Walter Benjamin Reading

When a work of art is reproduced, it looses its uniqueness, however, each time any person views it, their perspective is shifted slightly each time. Therefore, no matter if the work is an original or a reproduction, it is always unique each time it is viewed. If multiple persons view the work, no two will perceive it the say way, or even if just one person looks at the work multiple times, their thoughts and perception will change each time.

I disagree that the act of reproducing a work, or photographing something done in the studio is not art. I believe that the process of creating art in itself IS a work of art. Saying that it is not a work of art is almost like saying a performance is not a work of art, and I'm sure I can find many people who can agree with me on that one. It's like the quote, "actions speak louder than words"; every action is a defining moment, and if we so choose, by acting we can define art.

The Aura

The Walter Benjamin reading defines the "aura" as "a strange tissue of space and time: the unique apparition of a distance, however near it may be." (104). In other words, the aura is the legend behind the artwork; it involves the context in which the art exists. To better understand, imagine an artwork that has rested at a single site for centuries. It has become part of the local culture. Stories and myths have formed around the work, giving it character. This accumulation of cultural context creates the aura. Benjamin argues that the aura is only awarded to original works. Replicas, however successful in their recreation, will never attain the "unique apparition." I agree that an original work should always be awarded more reverence, but Benjamin throws photography into the "replication" category. At the time of this text's publication, photography was completely film based; a darkroom was required to create any sort of print using a negative. I suppose Benjamin considers photography a replication because the negative is technically the original. (He is correct in this sense.) But, to say that photography cannot have an aura is simply incorrect. There are countless photos that command admiration as an artwork and fit Benjamin's definition of the aura.

Here are a few examples.

The Work of Art

All artwork, be it sculpture or painting, has an 'aura'. Aura is what an original artwork has such as the mystery behind its meaning and/or making.

Ex: The 'Mona Lisa' is a very famous painting. Everyone imagines what it would be like to actually see it in person. It is a beautiful piece which many to expect to be quite large when in actuality it is quite small. There are other things about the 'Mona Lisa' as well as other works that help to explain 'aura'. This is just one example.

As there are originals, there are also replicas. When an artwork is replicated, it still maintains the aura of the original. When someone does not know that the replica is a replica, it holds just as strong an aura. However, once someone discovers that the replica is a replica, most definitely not the original, the aura fades. The replica still holds a mystery, but it is not as strong as the mystery held by the original.

Benjamin argues that photography, and even printmaking to an extent, does not have an aura at all. The reason for this is that it is not made by human hands. This can be argued as false since it is indeed by human hands that the image is shot. The photographer must look for the image and make sure everything is in focus and so on. Once the image is taken, the photographer may leave the image be or edit it either in PhotoShop or the dark room. Either way, human hands are at work, even if it is through a machine.

Autoethnography

Walter Benjamin's various autobiographical writings focus on a sense of self that is thoroughly grounded in experience and observation. As Susan Buck-Morss states, "Benjamin perceived his own life emblematically, as an allegory for social reality, and sensed keenly that no individual could live a resolved or affirmative existence in a social world that was neither."

This, to me, means that an autoethnography is when someone writes an autobiography with or without the intent of using their own life to explain a deeper meaning. Such as Walter Benjamin maybe using his own life as an allegory for social reality. As Wikipedia states: "Ethnography (from Greek ἔθνος ethnos = folk/people and γράφω grapho = to write) is a qualitative method aimed to learn and understand cultural phenomena which reflect the knowledge and system of meanings guiding the life of a cultural group." Thus, an AUTOethnography must be when a person uses their own life to write an ethnography in the hopes of better understanding their own life or the life of the people around them.

This is what I mainly got from the reading. Although, after looking up the definition (again from Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autoethnography) it seems that whereas an autobiography is when the writer is retelling their life story, an autoethnography is when a writer explains their EXPERIENCE with life. Ethnography focuses on the beliefs and practices of others while autoethnography focuses on the writer's subjective experience. Hmm... This is beginning to make sense but still be a little confusing...

Any thoughts? I feel I'm rambling.

Autoethnography: Journeys of the Self Reading

After reading this article, I was still confused on what exactly autoethnography meant. According to Wikipedia (no other dictionary had a definition), the word "autoethnography" means "a from of autobiographical personal narrative that explores the writer's experience of life". This definition seems repetitive saying "autobiographical" and "personal" because an autobiography is already a firsthand account about someone's life. My interpretation is that an autoethnography is basically an autobiography analyzing an aspect or theme of life that has resonated with the writer.

