Yair Mor's Blog!

Inspired by the photography book Asylum, I made this little piece here. I used many texture brushes for the decals and stains.

During the last few weeks I kept myself very busy with apartment hunting. A tedious process which has ended last week when I rented a cool apartment in the center of Tel Aviv. I’ve been thinking of moving to the city for the last few months, and I even wrote about some of the things I did in the city in a few posts, like snapping some pictures in a juggling party and the 100th anniversary of the city.

I made that decision because I wanted to live in the beating heart of the culture and experience urban life, which is something I haven’t had the chance to feel yet. So right now I’m in the process of unpacking and cleaning. I hope I’m done with that as soon as possible.

I have also decided to stop the weekly links post. I think I’ll leave this blog for my work, rather than other people’s stuff, at least for the time being.

And one last thing: here’s a couple of stuff I’m currently working on. My intention is to finish these two before I start anything new, or else I’ll never finish up anything. I’ll post updates whenever I make any progress.

1. This is a layout for a scene I’ve started working on. Audio is taken from the awesome TV show Jeeves and Wooster starring Hugh Laury and Stephen Fry.
   
2. A concept for a scene inspired by a photo from Asylum by Christopher Payne (which I wrote about here). The first sketch was made with Painter. It’s more detailed, but I don’t like it since I paid less attention to proportions and perspective. The second one is constructed better, and I intend to finish it before I work on this scene in 3D.
   

   

   

   
   
   

This weekend I got the book Asylum: Inside the Closed World of State Mental Hospitals by Christopher Payne. I saw a recommendation on Kitzune Noir a few weeks back and I just knew I must have it.

Asylum is a photography album of the inside and outside of many mental hospitals across the United States. The forward, written by neurologist Oliver Sacks, is an interesting review of the entire concept – how it came to be at the beginning of the 18th century and it’s decline after the 1950s. He wrote about the Kirkbride Plan – a special design of the layout of institutes that was meant to promote comfort for patients, but eventually becoming too expensive to maintain. He also discusses how mental hospitals become a place of confinement, rather than a haven.

Payne’s photographs are simply amazing. They show in great detail the outside of hospitals and the inside of wards; untended forgotten gardens and dismal corridors with paint peeling off the walls. Looking at all the abandoned corridors and rooms makes you imagine them busy with strange patients wandering around and doctors tending them. I try to picture people living and working in such a morally questionable environment.

It’s a fascinating book. Browsing it fills me with inspiration and curiosity. I wish there was more stuff to read on this subject, but I guess that’s what Michel Foucault’s Madness and Civilization is for.

Check out the book’s website: www.asylumbook.com.