Pipilotti Rist

What a femenist woman! Watching her video was just as intense as some of the stuff that we have watched in class this semester. But, I sufferred through it and found some of the things interesting enough to blog about. So here we go...

During "I'm not the girl who misses much" I enjoyed watching the different video editing techniques. The screen looks like a heart monitor when Pipilotti is jumping around, which corresponded to the video speeding up. I was wondering why her boobs were sticking out, but if this class has taught me one thing it is to ignore nudety because it is all artistic in some way.

Another part that interested me was when Pipilotti was video taped falling to the ground in the middle of the street. The sounds that were edited into the film sounded like abstract gunshots. If I had to guess, I'd say that this is a statement about women in other countries who are sentenced to death for breaking the rules. Her acting was like a public execution, since it was in the middle of the street.

When she dives into the pool it immediatley reminded me of the Bill Viola documentary that we watched in class the other day. Lots of his video art focused on drowning and water because he nearly drowned as a child. Likewise, Pipilotti appears to be drowning in her video. Which is weird, because she executes a perfect dive when she enters the pool. Someone who dives so nicely and then can't swim couldnt have learned to dive without learning to swim. So maybe either the person shown rescuing her was overreacting, or Pipilotti was just trying to drown herself and ended up freaking out. But anyway, the editing at this part was really cool. having the pool water in a separate square from the edge of the frame made it seem like a picture of a pool placed in the center, instead of just a small shot of the water.

The woman with the blood all over herself was enough to make me dry heave. HOWEVER, once again the video editing effects blew me away. The way that the woman was spinning and disappearing with the earth in the background was pretty cool. It looked like she was floating in space. Maybe that's what Pipilotti was going for? because although ive never been naked in space, I assume that i would bleed or something from the pressure...But who knows.

Whats with the robot looking woman with the polka dotted shirt collar? I'm pretty sure she didn't blink once. Which probably could have counted for endurance which, as we all know, is necessary in performance art. It looked like there was a video of a tv screen over this image, but it was very faint so I wasn't sure. Either way, the layering effect was really cool.

Overall, lots of nudety and body parts. I'm not really sure how I feel about it, except that I thought it was kind of weird. But if this class has taught me anything, its that anything can be considered art and we just need to be open minded and accept it unless we want to be constantly grossed out.

Video Art Project

While deciding what to do for my video art project I was really stressed over finals and everything, so I decided to use that as the inspiration for my video. I dragged the camera through plants on campus, and the effect was really chaotic. The switching between different types of plants represents how I was jumping from the work of one class to the next, and there didn't seem to be any end in sight. I edited in some different colors just to add to the chaos and make it seem more unrealistic. The flower at the end represents how relaxed I feel now that finals are DONE, and when this class is over it will be officially summertime for me! There's no audio, only because I didn't know how to make my own. Enjoy!

Television Delivers People

The music in the background reminded me of something that would have been on Leave It to Beaver, where you have the perfect family with the perfect hair who all wear nice clothes and the mom wears lipstick and pearls while vacuuming. This is ironic, because the whole point of the video is to tell us that television is not perfect, and advertising it consuming us, which is completley true! But really, who ever thinks of their lives being controlled by what they watch on tv? With advertising schemes being shot at us left and right, whether it be from telelvision or billboards or magazine adds or whatever, all of our decisions are somehow guided by the advertising that we see every day. I think that what struck me most about the music is that it represents something safe, like having a perfect family. While the music should be warm and comforting, the words on the screen makes you think and realise how you are really living your life. For a video that could have potentially been incredibly boring, this one made me think much more than anything else we have watched in class this semester!

Nam June Paik

The obituary of Nam June Paik's is the longest I have ever read. The list of this man's achievements is extraordinary. The obituary mentioned several times that Paik was proficient with televisions, which mirrors what we learned about him in class.

My favorite piece of Paik's that we talked about in class was the television bra that he made for the naked ciellist. I found it ironic that Paik used such a public piece of machinery, such as the television, that everyone watches and which televises the personal business of people worldwide, to cover up such a private part of the woman ciellist.

I also appreciated that Paik's first piece of video art was a video of the Pope, whom he followed around with a camera. Paik's sense of humor was really remarkable. So was his originallity and creativety, as shown with pieces such as his video art on stained glass. I also appreciated how reused all of his videos, this gave me lots of ideas for when I do my own video art project.