I believe that Catherine Russell is trying to say that in "A Berlin Chronicle", Walter Benjamin is successful in creating an autoethnography because there is a reoccurring theme of memory. Russell continues to explain that Benjamin offers a few segmented memories, but he does it with in depth detail.

I think everyone at this point in their lives can relate to the idea of memory because that is how we remember the past. Even though we may not remember all of it, the most powerful events stay with us and we are able to recount those for years to come. This directly relates to the idea of storytelling because it shows how important it is for humans. Not of all of us will go on to write an autoethnography, but our stories will continue through time through the power of memory and speech.

Dallas Museum of Art

I recently went to the DMA for a project in my painting class. This was my first time going to the museum and I probably would have never gone if it was not for a school project. The DMA has a has an incredible amount of art ranging from all time periods and cultures, such as European painting and sculpture, Arts of Africa, Asia, and the Pacific, Arts of the Americas, and Contemporary Art. The American decorative arts has one of the most important holdings of American silver in the world. Anyway, while I was there, I looked for any form of video art or video installation. All I could find were some televisions in the interactive room (where children can make arts and crafts, etc.) displaying different images of art, landscapes, and architecture. I think those televisions can be used by people to show their work or promote something.

Overall, the DMA is worth visiting because anyone can definitely find something that sparks their interest. With a student ID, it costs $5. And every Thursday night between 5:00 p.m. and 9:00 p.m., admission is free for students and educators with a school ID.

I will actually be returning to the DMA when the Jean Paul Gaultier exhibit opens. The fashion is supposed to be absolutely breathtaking. The exhibit will display pieces he made for Madonna and Kylie Minogue. Here is the link to the exhibit on the DMA website.

http://www.dallasmuseumofart.org/View/Gaultier/index.htm

Maya Deren Films

The Witches Cradle
Part 1


Part 2


Meshes of the Afternoon


A Study in Choreography for Camera
http://www.ubu.com/film/deren_study-in-choreography.html

Ritual in Transfigured Time


The Private Life of a Cat


Meditation on Violence


Medusa
Could not find.

Ensemble for Somnambulists


The Very Eye of Night


Season of Strangers
Could not find.

Divine Horsemen: The Living Gods of Haiti

contemporary decollage music videos

Collage/Decollage

"The thesis of this paper is that video, as a cultural discourse, has been formed by two issues: (1) its opposition to the dominant institution of commercial television; (2) the intertextual art practices of an international constellation of artists during the late 1950s and early 1960s." - from the reading.

I was surprised while reading this that Ant Farm was never mentioned. I suppose it is because Ant Farm was most active during the 1970s while this article was mainly about the 50s and 60s. I am still surprised, however, that they were not mentioned. Particulary the film, 'Media Burn'.

I see 'Media Burn' as a decollage because Ant Farm took a large number of televisions and mounted them in a large parking lot (if that is really what that area is). They covered the televisions to make it appear as a stage for the fake President Kennedy to come make his speech. After the speech was done, it was revealed that the stage is a stack of televisions which will be destroyed by a reconstructed 1959 El Dorado Cadillac convertible. The televisions are set aflame, the Cadillac is driven through the stack, then afterwards when the fire is put out the audience is allowed to go over and destroy whatever is left.

Media Burn: http://www.ubu.com/film/ant_farm_media.html

Bordwell's History of Experimental Film

This seemed to me more of an explanation and study of experimental film rather than telling the history. Granted explanations and studies are an important part of history and Bordwell did mention each film in chronological order.

Anyway, moving on, I found this reading to be quite interesting. Though it only mentioned Maya Deren briefly, what little Bordwell did say about her work helped me a lot with interpreting her work. In fact I greatly enjoyed it that he would take a film, give a brief history, and then try to interpret what different parts of the film meant. What the different images could mean, what the different camera angles mean, what the different shots and scene changes mean. It was all very fascination.

When he mentioned the films we have watched in class, or watched on our own, I found those to be the most interesting. Mainly because I have already seen the movie it made it easier to understand the interpretations. It is difficult to imagine why certain objects and scene changes mean something when one has not actually seen the film. There were many interpretations that I had already concluded from watching the films myself, but there were many more that I did not ever think of. When Bordwell would mention an interpretation that I had not thought of before, he explained it in a way that made perfect sense. It was wonderful, really, to have light shone on the subject. One example being his conclusion of 'Ballet Mecanique' when the audience is taken back to the woman who at the beginning was in a swing:

"Seen in another context, her gestures might seem ordinary to us. But by now the film has trained us sufficiently for us to make the connection between this shot and what has preceded it. out expectations have been so strongly geared to seeing rhythmic, mechanical movements that we will probably see her smiles and head gestures as UNnatural, like other motifs we have seen in the film."

