Wednesday, October 21, 2009

Dominoes...game, toy, art?

This video is really cool. Dominoes in general are cool. I dont really care for the music in this video, or the editing, however I feel that the content is very interesting. Just the pure form that these dominoes create is aesthetic. Some of it is very beautiful. It also reminded me of the Jack Ass clip we watched in class with the mouse traps. I feel that the same idea is present here.

5 comments:

Excaliborn7 said...

Wow, what a friggin' cool video! I love that. I actually really like the sound and editing here. It has a slight sinister tone, very active and a bit harsh, but I think it works somehow with the fluid movement of the dominoes. These are unbelievable things people are setting up. Visually powerful and surprising, like their patterns and rhythms hold some truth. There is a similar shape, multiplicity, and kineticism between the dominoes and the Jackass mousetraps, but I think there's a big difference in that the mousetraps snap up and cause pain and the dominoes are just mesmerizing and exciting to watch. Art, yes, game, yes, toy, yes. Because art=game, game=toy, and art=toy,and toy=game+art and art+toy=game and gametoys are not so different from arttoys, right? or gameart?
It all adds up to the same thing, I think...
I'm serious about that.
Great post. I will be watching this video again.

Sidney said...

Falling dominoes are so beautiful! Who knew? I find it astounding that there are people with this sort of talent--and so many of them! (Is this from a game show or something? Do you know?) The movement of the domino pieces and their collective transformation really is mesmerizing.

I didn't really enjoy the music either. I actually watched the video twice--once with the original music, and once muted while my itunes played "Are You A Hypnotist?" by the Flaming Lips. It was accidental but I kind of liked that match up a lot.

Hannah said...

I agree, I like the sound. I like that fact they left in the sound of the dominos falling on each other. For me it created a disjointed feeling. On one hand, I felt bad that the dominos fell, and most of the time I didn't want them to fall because the people spent so much time on them. But as you hear the dinkyness of the plastic pieces hitting each other, it gives the video a feeling of childhood. But I would say the actual video itself is far from that childhood toy. Some of those pieces were absolutely stunning! Well crafted, and the artists to the time to put all the pieces together meticulously. Awesomeness.

Tessa said...

Echoing Hannah's comment, I really liked that the left in the sound of the dominoes hitting one another as they fell. This also reminds of something Ben encouraged our intro to visual practice class to do last year, and that is making something and then not being afraid to destroy it––to make the art into something completely different or maybe to make a statement. Anyways, the use of dominoes kind of ties into this idea. It's a tedious process to set them up with the intention to knock them down, but as we see, the effect is really great.

Zoey said...

Wow...this is very cool! I am mesmerized and I plan on watching it some more. I never knew you could do so much with dominoes, and make art out of them! I found the man racing the dominoes to be quite unique, and very entertaining. I will say that I didn't really like the music that went along to it, and I found the parts when the audience was clapping to be a bit distracting and take away from the clip as a whole. But otherwise, this is amazing!