Firework displays are an art! By Claire Jourdet & Florine Charachon

People who create firework displays (spending many hours and much money in the process!) give huge performances to the delight of spectators. But, they are not considered artists. And why is a firework display not considered an art form in itself?

Fireworks are a class of explosive pyrotechnic devices used for aesthetic, cultural, and religious purposes. Fireworks competitions are regularly held everywhere. Fireworks take many forms to produce the four primary effects: noise, light, smoke and floating materials (confetti for example.) They may be designed to burn with flames and sparks of many colours, like red, orange, yellow, green, blue, purple, silver and gold.

The earliest documentation of fireworks is dated back to the 7^th century in China, where they were invented. They were used in many festivities. It is a part of the culture of China and many legends include fireworks. Important events and festivities such as the Spring Festival (Chinese New Year) and the Mid-Autumn Festival were and still are times when fireworks are at the heart of celebrations. China is the largest manufacturer and exporter of fireworks in the world.

Fireworks play a key role in the most popular events of our modern world: an obvious example is the Olympic Games. In the opening ceremonies, fireworks are set off across the stadium when an athlete declares the games open. In the closing ceremonies, fireworks appear once again when the Olympic flame is put out. Fireworks are an unforgettable part of the event for hundreds of millions of people. They are artistic masterpieces surely?

Art is a diverse range of human activities and the products of those activities, usually involving imaginative or technical skill. According to this definition, fireworks and firework displays can be described as a real art form, and their creators as artists!

Some critics say fireworks are a way to burn money... But the pyrotechnic display that took place in broad daylight in Doha, Qatar, recently impressed all art lovers: Black Ceremony is the work of Cai Guo-Qiang, a Chinese national based in New York City and the world’s foremost fireworks artist. It kicked off his exhibition at the Arab Museum of Modern Art in the Qatari capital. He showed off his undeniable talent even though a daytime fireworks display might be considered by sceptics as an odd choice. The use of pastel-colours and black smoke made it an original performance. Cai also impressed millions of people with his fireworks display at the opening ceremony of the Beijing Olympics, and with his magnificent 4^th of July fireworks in New York City. And, as the fastest growing economy in the world, spending money on a daytime fireworks exhibit was no gamble for Qatar. Mayassa Bint Hamad al Thani, from the museum, said: “I thought it was spectacular. We are talking about doing a second show!”

Fireworks are at the heart of so many shows, paintings, photographs, and songs (like Katy Perry’s ‘Fireworks’ music video), it is about time firework “entertainers” were recognized as genuine artists!

Optical illusions! By Marion Nairabeze, Maëlle Rivalier & Camille Simonet

Click on this! http://www.michaelbach.de/ot/

First, look at these optical illusions:

 Who do you see? Monroe or Einstein?

Is it Gala or Lincoln?

An old couple or a guitarist and a woman?

What do you see?

In what direction is the train going? Difficult to guess, right?

Second, a short explanation of how vision works for curious people:

Click on this! http://www.acnr.co.uk/pdfs/volume6issue2/v6i2visual.pdf

Optical illusions are misperceptions of form, color, size or movement of objects. They are, for the eye, an altered perception of reality.

The eyes behave more or less like a camera. The eye has a diaphragm, an iris which lets in more or less light as it opens or closes. Behind the iris, a deformable lens, called the crystalline, allows the images to be formed on a sensitive membrane: the retina

The retina consists of rods and cones. Cones allow diurnal vision (color). There are three types of cones, receptive to red, green, blue. Rods allow night vision.

Under the influence of the light that enters through the iris, the rods and cones produce small amounts of energy and nerve impulses which are passed on up to the brain by the optical nerve. The brain then analyzes the information.

Optical illusions are errors of interpretation of our brain which tries to give meaning to all the information which is received even if there is none. This results in amplification of contrasts, creating contours, colors, perspectives, reliefs, etc.

Third, an explanation of an illusion:

1) Primary or geometric illusions

These illusions occur when the eye stops only on certain parts of the image (angles, symmetry axes, breaks lines). Then, these areas become more important than others, such as in the Titchener illusion.

2) Effect of angles

We underestimate obtuse angles and overestimate sharp corners because the eye has a tendency to bring the angles to a right angle. In a Zöllner illusion, the lines appear to us deformed because of small lines which are on the big ones. The oblique lines do not seem parallel though they actually are.

The same goes for the Müller-Lyer illusion. The eye does not pay attention to segments but sees first the angles at their end. It appears that one is larger than the other.

 3) Movement  illusion

It turns! It will make us dizzy. Don’t be afraid, you are not hallucinating, you are suffering from an movement illusion. The human eye gets tired fast when it stares at an object for a long time. If, however, we look next to the object, it avoids staring too intensely and the image strikes other segments of the retina which have their full capacity.