Artist for Assignment 2

Bruce Nauman

Early Video Art Lecture...

Lanesville TV



Top Value Televison - Four More Years

Four More Years - Watch the top videos of the week here

Richard Serra's "Television Delivers People"

Richard Serra's "Boomerang"

Peter Campus' "Three Transitions"

Peter Campus - Three Transitions from Huge Galeria on Vimeo.

Ant Farm's "Media Burn"

Artist Reinterpritation

I'd like to do Nam June Paik for my artist

Assignment Two Artist

Adrian Piper.

Zizek on Virtigo

One of the more hilarious examples of fetishistic scopophilia and phalocentrism...

Busby Berkley:

Assignment 2 Artists

I am going to go with Maya Deren, since I like the idea of doing a study and filming it.

Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema

It seemed to me that this reading was simply repeating itself but in different ways. Plain and simple, it all said one thing: in cinema women are sexual icons.

Of course. Everyone knows this. It's the oldest trick in the book. Sex sells. Everyone knows. But what seems to sell the most is the visual of a sexy, 'you can't have me' woman. The man on screen, and the men (and sometimes women) in the audience, are entrapped by the woman's appearance. This is the intent, of course, the draw the viewer into the film to want to know more. The director accomplishes this by not showing the woman as a woman, but as a sexual object. Something a man can have, can own, but must strive to get. He, and the audience, lust for her, want her with every fiber of their being. They must have her, control her. Then, in the end, he gets her. Now she isn't any fun anymore cus she wants him, too. Sure, he has 'control' over her now, but she isn't so hot anymore now that he has her.

This makes me think of a child wanting the latest, greatest toy on the market. They want it so badly that they'll beg, plead, even bitch at their parents until they get it. When they do, they suddenly don't think it's all that great anymore.

However, some people are happy to simply own it whether they do anything with it or not. 'It' being pretty much anything, living or inanimate.

And then there are those who obsess over something to the point of being pretty darn scary. This doesn't help when the woman on film is purposely turned into an object of desire. Not only can the man on screen become obsessed with the woman on screen, but the man in the audience can as well. The audience member would desire the woman on screen to the point of stalking the actress. He no longer sees the actress as an individual, but as the character portrayed on screen as an object to be had. He doesn't really care about her, even if he says he does, he simply wants to have her. Having her will fulfill a desire within him to have an object that will help him to live out his 'phantasies', whether she complies or not. Granted a woman can obsess over a man, a man over a man, a woman over a woman, and so on and so forth, but the majority of the time it is a man over a woman.

Woman has always been obsessed over by men. It's a story as old as the world itself, maybe even older. God originally was viewed as a woman until men took over religion and turned God into a man (mainly Christianity, but that's beside the point). Point being, when God was a woman, men wanted her love and power. Since God became a man, men still want His love and power, but others are also more aggressive towards Him than they were 'Her'.

I feel I'm beginning to ramble, but my main point is that man always wants what he can't have. Once he gets it, it isn't fun anymore. The woman as sexual object is the best example and the most overused. Hollywood may 'censor' this more than Indie films, but it is still plain as day what they're trying to do.

Readings Website (Finally!)

Hey guys, this will be the website for locating future and past readings. I still haven't been able to get a hold of the John Cage text, so you're getting a freebie there, but we will read him later in the semester. Skim his wikipedia page if you're not familiar with him, he's fascinating and his thought will serve you well as an artist and human.

Ok right, so that link: http://www.michaelalexandermorris.com/readings2.html

Frampton

I found Frampton's 'A Pentagram for Conjuring the Narrative' to be a lovely read. I do not know if I fully understood everything Frampton was trying to get across, but it was still a very nice read.

At first it seemed that every Roman numeral was going to be a new mini-story trying to explain narrative. It was not until Roman numeral III that every new 'chapter' began to be about the same thing.

Narrative, from what this bit of writing is telling me, is more difficult to fathom than we think. Frampton uses all sorts of mathematical equations to help explain narrative. I, myself, am a math person but I found this to be very confusing. It would have helped if he was more clear with what parts of the equations were representations of. Such as if x=x, a=story, b=plot, and c=narrative, then what is x? That probably is still quite confusing, but if he had done something similar with his examples, I believe I would have understood better what he was trying to say.

Again, what I get from the whole of this reading is that narrative is difficult to come up with and it is different for everyone. So, does this mean there is no wrong way to come up with a narrative? I would think so as we are all individuals with different ways of thinking.

