Views From The Avant-Garde

For my research and programming, I was given Views from the Avant-Garde, a strictly experimental and avant-garde “sidebar” that’s part of the lineup at the annual New York Film Festival. While the Festival just celebrated its 45th year, the Views showcase is only in its 11th year. Views is broken up into smaller blocks, much like Cucalorus’s shorts blocks, and the list seems to grow with the years. Avant-garde filmmakers celebrated during the history of this festival have included Ken Jacobs, Andy Warhol, and David Gatten, whom came to UNCW last year. At the festival two years back, Andy Warhol’s Blue Movie, originally titled Fuck (for reasons you can imagine), was shown, which is interesting knowing that in 1969 it was shown at the Factory and theater owners were arrested and/or fined.
Without further ado, here are my recommendations:

Stranger Comes to Town, Jacqueline Goss, 28 minutes, 2007. Its basically an ultra experimental project, documenting 6 strangers who come to America and their stories are told through video games/animations like World of Warcraft and Dept. of Homeland Security cartoons. http://www.jacquelinegoss.com/stranger.html

Light is Waiting, Michael Robinson, 11 minutes, 2007. Imagine an old episode of Full House mixed with “axial symmetry, violent strobing, and a tacit inquiry into the hidden geopolitics of TV tourism.” Yeah, they had me at Full House too.
http://www.cinema-scope.com/cs33/feat_sicinski_robinson.html

Eclipse, Jeanette Liotta, 4 minutes, 2005. Its basically a film of a lunar eclipse over NYC filmed in Kodachrome, bringing out colors and making it look pretty rad. After all, its already an eclipse. http://www.jeanneliotta.net/filmpages/eclipse.html (you can watch it here)

Views from the Avant-Garde website: http://www.filmlinc.com/nyff/program/avantgarde/avantgarde.html

la réponse à la lecture: Week VI

In his lecture on the Diary Film, how does Jonas Mekas distinguish a written diary from a film diary? In what ways do his films document both objective reality and Mekas’s own subjective reality? Why are “non-professional” techniques important for this filmmaking process?

Mekas mentions its easier to write in a written diary at the end of a day because one has time to think back on that day and reflect on it to come up with an entry. A film diary, however, does not give you this option as you have to record reality as its taking place.
In Walden, this idea comes into play because we see random images basically of his documented life, much like a diary. However, nondiagetic music is added along with the visuals being sped up very montage-like, making it border on the subjective/objective line. In one way, it’s very much like a film diary of Mekas’s life events, but it also has an experience aspect to it. The party sequence, for example, is filmed in "party vision" basically. Its shaky and sped up, much like many of my recollections of parties end up. This was one of my favorite scenes of Walden because of that fact.
“Non-professional” techniques work very well for this process because its not about professionism, its about the person filming and their personal choices of shots. A professionally shot diary would be campy and almost look like it was a joke. Diaries are supposed to be completely unprofessional and more personal than anything.

la réponse à la lecture: Week 5ive

According to Brandon Joseph, what effects did the Exploding Plastic Inevitable have on spectators? How is this similar or different from the films (such as Vinyl and Mario Banana) projected individually, as we have seen them in class?

The effects of EPI on those in attendance were “disruptive” and “layered”, as described by Joseph, and its not really hard to see why. As we’ve seen in class, Warhol’s films alone are hard to grasp, shocking, and/or just out there. Now, take these and project them all on several different walls with records and live bands playing along with light shows. Chaos. He mentions a reviewer, Michaela Williams, describing the experience as something that doesn’t leave the brain right when it ends and plants “flowers of evil.” I think maybe she just couldn’t handle the complete sensory overload and had to label it as a work of evil. Other spectators had called it frustrating and confusing and I can definitely see where they are coming from. Just in Warhol’s work that we’ve seen, it’s easy to get frustrated and confused with trying to find a point/meaning. I definitely had this experience with both Vinyl and Mario Banana. I could only imagine trying to digest all the films from all walls of the room with the Velvet Underground blaring in my ears. It almost makes Vinyl and the Mario Banana films seem a tamer and easier to take now thinking about how easy the class had it as spectators. A reviewer, Larry McCombs noted that at times the images, lights, and music synched up and it seemed perfect for a moment, but that moment doesn’t last long and confusion kicks in again. I have seen moments already like this in class, most recently with Christmas on Earth, where the random radio tunes and projected images synched up a little too well.