Giant Eyeballs

So, in class we have been watching a lot of music videos that The Residents made. Most of the music videos that we have watched have been very abstract. We learned that we never see the musician's faces because they are always wearing giant eyeballs over their heads. We also learned that The Residents made the first "real" music video in 1971.

What I find the most interesting about this band is that all of their music videos are a form of performance art. Since we have been learning so much recently in class about performance art, seeing videos from this band gave me a clearer view of what performance art actually is. It also helped me form ideas for my own performance art piece.

Last Monday we watched the video for "This is a man's world" which was a piece of video art created by The Residents that was the first to show some hardcore computer animation. It was interesting to see what the first forms of computer animation looked like. To me, it simply looked like squiggly lines coming out of a man's face. Other animation that was used in this video was comprised of repeating shapes in various colors. It was really cool to watch along with the music, and it was a trippy experience. This abstract computer animation combined with the fact that the band was a bunch of giant eyeballs made me feel as though they probably did a good amount of drugs, and power to them.

Performance Art

Credits:

Thanks to:

Samantha Burns and Jeff...? for filming

Matt Rossetti for help editing

So I wanted my performance art to focus on how people look at women. When women are spoken to the focus is usually on their bodies, so I wrapped my body in black trash bags and walked around Channelside asking people if they knew what time it was. In some cases they gave me strange looks on the spot, but in most cases they waited until they passed me and then turned around to get a second look. Needless to say, the focus was still on my body, but for an entirely different reason. I de-contextualized the trash bags by taking them out of the trash and wrapping them around my body instead. Ripping them off at the end was thrilling because a) i felt like a normal person again and b) i was sweating balls walking around channelside.

There was one woman who actually stopped and asked me why I was wearing trash bags, but the camera died as soon as she came up to me so I only managed to capture the tail end of our conversation. She was pretty cool though, and had graduated with a degree in women's studies so was all about what I was trying to prove.

Wooster Group

I would love to be part of the Wooster Group. I think it sounds weird as hell, but there is something about the phrase "an ensemble of artists who, under the direction of Elizabeth LeCompte, make work for theater, dance and media" that really appeals to me. Actually, on second thought, that first sentence was a lie. However, after further research I have decided that interning with them would probably be fun, even though I would not have the balls to join them professionally. Not that they would even accept me, but still. A girl can dream. And they say it would be a "mutually rewarding experience," which sounds promising.

On a completely un-related note - does wooster remind anyone else of Rooster? I have the attention span of a peanut.

The Wooster Group's programs for junior high and high school students seem to be very educational and beneficial. It looks as though exposing young students to the arts could keep them out of bad situations, as well as broaden their horizens theatrically.

Stelarc = STELLAR (ER?)

First of all, can anyone clarify how to spell the word steller (ar) please? Does it end with an ar or an er?

One of the things that I thought made Stelarc steller (ar) was his australian accent. Another thing was that THE MAN WAS HALF ROBOT!!! Well...sort of. He reminded me of the scientist with the robot spider legs going on in the second spider man movie. At least I think it was the second movie...anyway, writing all of these blogs has made me realise that i do NOT take art seriously, which will probably be my downfall in this class. While I appreciate it and enjoy it, hearing all of the deep interpretations gives me a headache. Wouldn't Stelarc have been satisfied to know that I think that the stuff that he does is really uh, rad? Not only does it take creativety but it also takes brains to build the things that he did! I was really impressed by him.

Xerox & Orlan

Tell me what you think! I almost broke the copier when i tried to sit on it to photocopy my butt...it had to restart each time. After the 2nd time i learned my lesson.

On another note, I actually enjoyed learning about Orlan. I thought that the way she ended up looking after all of her major artistic surgeries actually overpowered how weird i thought it was that she would film herself getting cut up in the first place. When Santiago pointed out that all we're really watching are pixels on a screen, and our feelings are only what we make of them, that really helped me to stomach watching this woman get lipo suction. However, I do feel that she could have made a similar statement by reading poetry while she was doing something less invasive, such as doing jumping jacks or shaving a cow...but I guess art is art and i will never truly understand it.

