time is funny

After a screening in Moscow, Russia, in official selection of the Golden Knight (Zolotoy Vitiaz) Film Festival, film Self-Portrait will take part in NAFF, Neum Animated Film Festival (July 28 - August 04), Bosnia and Herzegovina, and BUSHO, Budapest Short Film Festival (September 03-07), Hungary.

Ako vas put navede u Berlin, ne tražite znamenitosti i ne gledajte u mapu. Za razliku od ostalih prestonica jasno omeđenih u vremenu i sa definisanim simbolima, prestonica koje možete zamisliti gledajući im razgledice, Berlin postoji isključivo između redova svoje istorije: u pauzama, prećutkivanjima, u neuglednim ćoškovima, u prljavim labudovima… Upravo zato, ovaj grad vas ne proziva, ne očekuje ništa, a postepeno vas osvaja cele – nalik na ružne i harizmatične ljude – svojom bezmernom lakoćom. Tri utiska:

(1) crnoplave ptičice, brojne poput vrabaca i golubova (čemu tražiti ime kad je tu olovka);

(2) ljuljaške kod Mauer parka, dok ulični bend u mrklom mraku svira jezivo dobar Jazz a naokolo se puštaju zmajevi i skupljaju drangulije sa obližnje buvlje pijace;

(3) naši Couch Surfing domaćini, Claudia i Romina, koje su nas obe primile kao da smo stari prijatelji.

Četvrti i ostale potražite ovde i ovde.

In the just released Encyclopedia of Information Communication Technology, edited by Antonio Cartelli, you can find an article of Milan and me about software agents, written more then a year ago. (See the list of contributors.)

Self-Portrait entered the Red Stick International Animation Festival in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, USA. Festival stated that they received “entries from 30 countries, and the quality of work was extremely strong”, so only the small number of films were chosen for screening.

“The Red Stick International Animation Festival is an exciting community event that converges the worlds of technology, art, entertainment and exploration. Though artists have always used the tools of their time, at no time since the Renaissance has there been a similar convergence of science and art. Artists draw and paint with computers, and scientists convey their complex theories in color and motion. The 2008 Red Stick International Animation Festival highlights this convergence celebrating art, motion, and exploration in downtown Baton Rouge April 16-19, 2008.”

Also, Self-Portrait will be screened at official selection programmes of Athens Video Art Festival (April 11-13) and Naoussa International Short Film and Video Festival (May 7-11), both in Greece.

(Between us, what is it with me to create things that Greek people like?! This is the 5th Greek festival that accepts one of my films.)

ASCII portrait of my J.

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“Code is poetry.”

– wordpress.org

Our frisbee club has a good old tradition of writing frisbee-philosophy oriented haiku poems. (See one of the earlier posts, in Serbian.) But, using words is just one way to write it. You can also draw, film, compose or even program your haikus. Draw and film OK, you say, but program – it just sounds weird. Well, wait till you hear about Processing, a beautiful programming tool for visual artists and designers. But first, let me say something about these little drawings in grayscale, my visual frisbee haiku.

Seeing your dear flying disc getting entangled in the branches and leaves can be painful sometimes. Yet, sometimes it can strangely become a game of it’s own, enjoyable for you and hopefully the tree. Imagine your friends and you throwing discs through some old grapevine, laughing, running, climbing, again and again… I’ve tried to capture the contours of such an adventure on my first helloworldish Processing sketch, also making a haiku wordplay with an old soul classic.

And HERE it is.

As you can see, these digital drawings are computer generated: shapes and shades are nothing more then a plain old Java code. A little random number here, a little ellipse function there, and – here you have a little applet-based visual haiku poem: haikapplet! I must admit I watched it for about half an hour, being hypnotized by it’s ever-changing pictures and generative design that is always different.

Yet, this little haikapplet is nothing compared to what can you create with Processing. In short, it is a tool for programming visual art. An open project initiated by two great designers, programmers and MIT students, Ben Fry and Casey Reas. See some of the projects made by Processing here. Personally, I was always being skeptical about computer generated art – it just looked too cold, precise and non-human to me. But seeing certain personal, warm, even touching works by some brilliant artists, such as Jared Tarbell or Jonathan Harris, made me change my mind and give Processing a chance.

Besides the art making, I believe it could make a revolution in science education. Imagine elementary school girls and boys using basic physics laws and mathematical functions to create marvelous, colorful and inspirational drawings, animations, and interactive graphics! I see some pretty artworks as presents, new teenage loves and well-deserved first kisses. If teachers could see the potential of Processing and alike, in twenty years we may have more scientists and artists then Big Brother fans…

Yes, I know, but let me dream…

Self-Portrait, a short animated film, will be shown at Animfest 08 – European Animation Festival in Athens, Greece (programme). It entered the New European Short Films 2007-2008 non-competitive selection, among the 20 best new animated films in Europe.

Event will be held in Athens, from 13th until 16th of March 2008, at Trianon Filmcenter.

The Tale of a Town, a short animated film of mine created four years ago, is now part of the HDFEST, digital cinema festival online. In past years, film won several awards and took part in domestic and international film festivals. You can see it’s HDFEST page here.

Marisa Cohen, representative of the festival, stated:

“The Tale of a Town really is of extremely high quality and everyone in HDFEST thinks it would be a great fit. We were extremely impressed with your work.”

The film shows a poetic creation of the city of Pančevo, a small town near Belgrade in Vojvodina, Serbia, with 850 years tradition. But, much more then that, it is a tale of the timeless joy of creating and not letting anyone be your guide except yourself. Just like the sunflower in the film, you should not follow the Sun – you should become the Sun instead.

On the other hand, the film implicitly speaks about the thing it doesn’t show: in reality, Pančevo is an immensely polluted town with incapable politicians and depressed citizens. The contrast of the warmness and fairytale-like colors of the film and the sorrowful, gray and dangerous reality gives it a bitter-sweet aftertaste, yet more bitter then sweet…

“I like my town, with a little drop of poison…”

– Tom Waits

Every end of winter, my secret favorite season, brings me few shades of a reminiscence.

This winter’s most beautiful day was one of those when Sun is as hot as in late spring afternoons and snow is as white as in tales of our grandmothers. On that day, Srdjan, Vuk and me brought some fruits, vegetables, and cameras, and we played for many hours. On a big sparkling-white plane we sculptured a fragile yet handsome snowlady, with a wild hair and smooth round breasts. Sunset brought the cold and made us go…

Only few minutes passed. A pig-like boy showed up and destroyed our little goddess, pushing and kicking her snowbody in meaningless rage. And so, he learned a lesson or two about messing with other people’s artworks, while we learned a lesson or two about the necessity of loving the ephemeral.

End of the day: “Šaran” tavern, mulled wine, long talks, and a little beggar gypsy girl, approaching our table.

“Coin or two, please…” “Would you ever destroy a snowman, little one?” “Uhm.. no…” “Take this then… and good luck!”

(See more photos on Srdjan’s flickr page or visit my Facebook album.)