la réponse à la lecture: Week 4

Re-visit Banes's discussion of Scorpio Rising and Greenberg's distinction between avant-garde and kitsch (p. 104-105). Why does she argue that the film is "neither fish nor fowl," meaning somewhere in-between avant-garde and kitsch?

In Bane’s discussion, she states that Scorpio Rising is “neither fish nor fowl”, a good metaphor saying that it cannot be described solely as avant-garde or kitsch, but rather a mixture of the two. I could not agree more after reading the description of the two styles and her (or Greenberg’s) arguments. First of all, the Kitsch style, according to the reading on pg. 104, is the popular, Hollywood narrative style that is responsible for killing high art and folk art and infected the entire world with its dullness. Like Hollywood films even to this day, Kitsch films are lifeless, easily digestible material, because we’ve all simply digested the same type of structure/style before over and over again. It poses as an art form but, in fact, is only a fake and possesses nothing really new or original. Avant-garde, on the other hand, is the complete opposite of Kitsch, allowing the freedom’s discussed in earlier readings to be used by the film artists of this genre to create something totally new and non-Kitsch whatsoever. In Scorpio Rising, there are several Kitsch characteristics, starting with the plotline. It is very much a narrative story of badass biker, on his way to a bike race. The film has a definite beginning and end and a narrative storyline in between. Another Kitsch aspect is the pop culture imagery decorating the wall of the biker that we are introduced to, who apparently has a James Dean fascination and is quite a rebel himself as a result. If that wasn’t enough, imagery of Jesus and Adolf Hitler are thrown in there as well along with a poppy soundtrack of all the best tunes from that time period, much like a Hollywood film would sound like. However, it is the juxtaposition of this collage-like imagery of pop culture, religious, and historical figures along with the harmless music that brings the true avant-gardeness out and sets it apart from another Kitsch film. Barely any dialogue is used so the film relies deeply on the soundtrack and the diagetic noises of the images to move the narrative along. Also, thought was definitely put into the music selection as some songs seem to fit perfectly(or vice versa) with the images, particularly the “Torture” song when the bike gang is causing ruckus upon other members/people(I forget).

Happy Ketchup Week!

la réponse à la lecture: Week 3

On p. 168, Banes outlines four aspects of freedom advocated by Jonas Mekas in his writings on underground film in the Village Voice. What were those four aspects of freedom, and what obstacles did filmmakers face when attempting to pursue them?

The four aspects of freedom that Jonas Mekas described and promoted in the Village Voice were content of the body, low budgets, the rise of women directors, and technique liberation. Filmmakers of this time were starting to take hold and utilize all of these newfound freedoms of the cinema, many using several at once. The bodily freedom can be seen in just about anything we’ve watched as there’s an abundance of genitalia, more so than any other part of the body. Flaming Creatures definitely employed this aspect very freely throughout, as bare breasts are flopped around quite a bit. The freedom of low budgets allowed a lot of the filmmakers to just go with anything, using the influences of equality and how it celebrated the ordinary, instead of elaborate plots and sets. Vinyl, for example, is one shot, one location. The only real budget was the camera and film stock. Yoko Ono’s work was also low budget as well as being a part of the rise of women as directors.

Of course, with these new freedoms and the time period, there were obstacles when it came to exhibiting works. One main obstacle was censorship. Even though, filmmakers argued freedom of expression/speech, censors thought quite the opposite and began to shut down on this new wave of radical expression. For example, the Filmmaker’s Cooperative’s midnight screenings were shut down due to the idea that they were ruining theater’s reputation. Of course, controversy always leads to exposure and many of the artists began to come out from the “underground” and have their works celebrated in several magazines of the area.

la réponse à la lecture: Week 2

In the chapter "Equality," Sally Banes outlines three ways in which the ideal of equality guided artistic activity in the Greenwich Village art world. Explain these three areas of influence (see subheadings for the chapter) and relate them to the films we've seen so far.


