THE KUCHAR BROTHERS

Bright Lights Film Journal :: The Day the Bronx Invaded Earth: The Life and Cinema of the Brothers Kuchar


Born in Manhattan in 1942, the brothers moved to the Bronx at an early age. There the tenement blocks, TV-antenna-studded rooftops, bleak blue winters, and littered streets of New York City’s northernmost borough would become their familiar world. A world that they, like most adolescents, wanted to escape. Failing that, they would remake it, colorize it, drape it in cheap tinsel and leopard skins.
The nearby Bronx Park and the Bronx Botanical Gardens offered temporary refuge from the hostile city streets. George would take long, solitary walks in the wilder, more remote areas of the park, to discover idyllic waterfalls and fast-running streams splashing over rocks.

Semester 2 Main Project Logo Ident

Following on from some of the research I have been doing into cine film and memory I have combined the 2 and created an identity to tie all the information, research and findings together.

Below is the rough version of this work in progress logo.

This logo is based on the spools that I received back from the developing company that processed my first super 8 films - I quiet like the inner forms that are created from the holders and drilled down into the carousel's basic form to create the icons above the simple "Gill Sans" text beneath it.

From the lecture with Tash this week the original logo (quiet rightly) was thought to be a little flat and the text didn't represent memory and ageing. We discussed and it was decided that it needed to be a little more distressed but not computer generated. I am in the process of printing a simple typeface onto acitate and then I am going to leave it out to weather with the elements, it will also be in a position were shoes and car tyres will be walking and driving over it to give it a real worn look and feel to.

Memory:

It could be said that memory makes us who we are.
Memories give us our sense of time ands place,
Can reduce us to tears or bring about a smile.
But memory is elusive and plays games with us too,
shifting with time and confusing the facts.

Photographs and moving pictures (film) have long been used to help us remember.
As a physical reminder of past events,
we invest them with meaning and importance.
We all keep photos and film that mean something special,
from a treasured holiday to a missed family member or friend.

All pictures and film have their own particular life histories.
Some were once treasured personal possessions,
and some commemorate historic events.
Others evoke memories of a past way of life.


The explanation above is helping me to make more sense of my project on memory - I needed to write this to fully understand my direction for this project. I can now focus on an outcome more clearly having undergone this process.

The fact that I have chosen cine film as a medium to record moments in time is very apt for this project.

Looking on Danny's blog this morning - he summed it up quiet nicely:

"obsolete technology as we both felt that the history of hardware hasn't been documented properly due to the haste to constantly upgrade. Okay, people might snigger or indulge in some retro fetishism for an old Atari or Sinclair, but then there has been a mountain of other electronic machinery integral to a lot of industries that - despite probably having the combined memory of one current mobile phone - actually tells us a lot about how things used to be produced. And maybe by acknowledging that development we would be less inclined to take for granted the ease of current digital production".

(Daniel Cookney)

The above extract from Danny's blog has lead me to think about other things that keep us holding onto memories and one thing in particular that is personal to me is that fact that I have kept a large collection of my vinyl records and not one record player at my disposal to play them on.

This is a small part of me holding onto my youth and the memories I have of my favourite bands - long may they continue!!