My favorite 'chapters' were I and II as well as the end of V when he begins to mention what is at the ecliptic of our universe. I wish he had used these in some way in his equations. I feel that would have made much more sense than... well, rambling.

Kino Eye and Methods of Montage

Honestly, before I read the excerpts, I had never even heard of the term "kino eye" before. And I never thought of the camera as being "better" than the human eye. Vertov mentioned how normal film makers' ultimate goal was to achieve as close a "copy" to what the human eye sees as possible. I myself was always part of the group that thought cameras were more perfect when the images they produced were as close to what the eye sees as possible and I always thought straying from that was a flaw that cameras have.

I also never thought of montages in technical terms before. I always just thought of them as a random assortment of images that "go together". I never thought of them in terms of tone or rhythm or the effect that different techniques can have.

Kino-Eye and Methods of Montage

I found Kino-Eye to be a much easier read than Methods of Montage.

Kino-Eye was like reading a poem and everything flowed so nicely. What I gathered from this was that looking through a camera lens and looking with our naked eye can sometimes obstruct the reality we are looking at. I have noticed this all my life how different films look from the every day. I am not talking about story matter, music, fantasy, or anything like that. Film simply LOOKS different than the every day. I have always wondered why hasn't anyone ever made a film that looks like the way we see things with our naked eye? Even with home movies, I do not feel we are looking at things as we would if we were really there.

One example I've always used to show my curiosity of this subject is to hold my hand up to the television screen. If a character in the film held their hand up to obstruct the scene, it would appear 'normal' since that hand is within the film. However, when I raise my hand to the screen, it stands out as though it is not supposed to be there. It does not belong in that world. Again, I have always wondered why a lens, or something, has not been created to where when I raise my hand to the screen, it looks as though it belongs there.

Are we simply not meant to be apart of the film's reality? Or is the film industry more focused on creating another world than putting the viewer into it? Or am I thinking too much?

As for Methods of Montage.... I really do wish I could say more about it. I now know that there are five types of montage, or methods on how to go about making a montage. However, I have not retained much of the information. I have the reading in front of me, true, but nothing inside of it stuck with me. Could we talk about this some next class? Thanks.

Bordwell Reading

In my experience as a moviegoer, the viewers can sometimes find it difficult to define the characters, specifically when the characters are not people. For example, in the film Dare Devil, Hell's Kitchen, a Manhattan neighborhood is the movie's setting. The protagonist was raised there and as an effect of the neighborhood's gritty and foul traits, he becomes the anti hero set out to serve justice. Throughout the film the Kitchen portrays a dark and malevolent personality that is often the source of the other character's conflicts.

In many ways Hell's Kitchen is a character, but not in the traditional sense. Bordwell's definition of a character being the agent of cause and effect is a compelling way to include non humans like Dare Devil's Hells Kitchen. Furthermore, despite the Kitchen's lack of bodily representation, this issue is not far from Bordwell's example of Obi-Wan in The Empire Strikes Back. Bordwell shows that a character can exist without a body. As long as the "character in question" has traits such as personality and intention then it is a character.

Bordwell

There was a lot of information in this chapter so it took some time to make sure I fully understood what was being said before moving on. I learned A LOT in this chapter. Some of the ideas and 'rules' mentioned I had heard about, or had my own idea of what it was, but much of it was new to me. Some of it I discovered I knew but had never known there was a specific name for it.

I liked how, after explaining a subject, it further explains it by giving an example from a movie. This really helped me understand more what the author was trying to say.

One good example is when he is explaining the difference between a story and the plot by using detective films. As the audience, we all know the story: a man is murdered and the detective must figure out the who, what, where, and why. However, the plot is much more in-depth. The plot is not just the basic summary of what is happening in the movie, it is the order events that lead up to the climax. I had always figured a plot and story to be the same thing. I had no idea that the plot was actually an order of events while the story describes said sequence of events.

This reading was very helpful to me in understanding the mechanics that go in to making a film. I will certainly use this as reference for the duration of the course and in the future.

Video Art Course Blog.

Hello and welcome to the Video Art course blog for Fall 2011. This site will serve as a forum to respond to readings and extend the conversations we will have in class. There will be readings assigned almost every week and you will be expected to post a substantive response before the following Monday. You should include some text that you write expressing your thoughts on the text, and you can also embed links, pictures, and videos to help illustrate your points. If you're not sure how to do this, you can find easy instructions here: How to embed images on Blogger.

Please make your response a new post rather than a comment to this or or other posts. You will be able to do this after you have accepted my invitation to join the course blog. Looking forward to your responses and our discussions!

Mike