimes we meet a movie which strongly moves us, touches our hearts and makes us think so much deep and long.

Why?

Let's set up a hypothesis as below.

  • Our life is full of distance in various meaning and that is the secret of life.
  • And a kind of excellent movie luckily succeed to disclose the distance hidden in our lives in a flat screen.
  • That's why we are moved.

From that kind of view point of Distance, let me try some analysis on some individual movies in this Distancology.

Purpose is not to criticize Movies in here, but to think about Distance in our lives which is full of mysterious events.

By the way, screen in a theater is very flat. And a frame in a film is also flat image.
Technically we can say movie is an art of flatness which will not allow any distance in that flatness, though it includes continuous distance of 1/24 seconds which is an interval of frames.

Friday, October 03, 2014

"When Marnie Was There"

http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/encyclopedia/anime.php?id=15761

Spoiler Alert.

Story of,

Distance as "growing" between a kid and a girl
Distance as "desire of consistency" between inner side of a girl and outer side of a girl
Distance as "twisted friendship" between a girl and her classmates
Distance as "mental conflict" between  a girl with her real parents and she as an adapted child
Distance as "ice" between a girl and her adoptive mother
Distance as "medical leave" between the city and the country
Distance as "escapism" between real circumstances and her peace of mind
Distance as ”bond" between a girl and her best friend
Distance as ”scenery" between real and dream
Distance as "dream" between a girl and whom she wanted to be......
Distance as "secret" between a girl and her grand mother......
Distance as ”encounter" between a girl and her roots......

Oval

Gravity

Form of Distance?

Is Distance a verbOr an adjectiveOr a noun?

Shrodinger's Cat

Triangular Scale

Triangular scale for SI unit is defined for 1:100, 1:150, or others while the one for Feet-Inch unit system is defined like "one inch is assumed to express one foot", something like a metaphor.

Domestic                             International
Human Scale                      Light Speed Scale
Organic                               Inorganic
Intermittent                         Seamless                            
Metaphorical                      Directorical

2000 years

When we call this year by the Christian Era, we imagine 2000 years is a so long time period which we almost cannot imagine the heaviness of this thick years.

But imagine visiting the day car center.

If we bring 20 people of 100 aged ladies or gentlemen, that is the heaviness of 2000 years!

All the wrinkles of those people stand for the thickness of 2000 years!
What a short history we are living in!

Thursday, October 02, 2014

SI unit

Very long time ago, we measure length by our body parts.

Foot
Inch

Of course not only Feet or Inch in Western countries but also similar unit system exists in Asian countries.

(Is there any survey on Traditional Unit system? It must be!)

Anyway, we measured from view point of ourselves.

But now we measure by International code for example by SI unit.

My friend let me know that 1 meter is defined as the distance traveled by light in a vacuum during a time interval of exactly 1/299,792,458 of a second!

Can we suggest that the Gap (=Distance) between Human and Technology may start from the measurement Difference (=Distance) method of "By Part of Human Body" and "By Light Speed"?

"The Interpreter"

http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/interpreter/

Spoiler Alert.

From old memo about a movie which I saw long time ago and remember not 100%.

Interpreter is an actor/actress on the distance between two different language and addition to that usually also between two different culture, two different religion, two different tradition or two different economic systems.

This movie revealed such character so much!

Distance and Record

Why do people like to Record the Distance?

Not only Olympic Games but also how many steps we go per day sometimes we record......

To reach something? Or to be apart from something?

"Changeling"

http://www.changelingmovie.net/

Spoiler Alert.

Distance between a mother and her missing child was "Hope"......



"Million Dollar Baby"

http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/million_dollar_baby/

Spoiler Alert.

This is the story of the Distance as below. Distance as "Jump" from poor girl to millionaire who earn by fight money
Distance as "Conflict" between amateur girl and professional trainer
Distance as "Guiltiness" between the trainer and the previous boxer
Distance as "total gap" between a father who feels guilty with his family and his that family
Distance as "Unreasonable alienation" for the girl who is totally keen on happiness about her family from that very family who do not care about the girl's thoughtfulness
Distance as "consciousness" between the girl and her routs
Distance as a "Fall" between a successful girl and the one just one step before succeeding......
Distance as "confronting" between a girl just waiting for death and a man who suffers with guiltiness of her tragedy
Distance as "Moral" between pain of living and the death
Distance as "Run away" between a man and the very same person who crossed some boundary of that Moral Boundary......
Distance as "Eternal Farewell" between a father and his family......

First of all, Boxing is the sport of kind of Ultimate Distance. Distance which one's punch can reach to the others!

"My Architect"

http://www.myarchitectfilm.com/

Spoiler Alert.

In a sense, this is the movie of,

distance between Father and Son,

distance between wife and mistress,
distance between professional architect and a father,
distance between single mother and his son,
distance between star architect and his surroundings,
distance between Nathaniel's young age and what he is now
distance among children born of different mothers

Beautiful movie.


Introduction

To think about "Distance".

To provide a Hint to measure "Distance" in our so much confused present world

To measure invisible "Distance" in Culture, Human Relationship, Art or Secret in our Lives!

Distance between I and somebody else
Distance in relationship in family, community or society
Distance in not only physical space but also cultural or mental context

Distance is Possibility of Seeing.

"Distance is Possibility of Seeing."

Quote from the book, which long time ago I read. (sorry, soon, I will try to add book information)

This sounds very optimistic and full of suggestions!

Distance is never the buffer zone to separate the world. Totally opposite. It is actually possibility of Hope for new events!