they hit me with a truck

After watching so many films back to back, from so many different times and places no less, I had to really sit back and think in order to separate them.  One that particularly stuck with me was H2O, especially because of the final abstract images; they resembled ink drawings more than moving water.  It seemed that H2O moved progressively not just from recognizable to abstract, but from man-made (pumps, dams, etc) to natural and finally to abstract.   

In our brief class discussion following the last round of films, the idea of the films being dated (or timeless) was presented, and I do find that the more “dated” films, like those by Man Ray and Metzner are more difficult to consider now that they are viewed so far outside of their context.  They do provide the necessasry historical links to the films and shorter works that we see today.  Even today the surrealist influence is strong in film and the juxtaposition and exageration of objects like those in “Even As You and I” (for example, the work of Michel Gondry, though commercial film, exhibits strong surrealist tendencies).

Among the most “timeless” of the pieces we watched, Duchamp’s “Anemic Cinema” was the most emotionally affecting, andit was the combination of the swirling motion and the text that produced a subtle but strong reaction in me personally.  The  motion of the hypnotic swirling felt almost like movement through a tunnel, which would then carry the viewer into a round wall of nonsensical but somehow provoking text that followed the same circular motion, but was a stopping point rather than a continuation.  I have a hard time with this piece as video art, not because I don’t believe it fits into that category, but rather knowing that it was made by Duchamp makes the question seem superfluous-sometimes the artist’s name, specifically those of the artists like Leger, Duchamp and Man Ray, make it difficult to counter years of art historical training and examine it for what it is, not who made it.

This is a music video by Milla Jovovitch that is supposedly inspired by Maya Deren’s “Meshes of the Afternoon.” I’ll have to take the poster’s word for it until I see the original film. I found this particularly interesting after my post on Carole’s video art blog concerning adaptation from known art.

 I know it’s old news by now, but I keep continually contemplating the recent record-breaking sale of Damien Hirst’s diamond encrusted skull.  Selling for an unheard of $100 million, I can’t quite decide how I feel about this.  I think for the most part it makes me angry, since someone was stupid enough to purchase something merely ornamental for about four times what it cost to produce.  There has been a lot of discussion in the news concering the artist’s “message concerning consumerism and conspicuous consumption” but I think the sheer selfishness of the act puts a damper on the aforementioned message.

I don’t think I would still be mulling this over if I hadn’t run into a similar, though less pricey, conundrum in Vogue magazine.  In the fashion magazine’s review of a recent ehibition, the artist Urs Fischer was mentioned.  Fischer  made life-size wax sculptures of women with wicks like giant candles (”What if the phone rings?”), that were lit during the show’s open hours and had to be reconstituded every time they were melted- at a cost of $60,000 each time! In this case it is not money that is the root of the message, but rather just an aspect of the process; and yet to me it seems to raise the same kinds of questions.  Just what the hell is someone’s personal message (vendetta?) really worth?

This character is the originator of the line "they hit me with a truck." Simply for your edification.... I won't explore what this says about my own psychological make-up.

 I found this video interesting for its visual properties, and I also thought it worthwhile to consider the idea of watching a video and understanding the action without necessarily being able to understand the language (I speak Spanish, so I somewhat understand it, but not everyone will without subtitles). Also, since no two languages share the same cultural context or idiomatic expressions, what do we lose in the process of translation and how does that affect video art (or any art, really) when it crosses international and cultural borders.

I was just thinking recently about our class conversation in video art, considering the proliferation of technology in our lives and the increasing intersection of the media with our everyday existence.  During our discussion in the classroom, I agreed with the technological influence in theory, but as someone stuck in the backwoods and mostly isolated from the worlds of myspace and facebook, I felt perhaps detached from the idea itself.  That is, until yesterday. 

On the aforementioned day, I discovered that my little brother (who is 14 and constantly online on myspace and AIM) had gone to the movies with some friends.  Apparently, some guy felt my brother was “putting the moves” on his girlfriend and he was going to do something about it.  At the theater, this guy attacked my brother and punched him in the head, pushing him into a metal rail and giving him a concussion.  What does this have to do with anything, you ask? Well, apparently someone found this confrontation highly amusing, so they recorded it and it now resides somewhere on myspace.