The Wilfrid

Not even a year ago Nancy and François had purchased a 175 year old farmhouse complete with 4 acres of land and a couple of barns with the vision of transforming the former dairy farm into a stylish, country getaway from the city. Situated in Prince Edward County (beaches! vineyards!) within weekend escape distance from Montreal and Toronto, The Wilfrid Boutique Farmhouse was open for its first season this spring.  Feeling particularly adult I decided to book a treat yo' self weekend and savour the country flavour.

Nancy and François really outdid themselves with the renovation of the farmhouse.  Opening up and streamlining the space for large common areas and creating three awesome guest rooms (oh and the shower!!) while maintaining the cozy county feel incited many ohhs and ahhs from me.  From the reclaimed sliding barn doors (from uh...their barn!) that leads to the crisp ensuite bathroom, to the pulleys holding the light fixtures, the attention to detail was apparent everywhere.  

After cocktails we strolled down the road to Long Dog Vinyard and Winery for some wine tasting and met the lovely owners James and Victoria.  We learned that James was involved in IMAX movie-making and that they would soon be rolling out the last IMAX movie to be shot on film.  Nooooooo! Say it ain't so!!!!  I get it, film is dead and dying and all that.  But I was secretly holding on to the idea that this crazy 70mm format would survive the transition.  Appreciating our film-nerdiness James gifted us with a couple of frames of this glorious medium.

After our last delicious and filling breakfast, we poked around the barns, played around a really old looking tractor and paid the hens a visit to gather some eggs before heading back down the 401.

During our weekend we toted around a Fuji Instax camera that is provided by the Wilfrid for guests to document their stay with the condition that we leave one image behind; creating a photographic guestbook at the farmhouse.

Kevin Ledo & 5800 Harold

Kevin Ledo is at it again.  This time with two massive pieces for 5800 Harold, apartment residences in Hollywood, California.  I checked out the in-progress canvases, one 7'x20' and the other 7'x30' (holy moly!) each featuring astral bodies rendered in paint and gold leaf.  See that shine in the image above?  That's not just any old photographic hot-spot-that's the shine of the leaf itself.

Ledo set up camp in Sid Lee's very cool multi-purpose space which had multiple rooms each thematically dedicated to some of my favourite film directors.

A quote from David Lynch, excerpted from a piece the director wrote for the Huffington Post on his obsession with coffee.

A quote from "A Clockwork Orange"

This is a quote from Jean-Luc Godard, but has been used often in describing the non-linear style of Michel Gondry.

A Sergio Leone quote from Spaghetti Westerns: Cowboys and Europeans from Karl May to Sergio Leone.

 A Hitchcock quote from a 1960 BBC interview.

Loved the lighting in the Hitchcock room

Admittedly when I first saw the name, my mind first jumped to Roy Andersson, which wouldn't be that much of a stretch given both directors' absurdist tendencies.  But indeed this quote is from Wes Anderson's Darjeeling Limited.

Kevin and I found this gold box next to a red cord.  It was thematically appropriate with his painting.

This photo ensued:

#10ansvaleriedumaine

Last night Montreal designer Valérie Dumaine held a presentation for her fw13 collection and treated the guests with an accompanying retrospective of her past ten years.  Ten years already!? Time flies...

Above is a compilation of stills from the evening's the projected imagery created by experimental filmmaker Karl Lemieux.

Valtari Mystery Film Experiment

Ok, let's get meta for the end of the year.
That was my tweet on the 9th of December for the Sigur Rós Valtari mystery film experiment screening.  During that weekend of December 7-9, more than a hundred screenings of the project were taking place on all seven continents.  The screening for Montreal was at the more than awesome Phi Centre, where guests viewed 16 shorts inspired by the tracks on the band's latest album Valtari.

And the result? Let's discuss!
The premise was to give the filmmakers creative freedom.  Neither the band nor the filmmakers knew the content of anyone else projects. Knowing this, it is interesting to observe overall themes and imagery that came out of the shorts.

