Music Water Fountain in Dubai - Essay Example

?Presentation Art Watching the video of this light show makes me feel like going there to see it in person. The colored fountains are controlled to match the beautiful music. The lovely duet with Sarah Brightman and Andrea Bocelli is a great choice for this show, as it combines the feeling of peace and happiness with soaring thrills when these singers show the power of their voices. Following the dancing patterns of the water spouts with changing lights, and watching them sink low or burst to great heights is both exciting and relaxing, emotions not often found together. I am glad somebody filmed it and posted it on YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FIVAEwjiU8I However, it is also no longer there. Due to copyright issues, they changed the music. The new music is more appropriate to the geographical location, but it does not have the power of the original, and there really is no narrative. The actual show in Hang Zhou is here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MSMDgMhfM_M I found this because I was a little suspicious of the Chinese watermark on the building face in the upper right corner of the screen. Since a Chinese travel site is responsible for a link to this video, perhaps it was intentional. However, the fountains in Hang Zhou seem more tuned to their music. It is possible that the sound actually controls the fountains. This is not the case in Dubai. In the first video there was a slight disconnect, because of this. The first musical fountin I ever saw was in Seattle and the music actually controls the fountain. It is only one fountain, but an excellent experience, since there is no disconnect between the audio and the visual. The location of the Chinese musical fountain is really worth noting as a work of art in itself. West Lake in Hang Zhou is three large lakes joined by bridges, and it has been developed as a local and tourist attraction based mostly upon the Legend of the Snake Lady. Many attractioins have been created and they are all affordable even to the lowest wage earners in China at ranging from 10 rmb (1.5 cents USD) to 75 rmb (9 cents USD)Ten wood carvings are located in Leifing Pagoda and a nightly show of music and dance telling the tragic story of the snake who turned into a lady and fell in love with Xu Xian . "Leifeng Pagoda in Evening Glow" is one of “Top Ten Views of West Lake”. In the pagoda, you also can find a series of wood carvings themed Legend of the White Snake. Faced on three sides by typical Chinese landscapes of cloud shaped hills, the lake has been developed artistically as a World Heritage Site. The light and fountain show, Time to Say Goodbye is located in an inlet on the lake shore where these hills are the visible background on one side and the cityscape is the other. The fountain show plays nine to eleven times daily and it is free. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GXCTt8hXtF8 I found this video of the rather disturbing. I would not walk twelve blocks to see it. There was no narrative to connect the audio and the video. The sculpture was nice and changing the lights and colors is a great idea. But nice is not art to me; it is decoration. I would also prefer more musical sound, perhaps short musical sound bytes. The sound was the most disturbing element of this work, as it also had no connection, but seemed like a selection of random sounds, some quite unpleasant with random spaces of silence. Then if the viewer could control the whole exhibit somehow, either with a keyboard or with a pressure board or even video it could become quite interesting. As it is, it is obviously an expression of feeling, but it seems more like a nightmare, or indigestion. Of course this might have been intentional if the artist dislikes human creations and thinks they should not be seen alongside nature. I was unable to find out anything about this video, so I cannot even guess by the other works of this artist or by his or her history. Because of the extreme disconnection between the very ordered stack of blocks and the weird sounds, I assume that this is an intentionally disturbing work of a creative mind, rather than the creation of a disturbed mind. It had to have taken a lot of time and effort to make this so disconnected that there is not even an accidental connection. There is an occasional pairing of light and sound, but they do not match. There are small sounds with big lights and massive sounds with tiny lights. I admire the diligence to make this, but I do not like the work. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Ct4mn3APvY The team (Xor) that made this work, The Process of Death, are really tuned to each other as they have created a narrative that really communicates emotion. They work almost as if they share their thoughts. Perhaps this is partly attributable to their language, which is a very visual and is also a bit limited as far as the sound of the words is concerned. There are far more characters in Chinese than the sounds they represent. So it is not surprising that this team connected via the visual cues and punctuated the work with sound accompanying a visually created dance that might even represent the Chines words they used to describe the choreography. The themes is shown in a number of ways and the process is progressive. There is seen here, pain, loneliness, and loss. In addition, the main figure is, at times shattered and the fragments are scattered. Then the figure fades mid-movement, possibly symbolizing mobility issues and the fading of the inner spirit. This fits well with Chinese experience, as many retired people become much less active, some just sitting and watching television. My friend from Beijing worries that his grandmother only watches TV, eats and sleeps (personal communication with Wang Jaiyu 2012). She has her groceries delivered. He believes she will die soon. This video is a little disturbing, but it does tell a strongly emotional story. I would like very much to see more from this group. What is actually astonishing is that there is only one live dancer. The other figure is a 3D digital model. This performance art may be a hint of the future of performance art, marrying both reality and digital creation. All of these are interesting works, and I think a lot more of YouTube having seen them. Works Cited Music water fountain in Dubai https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ujJfB6MMsfI Amplified statue https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GXCTt8hXtF8 The Process of Death by XOR https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Ct4mn3APvY Dubai Tallest Building in the World https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MSMDgMhfM_M Hang Zhou West Lake Water Fountains https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MSMDgMhfM_M Read More