time-based media: journal

february . 12 . 2004 richard kern - death valley 1969 (video for sonic youth) | google it death valley 69. the searing guitar and jumpy film animate an almost laughable look at the hippies that preached peace and love in 1969. if i am missing the point you may close this browser now, but this film ideal however avant-garde in 1985, is tired now. yes, war is a teriible thing and we can use imagery that shocks coupled with music that inspires to illustrate the point. i feel that a more natural and serene look at the human condition can be more effective in anti-war propaganda. positive psychology in film making per se. why try and fix the weakness, when you can strengthen the strong? what ties us together? what are the beautiful, natural and delicate nuances of the human condition that can be used to free us from the bondage of war? i do like the video. don't misunderstand. seeing that as a kid scared teh hell out of me... in a good way. the woman coming at me, mouth bleeding. the bombs in slow motion. then the climax of thurston molesting his guitar just as world leaders molest citizens. it make sense. it can also make sense to show the flip-side of human nature. but maybe it is our nature to kill each other? we are like a virus.

february . 09 . 2004 kenneth anger - invocation of my demon brother | google it in 1969 that film must have astonished most all who viewed it. i see religious iconography and war propaganda enmeshed over a landscape that breeds a sense of despair. with the glowing hair in the beginning of the piece, anger uses lighting to illustrate the supernatural. later throughout the film we are brought to the depths of evil as priests are wrapped in swastika bearing flags. it seems that in innovation of my demon brother, anger reflects the poses religion and a war in a situation that could be one in the same. the scenes flit from one to the other signifying our fragmented sense of country and faith. my understanding is that anger feels this to be a negative relationship. the alarm laden soundtrack caused my ears to ache as it reminded me of all the fire drills we endured throughout elementary school. these alarms signaled than one must urgently leave their current location. just as i was wishing the film would end, i can imagine this feeling was purposefully mirrored in angers feelings about faith, government and war that they all need to be separated.

january . 28 . 2004 werner herzog - aguirre, the wrath of god | google it one word for this film. slow. a sense of something strange, not really bad, but strange is going to happen. herzog is a nut. people died while shooting this film. i can say that i have seen it. as the professor puts it, "that this bastard made me watch aguirre". he is right. it was good to see. i liked aguirre the man. he was strange. this was an excellent use of time for an emotive response. the response being boredom. just kidding. herzog places people far out of their element, wearing armour in the jungle. they are slaughtered by indians. it's great. of course this is after they succeed from spain and claim damn near the entire rain forest as their own. herzog is not out if his element. however slow and strange the film is, it is that much a quality piece of cinematic emotion

february . 05 . 2004 oblique strategies - brian eno/peter schmidt | google it eh. boring. i need help getting my mind in gear, these seem like fluff. of course refer to my quotes page and you will see that i too borrow from others ideas to formulate my own. these strategies are good perhaps. i do like the word oblique. i wish i was more oblique. i am a square, normal and traditional. boring even. some people see it differently... but they would. of course this is complete bull. i feel like such a freak sometimes i run to the quo of status. i have to grab up my thoughts into as morning coherent cup of coffee. i teeter between the nether regions of sanity and a bordom that envelops my being. my thoughts stir to the awkwardly perverse. i have fitfull flights of ultra-violence and then feel love for all that i encounter. known of this makes sense to me and i go wild trying to tame my mind daily. this is why i strive to fit in. this is why i want to make a movie based on "the catbird seat" by james thurber. i know mr. martin. sometimes i am mr. martin. or i am paul in "paul's case" by willa cather. who knows. the strategies. inspirational. spiral? do you arive? do you need to? is this a western mindset? "think more, design less." - ellen lupton. i want to capture the stuff we never see. the private moments. the good stuff. even some of the ugly. we dance and sing in our heads. people are so much more motivated when alone. why is that? fear obviously. i am not suggesting a voyeuristic reality show. we have enough of these. i want to demonstrate the realness of humanity. maybe it isn't in a person? maybe our humanity os in a leaf, or a puddle, of the way light reflects. the way it comes across water or through a tree. the fog that dances around the mountains in north carolina. is it intentional and purposeful? or a randomization that we simply do not have to or even could understand. we all have one goal. get to bed in the evening in the same if not a little better shape than when we left it. salam oo-alley koom