The album Valtari consists of 8 tracks, some of which were used as the sole guide to the video or two or three songs were compiled to create a longer piece.  The most dominant track was "varúð", which was featured in five of the videos.  Overall feel/conjured imagery: atmospheric is a given, moody, end of the world as we know it/economic collapse aesthetic.
Examples:

film #15: varúð by björn flóki

 film #16: leaning towards solace by floria sigismondi

 film #14: valtari by christian larson

Another dominant theme was nature (surprise!)  The sweeping sounds of Sigur Rós dares you not to conjure images of (Icelandic?) landscapes full of dollies and pans of forests and celestial montages.
Examples:

film #8: dauðalogn by henry jun wah lee

film #11: dauðalogn by ruslan fedotow

film #10: ekki múkk by nick abrahams

The films varied in themes, styles and production values.  The music lends itself easily to dance/performance and is represented by 5-6 shorts in the series (depending on your personal interpretation.)

Two dance/performance pieces from top: film #7: varðeldur by melika bass and film #13: varðeldur by clare langan

But things start getting tricky when a narrative is applied; such as leaning towards solace by Floria Sigismondi.  Being a fan of her work since the nineties, I was surprised at the heavy handed voice-over and certain clichéd imagery.  The video featured Elle Fanning and John Hawkes; two actors whose faces and expressions I could stare at for hours, but with the already emotional Sigur Rós track, the extra maudlin touches lacked subtlety that could have taken the clip to the next level.

Floria was not alone in the heavy narrative catagory, but somehow film #9: seraph by Dash Shaw and John Cameron Mitchell fared a bit better.  Maybe because it was an animation.  You be the judge.

But enough with being critical- let's talk about coincidences!  As mentioned earlier, there was no conferring between the directors or the band.

The carving/drawing with glass and making eyes.

Seen in film #3 fjögur píanó by alma har'el and film #9, mentioned above.

Removing peeling paint from walls
seen from top: film #15: varúð by björn flóki and film #14: valtari by christian larson

 

People crying (even in the same aspect ratio!)
from top: film #4: rembihnútur by arni & kinski and film #3: fjögur píanó by alma har'el and yes that is Shia Leboeuf getting all performance art on us.

There is also blonde haired girls with gemstones glued to the corner of thier eyes, plenty of animals, New York City, and snowfall/rainfall. But please feel free to treasure hunt for those yourselves!

I'll take this moment to mention one of my personal faves, a short that features a body covered in what looks like gooey marshmallow, shot in negative?

 film #12: fjögur píanó by anafelle liu, dio lau and ken ngan

That's it for me! Wishing you lots of food, art, film and fashion awesomeness in the new year!
Amusez-vous!

Eastern Bloc: Data Salon II

I'm a little late to the posting party. Things got busy, but it's never too late to share!

Sometime back I went down to the Eastern Bloc to check out Data : Salon II, featuring the works of Alexandre Larose and Félix & Paul.  The evening was an off-site presentation in conjunction with the "Looking through time" event organised by McGill University’s Moving Image Research Laboratory.  

Félix&Paul presented two 3D works and judging by the image above, there is no way I can do it any justice without sticking a pair of 3D glasses on you!  And yes, that is the head of a caribou.  This is a still from the film "Kobe" that was shot in and around Igloolik (yes, that is the arctic!) revolving around a young boy and his daily life.  In case you're expecting the caribou head to come out and jump off the screen as we've come to know commercial 3D films, let me assure you that is not the case.  In fact it is the inverse that takes place, the depth of space is what is most remarkable here, alas, I can only describe it to you!

Above, “Aller/Retour” is Alexandre Larose's film installation/performance of one mega film loop that passes through each of the four 16mm projectors, displaying four images following each other through time and space.  Larose moves back and forth between the projectors, maintaining the tension of the loop and compensating for the not perfectly sync 24fps vintage beasts.

Some seating, placed with a slight curve to reduce the parallel distortion of the projectors.

The projectors, some gobo stands and the giant loop! Projectors also placed on a slight curve to compensate for distortion.

Close-up of the loop at work. Rad!

I like GIFs, Larose at work