Gilbert & George

These two men were fabulous. I wish i had grandfathers as outrageous as them. Of course I moreso thought that they were funny than took the time to appreaciate their artwork in class, but now that i've googled some more images I guess I can comment on the art rather than on how hilarious i thought they were...

Nooo, on second thought I still think that they're really funny. I think that the names of their artwork are funny ("in the piss"), and i'm laughing while looking at old man genitals. But on a more mature note, I do like how they broke some of their work up into geometric modules, and I also really like the bold colors that they use, since I tend to gravitate towards bold colors in my own artwork. But overall, what I loved the most is how the two of them seemed like such "bros," just makin' art pieces and human sculpture together.

Joseph Beuys

This dude has probably one of the most interesting background stories that I have ever read about an artist. What I was most interested in was how his involvement in the war led him to create sculptures out of fat and felt. Before class on Monday I had no idea that felt was so important in the war, nor that it was as effective at keeping people warm as it actually is. Clearly, these days felt is highly unappreciated.

I am a huge fan of multimedia and therefore find the fluxs movement to be very interesting. I especially like that fluxus art incorporates music, which is weird and ironic since i don't really care for or am interested in music normally. I guess the idea of incorporating it with other media and just labeling it as "art" instead of some kind of genre of actual music makes it more appealing to me.

oh p.s. did watching yoko ono get her clothes cut off by complete strangers make anyone else feel uncomfortable? I mean, power to her for being brave enough to show that much vulnerability, but i'd be afraid someone would accidently snag my undies with the scissors and i'd be flashing my lady parts to the world. I did find her connection to the submissive japanese woman to be funny and ironic though.

Power to the perverts.

I loved the Andy Warhol documentary we watched in class today. Watching him on screen I thought he was hilarious, but if I had had to work with him it would probably have been a different story - I might have tried to shoot him too. That one transvestite that was in the video (I know there were a lot, but there was one in particular) really looked and sounded like a woman. I was impressed.

The fact that Warhol started out doing "normal" artwork really surprised me because all I have ever heard about is him being involved in pop art. Before watching this documentary I also had never seen what he looked like or heard him speak - it made me like him even more. This was probably the first documentary that we've watched in class that I have been genuinely interested in watching.

It was amusing that the one man who was the first to see Warhol's series of campbell's soup cans found them so interesting and thought that they were so unique. If I had seen that I probably would have just thought that the man had a weird obsession with tomato soup and offered him some grilled cheese to go with it. But as "weird" as Warhol was, I appreciated that he didn't cut anybody open or dissect anything to make his artwork - he simply took every day objects that we take for granted and de-contextualized them to make us pay attention. Some of the things he did were really sexual, but being a fellow pervert I could appreciate it.

Donkey Eye?

The video that we watched in class last Wednesday was so weird! I thought I was going to dry heave when the woman's eye was cut, even though Santiago later told us that it was just the eye cut out of a dead donkey. Donkey's seemed to be a continuing theme in the film though, because at one point the man was dragging what looked like a piano behind him with two dead donkey corpses lying over it. And I think the corpses were bleeding? I don't know. The movie did keep my attention, but it was only because I was half nervous and half curious to find out what weird thing I would see next.

L.H.O.O.Q.

Marcel Duchamp has REALLY got some balls. I think it is hilarious that he took a post card of the mona lisa and not only drew a beard and mustache on it, but then put these initials which everyone tried to interpret in all kinds of deep ways. Of course as we learned in class, the letters spoken out loud actually translate into something sexual in french.

I think that it is so typical of people to take the work of a famous artist and look way too far into it. Not every artist has a really intricate reason for doing their work - some just think its funny or interesting to do something. As if Duchamp didn't have enough to make fun of when he first did this, the fact that everyone overlooked his humor and made fools of themselves makes it even better. I only wish that I could do something this simple and make millions for it...I would drop out of college and draw mustaches on all kinds of famous works, but of course then i'd be copying and not original. Damn you, Duchamp!

