Tuesday, July 20, 2010
Thursday, July 8, 2010
NOTES
· I am inspired by Deren, since she is essentially the 1st 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)