The photo I took myselft to use was the hanging bar light.
Images:
https://www.pexels.com/photo/professional-tennis-match-in-large-stadium-30088684/
https://unsplash.com/photos/a-pool-table-in-a-bar-with-a-neon-sign-pGOtOSCYSr4
https://www.pexels.com/photo/billiard-balls-on-the-billiard-table-7403819/
https://www.pexels.com/photo/billiard-balls-on-blue-table-7403779/
https://www.pexels.com/photo/close-up-of-pool-balls-on-a-green-table-32095963/
https://www.pexels.com/photo/close-up-shot-of-black-8-ball-on-pool-table-32095954/
https://www.pexels.com/photo/people-playing-billiards-6253703/
https://www.pexels.com/photo/photograph-of-a-group-of-friends-playing-billiards-7403837/
https://stock.adobe.com/images/brown-glass-beer-bottles-with-black-cap/255954163?prev_url=detail
https://www.pexels.com/photo/green-glass-bottles-on-wooden-surface-3660307/
This work by Landry Hutchens, they created a billiards table scene through re-working a tennis game! The composition is relying a lot on the viewer being drawn into the middle of the photograph. What Landry is trying to show off is the billiards game, or at least it reads this way. They played with proportions making the billiards table to be larger than life, but the people playing the game were the same relative size to everyone else in the stands. Lighting is highly important too. The overhead lamp placed here encourages the viewer to look underneath, the spot light is on the table and game below, even drawing the viewer away from the people in the stands. The lighting was played with on sections of the crowd to match the new lighting that was placed in the image. The creator listed all required links for the sources.
ReplyDeleteFor those reasons, I believe that the conversation that is happening here is the fact that billiards is a game to be given attention to. I know in the comments and description the switch was made to create a juxtaposition of this normally labeled dive bar game, one that isn’t refined, and the essence of tennis that is more of a privileged people sport. However, for me, it reads as if the billiards game is an important game to pay attention to as it is a game of male dominance. The lighting is making us look directly at this game. It’s a popular trope in the media of two male characters being at this crappy bar and they play pool to win this who's manlier contest. A spitting contest of who can be better. The arena being from a tennis game is secondary and from my perspective, a little irrelevant, thus why I read the setting being placed in this arena alludes to the idea of respect demanded from these said men’s dominance games. That society is front and center to the power games men have. Especially focusing on negatives, i.e. drinking, bar culture, and so on. Why is this the case? The lighting and concentration on the game in the middle.
I truly think this piece is content rich for the fact that I was able to take a different meaning than what was intended from the artist. The piece makes one think, and ponder on what is trying to be said. However, it’s not believable for obvious reasons. The gargantuan pool balls in reference to the humans. I will also say that I don’t think that this offers a solution to the question given to us through the assignment. This is more of a displacing one thing to expand on a thought. Architecture is mainly seen through the setting of the arena but nothing else. Possibly through creating the pool table to be an architectural element rather than just being a thing in space, but even then, I feel like it doesn’t answer the call. Technical skill-wise it’s done really well and blended together nicely. IT feels like the billiard table was built into the ground of this arena.
The commentary here is about social issues. From the perspective of the creator the lines between good celebrated games to less than favorable ones. It was a juxtaposition that is being explored here. Although, through some research, billiards was created for nobles and kings who did not want to play a game similar to croquet outside on the floor. So I think that creates an interesting dichotomy that can speak to the increased need to find more sophisticated games and ways to pass time for the privileged.
Overall the work is meant for the viewers to pay attention to the game that is being played in the middle. The meaning shifts depending on the viewer and how the game of billiards is seen by them. Lighting/value was highly important to the piece to achieve the viewer’s eye to fall to the middle, including the framing of the stadium. The social critique is there, however, i think it lacks architectural blending like the assignment asked for.