Today's Art World is Omnipresent.

Afterall Article: Continuing Journal Reading

Broken Americas: The Cool World and The Exiles
Sarah Lehrer-Graiwer
19th November 2008

Sarah Lehrer-Graiwer is analyzing two 1960's American independent films The Cold World by Shirley Clarke, and made on location in Harlem, New York, and The Exiles by Kent Mackenzie 3,000 miles away in Los Angeles, California, respectively. To use her words for a comparative summary, "...they are products of a past era's youthful energy, which found new traction almost a half-century later in the highly politicized climate of the 2008 presidential election season...attests to a thirst for social action among the members of a new generation looking to pick up where the 1960s agenda of reform left off."

Graiwer makes her points by describing the two films as both possessing the characteristics of social and cultural rebellions, and that they rejected the conventional cinematic styles of Hollywood at the time.  They both achieved this by shooting on location with non-professional actors. In doing so, she has also outlined the two different perspectives on opposite sides of the USA.

The Cool World (1964) is a film that shadows a novel created in 1959 with the same title, and it basically follows a troubled 15-year-old African American in Harlem who is in pursuit of a gun who fantasizes about becoming the leader of his gang.

The Exiles (1961) is a film that follows the lives of a Native American community in a demolished downtown neighborhood, Bunker Hill, in Los Angeles.  It centers on the life of Homer Nish, and his posse journeying into their lives for 12 hours as they discuss frustrations, drink at bars, and drive aimlessly around; encapsulizing a typical night that is the loop that occurs in their life.

Graiwer feels that through this non-Hollywood approach, on a low budget, and on location they "navigate the continuum between documentary and drama" achieving a definition for these social spaces.  What's interesting is the development that Sarah feels towards the end.  She questions, "Who is imitating life? Is it the actors as characters, or the characters who act 'cool' while trapped in desperate existences?...if the artifice is too convincing we take it for nature, and if one is 'acting natural', is it even acting any more?"  She goes on to emphasize how this reveals our ability to discern representation from reality, as a spectator.  Which I agree is a very valid point.

I feel that they were able to use Hollywood conventions to their advantage from what I understand in Graiwer's article.  Through Clarke and Mackenzie's comprehension of Hollywood's conventions, that place ourselves within the film through identifying with characters, they found a way to dictate our perceptive trends into the lives of real people.  This is what strikes me the most, is their interrogation of the representational conventions of narrative Hollywood filmmaking, while simultaneously reaching a new level that redefines these social spaces.

Whenever I watch contemporary Hollywood movies, you can see its evolution of acquiring these different techniques, such as realist-dramatic-documentary , and diluting its original resonance.  I feel like that sounds radical, but to throw out a tinge of evidence, turn on the television.  Reality shows have become our modern sitcoms.  I remember growing up watching Nick at Nite, where I watched shows from the 70's (approximately created 15-20 years before I watched them) like The Bob Newhart Show, The Wonder Years, Happy Days, The Jeffersons, All In The Family back-to-back-to-back.  I feel that the sitcoms that were made in the 90's can be considered the end of an era of sitcoms.  These were our idealized portrayals of lives within America that have dissipated since the dawning of reality television.  People like to feel that they are witnessing reality.  It feels more informative, and more comparable to themselves.  What's ironic is that these reality shows are as choreographed and staged as their predecessors the situational comedy, but the majority of their viewers are caught unaware of this.  

To stray back onto what I was trying to emphasize, regarding Graiwer's questions near the end of her article.  Who is imitating life?  It seems to be almost a question of who came first, the chicken or the egg.  I feel that I can safely say that one can argue actors are the imitators of life.  They tend to emphasize a certain characteristic to create a definable persona, where the person that is captured acting naturally in their lives may be able to be seen as more multi-dimensional.  What perpetuates this cycle of an undetermined answer is the ways in which we perceive real people through the ways in which we define them on-screen.  Typically, one critiques another by breaking them down into a 2-dimensional character within their life, thus carrying over from our on-screen perceptions to life.  

This leaves the question, is someone acting naturally, or is the artifice too convincing we take it for being natural?  I would say that within our modern popular media, of reality shows and post-sitcom dramas, the latter of the two would be true, but it seems that Clarke and Mackenzie were both able to capture the natural lives of these more romanticized societal roles into a more realistic portrayal by straying away from Hollywood conventions, and grasping the conventions of movements such as Italian Neorealism, cinema verite, film noir, and French New Wave.  Creating, as Graiwer puts it, "a reflexive questioning that parallels a progressive political posture of doubt and vocal critique...in different ways, urge us to consider the possibility of an ideal community forming, momentarily and against odds, in the midst of marginality".  

