Guggenheim Exhibit Stills and Videos

Paul Chan's 6th Light

NOTES

· I am inspired by Deren, since she is essentially the 1^st female avant garde filmmaker

· I’d consider my work to be experimental, multi-media use like those artists she has influenced

· I feel very similarly about Deren as they do

· I am prone to black and white photography/film

· Although this may be a cop-out for emotion today, it was all some of these artists had to work with and I think it was beneficial to the overall dark and gloomy affects, themes and concepts, symbols

· Deren always has an underlying mysterious motif for the viewer to actively play a role, be the camera

· Su Friedrich says that this part of Deren’s work allows the film to be more engaging -
“makes the experience more of a participatory sport than a passive one”

· Deren theme 1 = movement of the camera – its role, it is a character with its own unique perspective

· Deren theme 2 = the woman’s body and time sense – we have an advantage as women

· Deren theme 3 = time – it’s not 1 moment that’s important but what is continuously happening

· Deren theme 4 = utilization of space

· Theme 5 = nature and aesthetics

· MD says her major theme is “constant metamorphosis” – one image becomes the next, which then becomes the next

· Barbara Hammer calls this Deren’s “crossing of time and collapsing it”

· Barbara Hammer likes how Deren shows personal feelings in an individual way

o like Munstenburg’s "Why we go to the movies" in The Function of Photoplay

· Eisenstein’s montage theory editing involved the audience – we should actively engage and see the symbolic realizations

o Transference/ Synaesthesia ideas relate

WHY THESE STILLS?

· Looking back, I have come to realize that I enjoy both looking at multi-media art and creating it

· The combination of materials is more interesting to me, personally – more of a puzzle to figure out

· My UPenn collage almost eerily resembles Okanoue’s piece – which I had never seen before

· Building this piece was a creative and explorative experience for me

· I could build my own world, create my own story, characters, scenes

· It looks like she started off with a simple and architectural photograph and by placing a seductive leg cut-out, woman-headed bird, walking man, and woman’s head atop a building, she spoke without any words

· What I love bout art, especially art like this, is that the story I create in my head about these characters in “In Love” will completely differ the story of the spectator standing beside me in the gallery or museum

· Even if the viewer comes up with an idea far different than that of the artist, perhaps that wasn’t the artist’s intent = think what you want to think

· Art, after all, is a medium which allows freedom of expression and mind

· Which is probably why I enjoy studying film and art at school. I learned that you are never wrong. Your teacher or classmates may not agree with you but your individualized opinion is what matters most

· Without conversation and debate, art would be too mundane – it would crave some controversy

· Art needs differing perspectives to survive and evolve

· I like art that tells a story and progresses, makes you think and feel

Maya Deren Film Notes

b) Ritual in transfigured time

-Exploration of social rituals

-Young woman is introduced into society

-The protagonists of her works, including MD herself, move seamlessly through shifting encounters/spaces

-Circulates through guests at party – becomes part of group in silent social dance

-Joins a man in a park

-Wanders away in a trance

-Gesture of death and rebirth

c) Meshes of the Afternoon – b/w and silent

-Flower on ground

-Hand shadow

-Shadow of woman – no face yet, just hands

-Feet

-Key falls

-Knife falls out of bread

-Phone off hook

-Detail

-Walking

-CU eye shut – lashes

-Back and forth to shot outside through the circle window

-Black cloaked woman walking

-Shadow chases her/flower

-See MD’s facial expression finally

-Slow motion on stairs running up

-Cool stairs shot up and down angles

-Face reflection on knife – eerie

-Slow continuous movements of hers, screams

-Woman sleeping in chair

-Key comes out of mouth

-Black cloak – mirror face = a death symbol

-Use of editing

-Cuts move her in time

-Key, knife, key

-Multiple MD’s in shot

-Suspense – black hand – key, knife

-Kills herself – glasses

-She becomes a man

-Now they are in place

-Man = death, same actions

-Flower reappears on the pillow

-He picks up mirror

-Flower – knife

-Broken mirror washed up at sea

-Waves

-Back in the house – mirror sliced her on chair

c) At land

· Woman washes up with waves

· Sky, birds look up eye

· Shot down on her eyes

· “defiance of normal space/time”

· editing style

· multiple shifts of geological location in single sequence

· like in meshes of the afternoon, to express activity of the subconscious mind

· used it to explore the hidden dynamic of the external world

· chess party – back to beach where odyssey began

Su Friedrich’s work like Deren’s theme: “Can we hold a knife without stabbing ourselves? Can we hold a knife without thinking of stabbing ourselves?”

(MoMa 2010)

Barbara Hammer (American 1939)

Bent Time 16mm, color 1983

-Version of Maya Deren’s approach to time and space

-Simulated by walking across US from and to different high enery locations

-1 geological step in time to be 1 frame of film time

-result = a jittery, continual binding of the nation from end to end

-subjective, forward moving views

-shot through a wide angle lens = distorted the image

-suggests physics theory that time may literally bend

-shot of sun clock = time lapse shots

-speeds up/slows down

-dizzy but want to keep looking

-California to Ohio to New Mexico to California to NYC

(MoMa 2010)