4) Artistic illusions

There are three types of artistic illusions. A group that shows illusion drawings gives rise to visual interpretations that are very different from the properties of the elements shown.

Our brain is used to seeing a real head. But here, the head consists of many animals: an elephant, a kangaroo, a bear... So the brain has trouble analyzing this image.

In the following picture we see a tree and the sea, but aren’t they something else? A baby, no?

Each drawing may result in at least two visual mutually exclusive interpretations. The observer can normally voluntarily move from one interpretation to another, once the different interpretations have been identified and given us some clues about the different interpretations.

This cartoon, created by Willian Hill in 1915, is entitled "My mother / My young woman." The image has two possible interpretations: you see the young woman or the old witch. It is sometimes difficult to switch from one to the other!

Impossible groups: different parts of each of the drawings give rise to conflicting interpretations. All items in this category cannot exist, or it would be highly unlikely that they exist in reality.

The Penrose triangle is an impossible object designed by the mathematician Roger Penrose in the 1950s. By the paradox between logic and reality, which extends to other spheres (cultural impossibility), impossible objects thus give rise to mathematical curiosities and artistic inspirations.

Optical illusions and cultures

"The influence of the culture and  of the environment on our visual perception ", this theory was explored for the first time by Robert Laws, a Scottish missionary, working at Malawi in Africa during the 19th century.

Look at this picture:

What do you see? What is the woman carrying on her head? When researchers put this question to African people, they answered “a box”. Then they asked “where does the scene take place?” This person with a culture with few “corners” naturally said that the family was sitting under a tree. We westerners, accustomed to comfort, see a scene which takes place in a room with a window with a view outside.

Finally, optical illusions show that our vision is always a matter of personal interpretation!

If you enjoyed our article, please send us a comment!

Lights!

In the cinema you can arrange the lights in such a way as to leave darkness between the area illuminated by the backlight and the area illuminated by the fill light, depending on how moody you want the shot to be. This works very well and usually the light is always used to enhance the expressions of the characters’ faces. It is the basic technique to put the character “in the spotlight”.

The Cabinet of Dr Caligari

1910s to 1930s

During the latter half of the 1910s, filmmakers adopted two significant new techniques, both derived from other art forms. One was the use of carbon arc spotlights, which had previously been used in theater and which allowed a strong light to be directed from a distance onto a particular actor or area of the set. The other was the use of diffusing screens, which already belonged to the repertoire of the still photographer. Diffusers could be used to transform a hard light into a soft light that did not cast such severe shadows. The increasing use of soft lighting techniques, whether they relied on reflectors or diffusers, had particular benefits for facial lighting. Soft lighting produced more flattering effects and, with the rise of the star system during this decade, it was becoming ever more important to make the actors look attractive. The dark was used to shoot movies with more drama, or for horror movies like Nosferatu by Murneau (1922). In the 1930s movies continued to be in black and white. They only used bright light in order to convey a happy emotion and to shoot comic films. 

The Third Man

1940s

In the 1940s, the techniques were more or less the same as in the 1930s. For example The Third Man by Carol Reed or The Birds by Hitchcock used the same techniques as in the 1930s.

1950s

In the 1950s, many movies ended with a sunset. The directors used really intense lights and filters. Sometimes, six filters were used on the camera, one to control the shadow and the other ones to control the colors.

Ivan's Childhood

1980s

In the 1980s, directors insisted on the landscapes which were lit with the natural light of the sun or really bright spots. They preferred natural elements. The movie Ivan’s Childhood by Tarkovski is the perfect example of this technique. There is a scene where a child goes straight in the marsh and a torch crosses the screen before the sunset.

The Silence of the Lambs

1990s

Using lights of different color temperatures was one of the techniques used. This means using lights of different colors in the same shot. It can be use to reinforce the emotions that the movie director wants to convey. It’s the technique the director of The Silence of The Lambs used to inspire fear when Hannibal Lecter appears… 

A.I.

2000s

One of the most used techniques in the years 2000 was silhouetting. It uses a dark subject and a very bright background to give a mysterious and a dark mood to give suspense. Also, the movies of this decade used a lot of light, especially in action movies like Avatar. In the movie A.I., the light reflects danger and mystery, a feeling of adventure. Then the lights convey hope when the child gets the possibility to talk to his mother. It is an angelic light, a really intense one. The visual elements became really important in the 2000s: the colors and the camera motions. The light has major importance in this decade. The use of a punctual light has an influence on the perception of the visual elements which must captivate the eyes of the spectators.

Lincoln

2010s

The movies of this decade favor grey tones. The movies are dark, like Lincoln by Steven Spielberg. The directors want to tone down colors in their movies. Warm colors have disappeared, the colors used are mostly grey and blue. The light must be blocked because the themes are dark and the directors don’t want the light to undermine this.

Optics

What is optics?

Chiaroscuro

What is chiaroscuro?