Art Encounter: A Missing Link

Unfortunately, I was unable to attend any of the other screenings that were required for the last blog of the art encounters.  The one that I wish I could have seen the most was At Sea by Peter Hutton.  After viewing his piece in lecture on November 3rd, I became very intrigued by his imagery.  I wanted to see At Sea because I noticed that both pieces were silent, and I assumed that his imagery would probably be just as stunning as the first.  The description on the flyer said that it would display the birth, life, and death of a ship.  I assumed that his style of making a very moving piece without needing a soundtrack would be exemplified further.  What is interesting is that although I have typically preferred non-silent films to silent ones, I find my self levitating more towards these silent works.  I am in Basic Filmmaking right now as well, working on a silent film, so maybe that is the case.  What I found while viewing his work in lecture was that it seemed to be the exact same approach that I would like to take in my filmmaking.  I enjoy the long shots with natural imagery.  For me, it leaves no need for an audio track because you become totally engrossed in the image.  I found Dorsky's work to be much the same, in that his shot selections are all astounding, and some are so unique they even force you to dissect to try and understand what you are looking at, and when realize what it is, it is something that you witness everyday.  Such as when he was capturing a streetlights reflection on the windshield of a car covered in what appeared to be raindrops.  This breathtaking image that played with the positioning of the light, gave new life to these everyday objects.  What detracted from Dorsky's work I discussed in the previous blog.  The other aspect that I enjoyed less about Dorsky's work than I did Hutton's was Dorsky's the cinematography.  As I said, I really enjoyed the simplicity of Hutton's work, and I found Dorsky's works more overwhelming and harder to grasp.  The editing techniques were more of a barrage of images, which made me more distracted and detached from the work.  This blog is more of a formality since I was unable to make it to a second event before the due date of this final Art Encounter blog entry.

Art Encounter with Nathaniel Dorsky

I just got out of the screening of Nathaniel Dorsky's three most recent pieces Songs and Solitude, Winter, and Sarabande. They were all silent, and I would say that this greatly effects the cinematic experience. I would consider his imagery to be some of the most compelling that I have seen. I love the way that he plays with the sun within the frame. Regarding the lack of sound within his work, I would have to say that for me, it takes away from the piece. I enjoy the medium of sound, and the ways in which sound can enhance the viewing experience. While the screening of Songs and Solitude were going on, a man in the row behind me was eating something and smacking his lips until about half-way through winter, than he began scraping the container with whatever the utensil was that he had been using. He didn't stop until someone standing in the aisle finally tapped him on the shoulder. I would go as far as to say it was worse than nails on a chalkboard, and it definitely had a negative impact on the screening for me.
Without any sound, I find that I was easily distracted by the noises surrounding me while viewing. I began to hear the different noises the building was making, and I would start thinking about them and I would forget that I was staring at the screen.
Other than the ambient noise going on around me as a distractor, I have my brain to blame as well. When I am sitting in silence, I have a tendency to wander off in thought, as I am sure most others do as well. I have been working on writing new songs today, so a lot of these melodies kept playing in my head during the three pieces as well, which I didn't mind at all. I thought that this was actually enhancing Dorsky's work for me when they seemed to make a connection for me. I did enjoy the ability to create my own soundtrack within my head because it allows for you to further personalize the viewing experience.
All in all, I did really enjoy seeing Dorsky's newest works, and I feel that a lot of his imagery selections are similar to the ones that I find myself naturally intrigued in capturing. His editing techniques do leave me perplexed because I struggled to find the connections between most of the adjacent images. On one occassion, I noticed a graphics match, and other than that I feel it was more of a display of all of the fascinating angles and landscapes that he captures. I did enjoy the silence, but for me it does tend to distract me from taking in more of the imagery, especially when I struggled to make connections. Since I tend to always be wandering around thoughts in my head, at times it was like reading a book when you are distracted, going through the pages but thinking about something else; therefore, not taking in what is directly infront of my face.

More from Afterall

I just finished reading the article,

A Politics of Tears: The Museum of Useless Efforts, Marfa, TX
Mary Walling Blackburn
5th November 2008