Equality:
1. Levels Differences
The first area of influence was that equality levels differences, meaning that there were really no classes when it came to art making, allowing everyone to have an equal chance. As a result, there was no star system which enabled anyone to be a star and this promoted amateurism in the Greenwich Village art scene. Another way of level differences was not only through diminishing classes but to also re-establish the relationship of the spectacle and the spectator, allowing the spectator to be a part of the spectacle. What really comes to mind from the readings is John Cage’s “Event” at the Black Mountain College where students were very much a part of the spectacle as some brought out coffee for the cups. 4’33’’ also comes to mind, however, usually it seems the audience just plays along with the silence instead of doing anything totally drastic and original to ruin the silence. Of the films we’ve viewed, Andy Warhol’s Vinyl comes to mind when I think about the lack of a star system, even thought Warhol began to create his own stars by putting them in a number of his films.

2. Celebrates the Ordinary
The second influence on the Greenwich artists was the fact that egalitarianism celebrated the ordinary and mundane, meaning nothing really had to be elaborate to be considered interesting and worthy of filming. Everyday activity was perfectly acceptable for a basis of a film from these days. For example, Warhol’s Kiss comes to mind because the whole film is people making out, a pretty normal activity. He changes the normality of it through switching up the people and camera zooms to sometimes trick the viewer into thinking a male and female are kissing when it is really two males.

3. Creates Model Structures
The final influence of equality on the Greenwich art community was that it began to create new model structures of films, breaking away from the narrative structure that everyone had become overly familiar with. By the newfound usage of collages and tampering with juxtaposition of images and sounds, new model structures became evident in the works of many of the Greenwich artist. Of the films we’ve seen, Scorpio Rising comes to mind first because of the radical combinations of shocking images and familiar, safe pop music of the 1960s. Throughout the film, the images get more and more shocking as pictures/clips of Jesus and Hitler are thrown in, all against radio-friendly tunes that most everyone can recognize.

la réponse à la lecture: Week 1

Describe your response to the descriptions of the learning environment at Black Mountain College (Ch. 4 and Ch.8)

I believe that no college student could ask for a better learning environment that the one of Black Mountain College. With an enrollment that never passed ninety students, one was guaranteed a hands-on education without the clutter. I love the lack of requirements and rigidness because I feel that a learning environment is best at one's own regulation. Also, the fact that students were "expected" to have a voice is a very refreshing idea compared to nowadays where we seem to have little. I do agree with Rice with his arts in the curriculum idea. With today's pop culture-craved society, its tough to find real art anywhere unless you search hard. I blame this mostly on the lack of emphasis on the arts in college education and more centered focus on business (just take a look at the CIS building on campus). Yes, money makes the world go 'round, but what good is it without art?
In addition, I dig the idea that BMC was a place for original and unique students as well as professors, some whom didn't seem fit at other universities (i.e. Rice and Albers). This sort of open learning vibe seemed to have rubbed off on several artists such as Rauschenberg whom said he learned more from the environment than the classes themselves. Although it was before the Hippie counterculture movement, I believe that Black Mountain College may have been one of the birthplaces for it, especially in a free-spirited place like Asheville.

Describe your response to the description of "The Event" organized by John Cage.

As far as this "The Event" goes, it seems to me like one of those "you had to be there" moments, because the description on paper just cannot give the live presentation any justice. This had to have been on of the first installation experiences ever witnessed and I'm somewhat jealous of those who attended. The randomness of empty cups in all the seats was a cool idea and some students seemed to have caught on as they brought in coffee for the cups. It's really a bummer college is nowhere near the openness and spontaneity of events like "The Event".