january . 28 . 2004 woody allen, federico fellini, werner herzog & ingmar bergman commentators say fellini was the greatest director of all time. honestly i need to see some more of his stuff. i am not that well versed in cinema other than my favorite movies... hmm, what are they? forrest gump goodfellas say anything good will hunting dazed and confused better off dead joe verses the volcano the wall the shawshank redemption the silence of the lambs as good as it gets the holy grail there are so many i can't think off right now. anyway, i am working on reprogramming my brain, to rid the damage inflicted from being exposed to the d.w. griffith-esque, quickly paced, eye-candy, fast-food films that a generation grew up on. i am seeing the greater message in cinematic/dramatic time (or whatever you call it). the use of scenic imagery and time instead of language or simply telling me how i am supposed to infer the situation. it seems like the popular movie designers/director think the general population has lost intelligence. we are spoon fed our present day movies... we can sit there like dopes and shut our brains off. hmm... i see trailers from old movies. they move so slowly it is amazing. what would someone from 50 years ago think of our present movie trailers? they move so fast a person from yesteryear wouldn't have a clue what was going on. this is also a commentary on our attention spans. when abc news had their 25th aniversary broadcast, peter jennings took us through a look (quickly i might add) at footage from the first broadcast (where he was the anchor... amazing). anyway, the segments were longer, people spoke slower and he brought attention to this. he also mentioned that possibly that they were partiallt to blame for the collective attention span reduction. on the flipside maybe we are just able to take in information faster now? i think this is a stretch. sure, we are video game, internet freaks but come on. a good old fashioned film should not bore a class of 18-20 year olds into a sleepy coma. i have been out of school for just short of a decade and it seems that much has changed (to put it nicely).

january . 25 . 2004 stanley kubrick | google it a clockwork orange. watch with your drug of choice. kubrick seems to enjoy the bleakly apocalyptic and even macabre... maybe that is a stretch. why is good, good? what makes something “good”. what if we are shown gruesome imagery accompanied by cheerful music... does your perception change? mine does not. i know right from wrong. i enjoy exploration into the ways that we are controlled. cults? the cult of the starving artist, personality even? can something innately corrupt fix people? i think not. we are good, man is good. all you need is within... this is very true like it or not. just tap into your personally vein of conscious. i "feel" the same thing in most of kubricks work. it has an emotive presence that even as it differs from movie to movie, my feelings about the film are under the kubrick control. even silly films such as his "swan song" of sorts, eyes wide shut moves with a sense of foreboding. this could be a result of my fear of unfaithfulness. the film has a slow and methodically sinister sensibility to it that in some weird way intrigued me, held my attention and helped me stomach the subject matter. yet mainly, i did not appreciate the film. full metal jacket is an intensely enjoyable film for many reasons, the scenes, characters, and the best part... the drill sergeant. i appreciate vietnam films that portray officers as having some "skills", or whatever you say about officers that know what they are doing. kubrick did a decent job in examining the situation in vietnam. vincent d’onofrio is one of my favorite actors. he has an awareness that comes out in so many roles. he played abbie hoffman with great dynamic sensibility. i even catch him law and order as much as time permits. but, back to kubrick. his role as private pile is nothing short of amazing. he pulls off the role of a mentally slow new recruit with the precision of a ginsu knife. d’onofrio gained a record 70 pounds for the role. the setting for the private piles grande finally is set against an eerily dark and cold latrine. private pile is sitting on a toilet quietly and methodically loading his weapon. the camera holds some distance so as to force the viewer to concentrate, to study on what the deranged man is doing. kubrick has pile greatly depart from his usual lackadaisical demeanor. i love how the camera comes in close to raise the gravity of the situation. my interest level and heartbeat increase as the volume mirrors my inner rhythmic function. i'll dance to it.

january . 22 . 2004 andy warhol | google it stud. love it. "why don't you tell me the answers to the questions." warhol wanted to be directed. andy was a commercial artist, i am a commercial artist. i do not like to be directed. i enjoy that he had fine art aspirations yet found a lucrative career in commercial art. commercial art is a wonderful job or even vocation. i love people who make money making art. minimalism + commerce? soup + marilyn? flat wonderfully descriptive, deep and inviting works. the kind that start a famine or a feast in the loving luxury of today and all that i hate. beautifully tragic. 15 minutes of shame? his went further. oliver made him look silly in the doors. maybe that was accurate, i never spent time with warhol. wish i did. framing a situation was golden. i can appreciate the mind bending lou and andy experimented with. those were interesting times. andy felt he was fat. he took speed. andy was a thin, even frail man. perhaps the speed? his mind even put out frail art. he didn't seem masculine. lou seems masculine. lou was gay. or bi. who knows. i don't understand these things. i guess i care not about sexuality as i usually overthink anything i care about. sexuality leaves me perplexed. i figure out that which i study on. i should study sex. i have a phone in which you can talk to god. what? silly portrait. crispin glover is one of my favorite actors. he takes the roles that provide him with nervous freedom. warhol (however calm that role was) did fit the man. "i am rocking on your dime."