This one goes beyond a review for an exhibition, or a screening of a film. It goes into the geopolitical development of southwestern Texas, notably, the city of Marfa. It is located about 70 miles east of the Rio Grande River, which serves as a natural divide between the United States and Mexico. It seems that Blackburn found interest in this area after visiting The Museum of Useless Efforts and the Blackwell Museum and Community Center in Marfa. It seems that The Museum of Useless Efforts is a fictional place, but she uses this as a reference to the teachers and our societies attempt to wash away the Spanish language and spread English into newly found settlements. She uses powerful analogies with water as a way to better understand the development that created segragation, and has now tried to right these wrongs. A divided region is even evident in the cemetary of Marfa, where a fence litterally divides the cemetary into halves, one where the headstones are made my hand and of cheaper quality, and the other where the headstones are store bought and the area has trees and is well-maintained. It is hard to say that we have come a long way from the past frontiers and expansion years, especially since Marfa now has a rapidly expanding border patrol. The issues they face in Marfa, as well as the collective south that borders Mexico, are real, and seem to be diluted within our mass media, with the exception of Lou Dobbs promoting more security along our borders and stereotyping people coming to America for prosperity as drug dealers and job thiefs. What everyone could afford to know more about is the accepting assimilation that people and cultures of the world have done to try and function within our expanding society, in hopes of bettering themselves as well. It seems that we try and deface the validity of their rights, to justify our actions. The tone of this article was not of anger, but rather of observation of a region divided by politics, it seemed to illicit a reaction within me that wonders what I don't know about my own country's history and its development. What I have been enjoying within the articles I have been reading from Afterall thus far, it seems to be educating me on the interpersonal relationships that exist within different regions of our world, and how we interact within these mediums, whether with tension or complacent coexistence.

Act/React Encounter

This afternoon I went to the Act/React Exhibition at the Milwaukee Art Museum to utilize the resident discount on Wednesdays. I did not have the best mentality coming into the Act/React exhibition, but I was converted after I had finally entered the exhibition.
The first one I noticed myself investigating was Brian Knep's floor installation Healing #1. I started just walking around on it, it was much larger than it appeared on the preview screening that John MacKinnon showed in our class. I was going to just breeze through this one and move on to the rest of the exhibit, but I found I was trying to alter it for nearly 10 minutes. It really isn't all this that dense, like the ones done by Camille Utterback further into the exhibit, but for me I enjoy the simplicity of understanding the cause-effect relationship that I have when I am altering the piece.
My favorite one was the Snow Mirror by Daniel Rozin. You have to walk into this completely blacked out room and when I got in there I found that the tranquility of this room was the most comfortable piece for me to function with. I enjoyed trying to see close-ups and farther away and i even messed around with what my cell phone looked like.
What I found interesting was observing these little kids running around the exhibition when I got out of the Snow Mirror. I saw that they were interested in the same one, they were loving running all over Brian Knep's piece. They also tried Camille Utterback's work while I was roaming around, and I saw that the 4 kids along with their mother were able to make a much more dynamic piece from Untitled 6 than I was able to do alone. I feel that so much of the work that I saw today would be better experienced with others because when there are more people working within the pieces collaboratively the results are much more dynamic than what you can achieve doing these alone. But it seems the ones that I was most interested in were the ones that you could get the similar results from if you were alone or with a group, or maybe they were even better alone than they would be in a group.

Journal Reading

After trying out Senses of Cinema, Vectors, and Afterall I have chosen to follow Afterall because it seems like I would be branching outside of what I would commonly be looking into, but am interested in learning more about. It seems to be about international contemporary works of art. The most current articles on the main page are about artists from London, Lebanon, Berlin, and Spain. Many of the articles on Afterall seem to be based around, but not limited to, contemporary video installations.
The first article I wanted to discuss is Tony Conrad: On the Threshold by George Clark. I feel this embodies this websites dynamics because Tony Conrad is recognized as a filmmaker, musician, and an artist; where he is not isolated to one particular artistic medium. What I learned was he was a central figure in New York's avant garde community in the 1960's, and he was at Turbine Hall at Tate Modern in London where he was presenting his latest work Unprojectable: Projection and Perspective where he combines music, performance, and film into a highly dynamic installation. I felt that this way of formatting his work embodies every aspect of his individual works over the past 40 years can be uniquely combined to create an installation that I bet everyone enjoyed being able to experience.
The second article that I found to be representative of the artistic statement behind contemporary works was 'The Anxious: Five Artists Under the Pressure of War' at the Centre Pompidou by Sarah-Neel Smith. She examines five Lebanese artists work within the documentary The Anxious: Five Artists Under the Pressure of War. What I found appealing was the variances in the different artists opinions of videos medium and its subjectivity or objectivity. I think that this is one of the most intriguing arguements of the medium of video and filmmaking because each artist is going to have their own opinion on whether they feel that the medium serves as a way to embed a new way of thinking within the viewer ,or conversely, the medium only allows the viewer to be influenced as much as they don't settle for indifference, or feel too detached to care. I think that this arguement under certain circumstances could teeter back and forth depending on the variables at hand, but as 'The Anxious' artists ask at the end of Smith's article "if our comprehension and opinions of war are shaped by its increasingly fragmented mediation, have we lost the ability to take action?"