You can read the article
here or get it from the course Blackboard site.
Choose one artist from the article and look them up on the web. What media does their work refer to, or borrow from, and how does their manipulation create new meaning? Please comment below-- or, if your web search turns up images or media, feel free to make a new blog post.
I was compelled to respond to "CNN Concatenated" by Omer Fast. I decided quickly after watching the video that I needed to figure out what 'concatenated' meant. I assumed that it was a made-up word, maybe a play on the word 'concentrated,' but I soon found that the word is listed in dictionaries.
ReplyDeleteFrom thefreedictionary.com :
con·cat·e·nate (kn-ktn-t, kn-)
tr.v. con·cat·e·nat·ed, con·cat·e·nat·ing, con·cat·e·nates
1. To connect or link in a series or chain.
2. Computer Science To arrange (strings of characters) into a chained list.
Fast's piece links tiny, one worded clips from many different CNN News castings to create one long, large news casting. As a whole, it seems impossible to derive a meaning from the piece if one uses the chain of words in order. For example, one dialogue is,
"Don't get upset and don't get emotional. Just get near me and just pay attention. Please. Look, I know that you're scared, I know what you're afraid of, you mistrust your body. Lately it has been looking more and more foreign. It's been doing strange things, you suspect that it has been keeping something from you. That knowledge of your own death is already programmed inside it somehow....that is stored in a primitive organ that in between the crush of blood and digestion your appendix or spleen sits obliviously still like an overgrown traffic island keeping watch over a terrible secret. You worry that this knowledge will arrive at your very last moment."
In small bits throughout the dialogue, meaning can be derived, but as a whole the meaning of it is debatable and not clear cut.
What I consider to be at least part of his message is the role of media in human existence...a nervousness it creates in people due to their undying trust of everything it says. The beginning of the video tells the viewer to come close and 'just listen,' which is a creepy demand. Fast is trying to exaggerate to the viewer the power the newscaster has. Whatever the newscaster says, goes.
In conclusion, what I'm trying to say is, Fast shifts the meaning of newscast from an informative program about world events, to an informative program about the power of newscasts.
I chosed Christian Marclay "telephones" at first because I was curious as to why and how would someone make scenes in which people pick up telephones interesting. After finding and watching part of the video on youtube I am pleased so far with what I saw the way he puts together these scenes is really cool mainly because of the way he fuses all the different types of rings and peoples tone of voice. This is something that we dont normaly notice when watching a movie and in this piece he is making the viewer aware that not everyone has the same type of ring, or tone of voice when first picking up the phone.
ReplyDeleteI also chose to respond to CNN Concatenated because I found it the most interesting. I liked how each word is spoken by a different news reporter. I think Omer Fast is trying to show that anything can be news and if CNN or any news station wants to, they can manipulate anything to sound like it’s so important. I liked this video because I thought it put a fun twist to news casting. It also shows how routine the news reporting is because every time it switches to a new reporter or newscaster, their body language, tone of voice, and facial expressions are all pretty similar. It added humor when it would put in the person pausing or taking a breath to show a new sentence. I never noticed that during the news until I watched this.
ReplyDeletePaul Pfeiffer capitalizes on the creative concept of manipulation of the image on the screen such that the subject of the shot has been erased. One example of this was erasing boxers in a boxing match. All that is seen on the screen is a cheering crowd and the ropes on the ring expanding and contracting. The idea that Pfeiffer is exaggerating by erasing the primary subjects of a scene forces the viewer to focus on the entire composition or mise en scene of the shot. The viewer now has the ability to realize the secondary aspects of what composes the shot. Furthermore, by eliminating the primary subjects for the screen, Pfeiffer is completely removing his work from the classic hollywood model type video and placing it into a new realm in which viewer will scrutinize over technical aspects of the production, direction, and editing rather than following the storyline and plot.
ReplyDelete