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About Oregon daily emerald. (Eugene, Or.) 1920-2012 | View Entire Issue (Feb. 22, 2001)
EMU art displays offer passers-by something new to view ■The Cultural Forum has updated exhibits of local talent in galleries at The Buzz and near the Fishbowl By Mason West Oregon Daily Emerald Students standing in line for Sub way sandwiches in the EMU food court or coffee in The Buzz may miss the artistic offerings of the Uni versity’s Cultural Forum. With new shows up this month in the Aper ture Gallery and The Buzz, students are reminded that hungry minds also need satisfaction.University student Jessie Wylie hung the work in the Aperture Gallery for her show, “Excerpts from the Big Pic ture,” last Sunday. The title of the show explains Wylie’s philosophy of photogra phy. Although she is a metal smithing student, Wylie has been interested in photography since the beginning of this school year. She started taking pictures focused primarily on line and form in met al structures. Most of her pictures are close-up looks at objects that she repeats and distorts to create new images. “I’m trying to abstract a piece so - that it ceases to be the original ob ject,” Wylie said. “I take pictures of things that we may not notice just walking past but have a lot of po tential to become something more interesting.” The young photographer started taking pictures of objects at play grounds, using the fun nature of the space to reflect her lightheart ed start in the medium. One of the works she will be displaying is made from images of a twisting slide found in these early shoots. After Wylie is through manipulat ing the image, however, she admits that it can be impossible to discern its beginnings. To help onlookers, she will include a copy of the orig inal image next to the finished piece. The transition from metal smithing to photography was easy for Wylie, and now she uses the two media to play off each other. “Photography is instant gratifi cation, and metalsmithing is the polar opposite. You need to plan everything beforehand with metal, but you can do a lot in post-pro duction with photographs,” she said. This is the last show in the cur rent Aperture Gallery before it is remodeled during spring break. Dan Karp, visual arts coordinator, received $5,000 for the project that was left over from the Fishbowl re modeling. Karp plans to give the gallery a complete overhaul to boost its professionalism. “Right now, it’s more like a mar quee than a gallery,” Karp said. “I do see people engaging the gallery every day, but this remodel will get the people that are just walking by to start paying attention.” If students don’t have the time to pay attention just walking by, they will have the time while sitting down. A new art display by local artist Monique Janssen-Belitz goes up in The Buzz coffeehouse Sun day. Janssen-Belitz will be show ing work from two series of oil paintings. The first series deals with the contrast between mothers and other women in society. The mother of two said that she has seen many mothers criticized for wanting to stay home and watch the children instead of pursuing more personal activities. “I think that mothers should stay home with their kids,” Janssen-Belitz said. “For me, hav u Courtesy Cultural Forum Studio Conversations I” and other paintings by Monique Janssen-Belitz will be on display in The Buzz beginning Sunday. ing kids was the best thing that ever happened to me, so it was easy.” Janssen-Belitz used a small ab stract statue of a mother holding her child to symbolize the classic view of motherhood. Other recur ring symbols in the series are flow ers and horses. The flowers are in different states of bloom, repre senting life, and there is a horse that is seen as a male protectorate figure. Karp admits that this second level meaning is easily overlooked and that viewers need to spend some time looking at the art to un derstand its true intention. Requir ing this much of the viewer is something new for work in The Buzz, but Karp sees it as a new op portunity. “In The Buzz, we like to chal lenge our viewers,” he said. “If we can do something against tradition every time we have a show there, then that will accomplish our goal.” The work from the second series is based around The Lewis Chess men chess pieces. While there is a wealth of history behind the pieces themselves, Janssen-Belitz chose them because of the richness of their personal expressions. By us ing the pieces as models, she cre ates a world where the characters interact, and she captures all the subtleties of their relationships in still images. Karp said these two shows are very different and offer a rich vari ety of art in the EMU. A third ex hibit of photographs by Kenro Izu will add further artistic diversity when it opens in the Adell McMil lan Gallery on March 1. Look for the larger story in future Emerald arts and entertainment news. 