Don't twitch

August 15, 2013 8:40 PM

John Franzen: Each line, one breath
posted by Blazecock Pileon (15 comments total)

Considerably more enjoyable than Jonathan Franzen, which is what I thought I was getting. I liked his pieces. Here's the page for the project on his personal site.
posted by Admiral Haddock at 8:51 PM on August 15, 2013

oh my god why is that music playing is there a python somewhere just off camera
posted by threeants at 8:53 PM on August 15, 2013 [1 favorite]

Another page with his portfolio...

Nice find, fascinating work....
posted by HuronBob at 9:02 PM on August 15, 2013

The video was maybe a touch too slow, but the project and (and results) is really fascinating. I especially like this line from the project page:

steered merely by aberrances and anomalies of human failure in contrast to the precision of a machine.

I really like this idea of trying to be single-minded in an artistic process and doing it in such a way that the inevitable failures become integral to the work.
posted by Doleful Creature at 9:04 PM on August 15, 2013 [1 favorite]

Mostly worth it for the awesome music.
posted by koeselitz at 10:19 PM on August 15, 2013

Much more enjoyable at 2x speed. Cool art!
posted by cman at 10:28 PM on August 15, 2013

It almost seems that the performance is the real work; the drawings that result are sort of secondary, a record vaguely like an ECG that would only be mildly interesting if generated an easier way (adding distortions to an image of straight lines, for example).
posted by Segundus at 12:40 AM on August 16, 2013

He's riffing on a printmaking technique used in the mid 1600s by Claude Mellan. Take a look at this print of Mellan's - make sure you enlarge it in your browser until you can see the way that the line swells and curves to create the shapes of the portrait (entitled 'Sudarium'). I say 'line' in singular, because the entire image is a single spiral line, beginning at the nose and working its way out to the edges ...
posted by woodblock100 at 1:33 AM on August 16, 2013 [3 favorites]

Considerably more enjoyable than Jonathan Franzen

Seconded.
posted by New England Cultist at 4:04 AM on August 16, 2013

Ok, since you brought it up, would someone more smarter than me explain the Jonathan hate? Is it more than just the fashionable thing to do? I like the little that I've read by him ok, and I don't care if he doesn't get along with Oprah. What am I missing?
posted by nowhere man at 5:21 AM on August 16, 2013 [1 favorite]

would someone more smarter than me explain the Jonathan hate?

I think it has something to do with him having idiosyncratic social and political opinions and hipster glasses. And having a grudge against cats because they kill too many songbirds. And western society being all about cult of personality.

Other than that, I dunno, because he writes very good novels.

Is it more than just the fashionable thing to do?

No, that's pretty much it, I think.

Another page with his portfolio...

Back to the topic -- very cool, but why oh why an accursedly slow-loading PDF? This page has some of the same material I think, though at lower res.
posted by aught at 5:56 AM on August 16, 2013 [1 favorite]

While I was watching him draw a line, I was completely immobile and indeed afraid of taking a breath!
posted by ipsative at 9:34 AM on August 16, 2013

An then, during the third hour of production on his latest work, the cat enters room....
posted by mule98J at 10:02 AM on August 16, 2013

noooo don't derail this thread already guys
posted by blue t-shirt at 10:50 AM on August 16, 2013 [1 favorite]

i killed it :(
posted by blue t-shirt at 4:30 PM on August 16, 2013