january . 18 . 2004 maya deren, surrealism, swans, lars von trier, film noir, nihilism, chiaroscuro (lightdark), john cale, tony conrad, nico, the velvet underground, pop art, exploding plastic, sftc, john cage, subotnick, theatre of eternal music, lamonte young, satie, louis bunel, french new wave, deneuve ideals. many movements, all seemigly related. they have multiple messages, mantras and rules in their manifestos that overlap in several areas. i am getting the minimalist thing. i appreciate a simple look at a complex situation. i think 90% of the world around us is far too over-complicated. understand. i will admit that possibly (even as i appreciate it) i don't understand much of the art from the above mentioned people... maybe i am dense. maybe i need more. being at the begining of the info-overload-hyper-culture generation i need an answer and don't want to put forth too much effort to find it. please know that last sentence was a farce. i have just become adept at finding info fast, yet have no problem spending some time searching. fashion. funny that today you have to wear a suit (robert palmer to rivers cuomo) to look weird now. the tribes are strange and varied. alternative is dead. of course this has to do with cycles. fashion cycles. the uniform of whatever club you want to belong to. i wear the suit of someone who doesn't care. my suit is unique on the inside. meanwhile back at the ranch. graphic design. i want to graphically (harhar) communicate some design ideas this semester. make some interesting and simply fun to watch film, dvd, whatevers. production. the work needs to not resemble anyone tho. my life doesn't. i don't. hell, who am i kidding? i am a walking tribute to a few select people. there is no originality these days. has it all been done? is there an original thought out there?

january . 14 . 2004 fluxus | google it + background: the fluxus movement seems to have started in new york around 1960, then to europe, and eventually japan. the movement encompassed a new aesthetic that had already appeared on three continents. that aesthetic encompasses a reductive stance, part dada, part bauhaus and part zen. it presumed that all media and all artistic disciplines are fair game for combination and fusion. fluxus presaged avant-garde developments over the last 40 years. fluxus objects and performances are characterized by minimalist but often expansive signals based in scientific, philosophical, sociological, or other extra-artistic ideas and leavened with burlesque. yoko ono is the best-known individual associated with fluxus, but many artists have associated themselves with fluxus since its emergence. in the '60s, when the fluxus movement was most active, artists all over the globe worked in concert with a spontaneously generated but carefully maintained fluxus network. since then, fluxus has endured not so much as a movement but as a sensibility, a way of fusing certain radical social attitudes with ever-evolving aesthetic practices. initially received as little more than an international network of pranksters, the admittedly playful artists of fluxus were, and remain, a network of radical visionaries who have sought to change political and social, as well as aesthetic, perception. "dada speaks with you, it is everything, it envelops everything, it belongs to every religion, can be neither victory or defeat, it lives in space and not in time." - francis picabia + my thoughts: i am into it... sort of. dada is great. i can get my mind around, "deliberate irrationality, anarchy, and cynicism and the rejection of laws of beauty and social organization". the bauhaus is ok. zen? well what is not to like about zen. as americans it is difficult to get our linear western minds around the concept of a cyclical world-view. but, that is another journal entry. i strive to attain a zen like interactiob with my surroundings. that is of course damn near impossible. Wanting nothing, With all your heart stop the stream When the world dissolves, Everything becomes clear. Go beyond this way or that way, To the farther shore Where the world dissolves And everything becomes clear. Beyond this shore and the farther shore, Beyond the beyond, Where there is no beginning, no end, Without fear, go. - Buddha in the Dhammapada i was thinking at first that the three concepts of fluxus (dada, bauhaus and zen) didn't fit well together. upon second glance, i still think they are just too unrelated. but, after letting the idea simmer i see the relation. the dadaists and sought anarchy, that could be the perfect order that a zen master seeks. does he try to control the world? no. he seeks to educate him or herself to the workings of the inside. bauhaus brings us to education. there are probably a million more combinations of the 3. or this idea could be complete crap. back to fluxus. unfortunately, i don't know much about the movement or have i seen really any of the work. minil is ok. kinda bugs me at times, as i need work that has "a lot". work that is brimming with substance. sometimes i see folks hiding behind the "less is more" mantra. they simply have little to say. on the contrary my favorite guitar players are just as famous for what they don't play (the pauses) as the are the played notes. maybe i should branch out. i plan on communicating some of my ideas concerning volume and personal space through film this semester. i also want to speak about how uniforms (the clothes that most students wear), cell phones and the culture of current college students is simply crazy. maybe i am getting old.

january . 12 . 2004 marshall mcluhan | google it i often enjoy making websites for pure joy of photoshop and html. writing the code that holds my images correctly is fun for me. that may sound weird. sometimes i simply want art to be aesthetically pleasing and pleasant for the viewer. but most often i enjoy a website to communicate, promote a business or sell something. i think that in the biz world a clients business should be supported by the site, not vice versa. so often the way something in said is just as important as what has been said. mcluhan described media as hot or cold. this had to do with the amount of interaction a viewer had with the entire premise of hot/cold media.

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