'Castle' compensates for plot with awesome special effects By Anthony Breznican AP Entertainment Writer “Haunted Castle” is not so much a movie as an extended amuse ment-park ride. Ghostly stone sculptures and other demonic beasties rendered in three-dimensional computer ani mation seem to float from the screen while the audience appears to take a rolling tour of a dilapidat ed, seaside mansion. A flimsy plot exists only as an excuse to feature the special effects in this movie, which at 40 minutes is about one-third the length of most features. Belgium-based nWave Pictures produced “Haunt ed Castle” to be shown on giant Imax screens, where its optical illu sions can be fully appreciated. As the film begins, spirits appear before young Johnny, an aspiring rock musician who has inherited the castle from his late mother, a once-famous musician who ig nored him for most of his life. Johnny, played by Jasper Stever linck, is one of the few things in “Haunted Castle” that isn’t com puter-generated. Most of the film is shot from his point of view, howev er, so he is glimpsed only briefly. A ghoul named Mephisto (voiced by Harry Shearer of “The Simpsons”) explains to him that the devil uses the castle to imprison musicians who try to renege on promises to sell their souls for wealth and fame. It turns out John ny’s mother once made such a deal, and now the devil — who calls himself “Mr. D” — is extending the same offer to her son. That’s when the mother’s appari tion, played by Kyoko Baertsoen, surfaces to sing an ethereal song and warn her son not to accept the deal. This sequence is typical of the movie’s amusing shamelessness in the name of special effects — Baert soen sings while misty rays flash and flicker and orbs of light appear to circle the audience. The light spectacle is neat, but slows the sto ry down for what is essentially a music video. Adult Store EXOTIC EROTIC Toys • Videos Magazines DVDs Lingerie The ona 1166 South A » Springfield • 726-6969 • Open 24-7 (Almost) On the other hand, there isn’t much story to begin with. Visuals are all this movie cares about. red-and-blue lens paper glasses. The Universal City walk theatre supplied each audience member with a massive set of goggles.... yy That bears repeating: Visuals are £11 this movie cares about. Aban don all hope, ye who seek stories or characters here. The gothic castle and its torture chambers are beautifully crafted in some of the most high-tech anima tion yet to hit the screen. The formi dable stone walls and massive Bead It! 9 © Beginning & Advanced CC Forget about flimsy arlequin I, Beading r Classes Stop by & check out our class list or visit our website: harlequinbeads.com Beads & Jewelry 1016 Willamette ♦ 683-5903 wooden doors seem otherworldly but still tangible. The 3-D filmwork is also top rate. Far from the cheap-o likes of “Jaws III” and “Amityville 3-D,” the gimmick is exploited to full ef fect in “Haunted Castle.” Forget about flimsy red-and-blue lens paper glasses. The Universal Citywalk theater supplied each au dience member with a massive set of goggles attached to a head mounted device that prevents the bothersome blurring prevalent in most early 3-D movies. In one later sequence, tiny skele tons emerge from cages to blow long, groaning horns. Screen and sound effects make it seem like the bells of these instruments extend over the heads of the front row to blast in your face. It’s a treat to lift the glasses and compare this trick with the tangled mess of images seen by the naked eye. With such impressive effects in hand, why didn’t writer-director Ben Stassen try for a story that takes its horror seriously? Maybe because the intent of this film was never to scare — only impress. In any case, “Haunted Castle” suc ceeds purely as spectacle, which is all it seems to aspire to. The film is rated PG for creepy im ages. Running time: 40 minutes. G — General audiences. All ages admitted. PG — Parental guidance suggest ed. Some material may not be suit able for children. PG-13 — Special parental guid ance strongly suggested for children under 13. Some material may be in appropriate for young children. R — Restricted. Under 17 requires accompanying parent or adult guardian. NC-17 — No one under 17 admit ted. 009831 John Henry's Dance