Grid Project

I made this Andy Warhol banana out of tic tacs on a 18x24in canvas. Let me start off by saying that tic tacs are friggen expensive- i think i spent at least $150 on tic tacs alone, not to mention the money spent on elmers glue. And I couldn't find just red tic tacs - the cinnamon ones appear to be MIA. So i had to buy the cherry passion flavor, which is a mixture of red and yellow tic tacs, which was perfect because those were the exact colors that I needed. However, as you can see I used way more red ones than yellow ones so I now have enough yellow tic tacs left over to last me for the rest of my life. I'd say this probably took me about 10 hours all together to make and by the time I was done i would have been content if i never had to lay eyes on another tic tac. Let me know what you think!

History of the Internet - Don't bother reading

I find this website incredibly boring. I would much rather have watched another documentary in class about the history of the internet than to have to navigate through this. And some of the stuff is in another language that I don't understand, so that really doesn't help me. I don't find history particularly interesting, I'm much more interested in what is happening right NOW. And although I probably should care, as long as my email works now I don't give two shits how it came to be.

What also sucks is that when I read things that don't interest me, such as the information on this website, i write boring and uninteresting blogs. So I appologize to anyone who happens to read this, even though I warned you in advance that it wouldnt be worth it.

MZTV - Stradivarius

I would like to explore this website more when I have more time. I think that it's really cool that this man came up with the idea of collecting things from television as art. It makes perfect sense, I just would have never in a million years thought of it in that way. But he doesn't collect just any pieces. He collects "milestones in technology or design." Good for him. Boo yah.

This is such a great website to use to compare the differences in television from decade to decade. It really elaborates on how television grew and evolved in the past to turn into what it has become today. I also came away from the website knowing this little fun fact: There are fewer prewar TV's left in the world than Stradivarius violins. Which led me to google what the heck Stradivarius violins are...

"A Stradivarius is a violin or other stringed instrument built by a memeber of the Stradivari family, particularly Antonio Stradivari. According to their reputation, the quality of their sound has defied attempts to explain or reproduce, though this belief is controversial. The name "Stradivarius" has also become a superlative applied to designate excellence. To be called "the Stradivari" of any field is to be deemed the finest there is." - Wikipedia.com

Sure, it's not the most reliable source, but it works for me!

OTR.com

So Santiago told us to look around otr.com and blog about it, and I did and I was AMAZED. I had no idea that so many radio shows actually existed. And I like how the website breaks them up into different genres. I have a much better understanding now of what radio meant to people before television was invented. Looking through this website reminds me of looking through a movie theater's website to see what is playing.





I was particularly intrigued by Captain Midnight. When looking through the History of Captain Midnight, this particular description caught my attention:


"In the beginning, 'Captain Midnight' was just an undercover name for Jim 'Red' Albright, who regularly piloted cargo and passengers. As an undercover agent, Albright was trying to gather information on a gang of criminals. However, by the end of the first run, ending in a summer hiatus, the Captain Midnight persona was beginnin to stick and many new him only by that name. Captain Midnight was constantly trying to stop the plans of the evil Ivan Shark and his daughter Fury. Shark remained as Midnight's evil nemesis throughout the length of the radio run."

I think that I like the idea of radio better than the idea of television. Not 10 minutes ago my roommates were ranting about how our television isn't working, and then one of them mentioned that she wished she had grown up in a time without television so that she didn't know what she was missing. I wouldn't mind listening to radio shows instead of watching television, because you can divide your attention between the show and whatever else you are doing because there is nothing to watch. I like the idea of letting your imagination do the work.

Flipbook

Videdrome

The hip hop in Debrah Harry's music video that we watched in class reminded me of the theme song to "Fresh Prince of Bel Air." It didn't seem right that she was rapping because she sounded really weird doing it...i guess it's just because i'm used to hearing rap with a side of ebonics. But i guess she was cool back in the day, even though she was a blonde haired girl who was rapping. Santiago said something about this being the first instance i think...so i guess in order for the world to accept it, Debrah Harry had to be the first one to do it. Luckily, Will Smith picked up the slack once Fresh Prince got started.

I also noticed the mixture of cultures in the video. Not only that, but there were so many random elements in the video. Santiago DID say that everything was there for a reason, and I guess shock value IS a reason. Or Debrah just wanted to confuse future audiences. Some examples of the random people that I noticed were a ballerina, a pristess, and a man walking a goat. I did appreciate the diversity of the cast though, because there were black people and white people. And everyone was wearing cool costumes. And one guy was doing graffiti on the wall, which also reminded me of the beginning of the Fresh Prince music video. But I really couldn't take the rapping seriously, sorry Deb.

