Week 7

This week was all about moving image, how moving image affects us and what is so special about it. The first video that Paul showed us was of a past pupil who had based his film around his love for his drum kit. During the piece, about half way though, it started to get repetitive, but I still enjoyed the way he had shot it and the blue lighting effect he had running through out it. I don't think anyone apart from the guy who made it will understand the true meaning behind it, but to me, the only thing I really liked was the way it was shot and the effects he had used. I guess I did suffer from the visceral effect of the piece but the story behind it didn't really bother or interest me at all, it was more of a personal thing for him and I don't think the people who commented on it really appreciated it either. We were then shown this guy called Christian Muarry, who was the first to invent scratching. I never knew who invented it but I was then even more amazed at how well he was doing and how it has grown into what it has become today. He was creating this crazy sound art by scratching the records and taking sounds other people didn't want and gluing them together to scratch and play about with them. Which I think was pretty creative and smart for back then. He also must be the first sound artist or DJ to use scratching and sampling together, which was years ahead of his time. The piece I found most interesting was the guitar being dragged behind the van and the point he was trying to make with it. I think this proves that not all of America has overcome its racial divide. The fact that people were outraged that he destroyed a classic piece of American manufacturing is ridiculous, yet saying that, he did this in a more modern time as well. Most Americans have moved away from segregation but if he had been from a strong white southern state, this may have helped sparked the uproar. To me, it is a very smart piece of art and I didn't catch on to the meaning behind it until Paul told us, and something that Christian said has stuck with me the past week. I don't remember it word for word but I think It was along the lines of this “Make the visual like a puzzle”. He did this extremely well because people either thought he was making a statement against modern music, just smashing up a guitar or some weird crazy thing that they had no clue about. And generally, no one understood it or was able to guess the true meaning behind the piece. I'm guessing he thought most of America, never mind who else would see it would be able to see the meaning.

One of the last video's Paul showed us was probably the most interesting and debated video of the day. Bill Vilola- The Passing. This piece is meant to be shown on three screens but there was no chance of that happening so we were shown an edited version which was blended into one and shown on one screen which lost a fair bit of its effect, but the bits he did show were still pretty effective. The idea of the piece was him traveling across America to be beside his mother as she was dying and on this journey you see the birth of his child and his life in between, oh and a drowning man. We only got to see short clips of it, but in summary, I think it is pretty much about the way of life which is we are born, grow up, deal with life's crap, try and enjoy life at the same time and then die. I think that's the main point that I learned from it, among other things. Such as the way he filmed it and how it had such an impact, the biggest being that he filmed the death of his own mother, which shocked people in the lecture but didn't really bother me. It happens in movies and TV shows all the time, you see people die, yet because this is real, it is disgusting. But is it really? I think he was showing us the facts of life that we don't really want to face or think about, he just happened to do it in an interesting and creative way. I would like to see the full thing in the proper conditions in a gallery to learn more from this piece. I would touch on Willy Doherty but I don't think we covered enough on him for me to comment however I do plan to look at videos of his as the clip of the guy in the middle of the room did look interesting.