Independence, art ?

"Imagine an eye unruled by man made laws of perspective...but which must know each object encountered in life through an adventure of perception."-Stan Brakhage

I was surprised to hear the readings for this week characterized as "rebellious" in lecture this week. To me they sounded more like attempts at inspirational writing. They were more like a litany of "keep the faith" arguments for the continuation of free form artistic innovation. Yes, we can make the wonderful and the beautiful for little or nothing. Yes, we should be reminded that placing ourselves in our work for our own sake because "your mistakes will not get you fired." It is the only way to bring a uniqueness of vision to the work which we present, because we are the only unique element in the process we are using. We are far from being the inventors of the moving image. Experiment is the continual endurance of failure in the search for personal expression of our own ideas.

I checked out Essential Brakhage. It's all so weird, yet sometimes it's also so so beautiful. I felt the same way about Variations. There's a strangeness to all of this silent watching, that can really start to break down what you are doing when you watch. (Carl Bogner, are brainwashing us?) You have to start looking at yourself, watching. Of course, that impact of those silent images are certainly something that every one of the film-makers must have wanted.

I also looked at Tomonari Nishikawa's website and took the liberty of emailing him some questions about his installation work that he created from a box camera exposure. In April, he says there will be larger photographs and a video transfer of his film from that project. I cannot wait. I am very very curious. So curious in fact that I am considering building my own box camera and exposing 50 some strips of my own film.

Michael Snow is a great way to start

It's been a year since I was introduced to the work of Michael Snow, so it was great to start a class with him again. This was my second time seeing "This" and it was interesting to see it on film as intended. As a video, there were things I missed (like the fact that the recaps were film of the opening of the film) and it was a good film to remind me about what I liked about his work and why I identify with it:

1. He's not a film nerd.

I realize that "remix" is a hot word these days, and while I am excited to work on projects that use the concept, I never feel like there's a set of hip references that I need to get in order to connect with his work. Mostly it's because of

2. His works are complete in and of themselves.

"I like to make the rules and then play by them" is a quote from an interview I read last year. It may be more of a paraphrase, but I think it's one of the most solid conceptual ideas in art that I've ever met. The rules he makes up permeate his work, so there are things inside each container that resonate throughout. I think it makes work that connects the viewer inside the construct, so that even if there is a reference you aren't familiar with (say Canadian Censorship) he revisits the reference within the piece and still brings you as the viewer along with you. So that

3. There are cycles of circular references.

This structure, to me anyway, is very important in film. It makes you part of the inside circle of the film itself. It gives identity to the piece. Even if you don't understand what is being talked about, if it is revisited by the structure of the work, you become included in it by the virtue of your spectatorship. It's this dialog that he is very good at creating. The remix is a remixing of his own work, which is why

4. His work inspires me to create my own containers.

"There There Square" was the same as "This" in that way. It was a complete package, with a simple set of rules that keep you engaged. Goss sets up the same construct of building on a coherent form while changing perspective inside a the map you are given from the beginning. If there is anything that I have attempted in the last year of school it is to build something that does this very thing. I think it makes art that is accessible and creates something in the mind of the viewer. It is a high form of interactivity, when you can bring people into your piece with their baggage. I made several pieces in the last year that caused so many different reactions and I really believe it was because I made up a rule each time and fit the images to that rule. Just the act of doing that, I think, creates a reaction in your viewers' mind as they see the rule play itself out and reference itself over again. It is the human mind searching for the reason to put with a structure that implies reason by nature. I think that is something that all artists strive for. I certainly do.