Singing in the Rain/Clockwork Orange

I loved the irony in the difference between the original "singing in the rain" and the scene in Clockwork Orange where the boys sing the same song.

The original song is sung joyously, because of the love that the character is feeling. He is outside, and while the rain is pouring down on him he sings and dances in the streets. However, in Clockwork Orange, the boys are feeling joyous for an entirely different reason. They are hopped up on drugs and thoroughly enjoying beating the crap out of a man while they rape and kill his wife. It was really creepy how happy they sound while doing this, especially since we had recently watched the original song in class under a different context. I think this was good though, because we were at least formiliar with the song and could understand the strangeness of hearing it sung under these completely different circumstances.

Either way, the song was stuck in my head after both classes. After we watched the original sing, it was just kind of stuck as background music in my head as I walked back to my dorm. But after our most recent class it was also stuck in my head, except that I had a strange, sick feeling in my gut because of what we had just watched. I'm not sure if I'll ever be able to watch the original Singing in the Rain scene again without picturing the Clockwork Orange scene in my head.

But on a side note, I'm not sure who would willingly watch Clockwork Orange unless they were sick in the head. No offense to Santiago, of course. But I felt a little bit uncomfortable watching it.

Nervous

I'm really nervous about doing the flip book project. I hope that I can come up with enough ideas to make a good one without it being too difficult. I already know it is going to be time consuming and I am not looking forward to that...but the video clips that we watched in class of some of the first movies were only a few frames long, and they still made a huge impact and a lasting impression.

I never know what to write in these things. In class the material always seems so interesting, but then when I go to recap it's hard to come up with interesting things to say that Santiago hasn't already mentioned. I like learning the neat little fun facts about the history of technology, though. Such as how each of the movie frames used to be individually hand colored. I thought that was cool.

CATS

I'm glad to finally know that there is a reason why I always found the show CATS to be a little baffling...because it really DOESN'T have a set storyline. I also thought it was interesting that the show is based off of a book of poems. I think that turning a book of poems into an aesthetically pleasing musical is a brilliant idea. I admire the actors and actresses who feel confident enough to prance around stage in all spandex while singing and dancing - that takes a certain kind of talent that not many people possess.

Apple Tablet Response

I am not a Mac user. I have always had a PC and that didn't change when I came to college even though, being a graphic design major, a Mac would no doubt be very useful. I feel that this article was written through a very biased perspective. I also thought that the article was incredibly boring and hard to follow. The only thing that I got out of reading it was further proof that Apple computer users think that these machines are the best computers ever. But good for Steve Jobs for being so successful with Apple. The man is making more money probably than I could ever dream of making, and this article made me decide that if I was going to invest in the stock market I would buy stock from Apple.

Mozart Had Crazy Hair

...but I can still support Mozart's crazy hair because at least HE wasn't carting around an 80 lb wig on his head. I was thinking, and I decided that if really heavy wigs were in fashion today, instead of making some poor person walk behind me all day to help me hold it up, I'd just prop it up on a stick and put the stick in a roller skate so it would just roll behind me. And maybe instead of wearing a wig that was shaped like a ship, I'd wear one that was shaped like a giant bowl. That way I'd have something suitable to catch the dripping wax in when I went to see Mozart's shows. But then I'd probably notice that Mozart had enough energy to flail his arms around for hours because he wasn't straining to carry a child-sized mass on his head, and I'd ditch the wig and let the wax burn, because it would probably be more comfortable.

Thoughts on the first class...

I don't think I've ever smiled so much on the first day of class. Everything that came out of the professor's mouth was hilarious - probably because I've never had such a blunt and open professor before! I'm looking forward to learning the significance of some of the "weird" videos we previewed on youtube, and shock people with all of my knowledge.

However, the fact that we need to make videos is terrifying me at this point because, while I know how to work a video camera, I've never delt with editing movies before. It sounds like we're going to learn a lot of cool special effects though, and hopefully I'll be able to get the hang of it! I'm a little nervous about having to get up and perform in front of the class...but I'm sure most people are so at least we'll all be in the same boat.