Parisian public performance art, if that's what you'd call it

"FAREWELL"

All of the videos are less than 4 minutes. Indulge !

Post-Lyrics

Headwar LYVE

French avant-garde craziness, bunch of gibberish and sheep bleating. Yee-haw

montage response

From reading einstein's article on montage methods, i am now much more aware of the technicality of each method and the kinds of moods the can display. One example that directly came to mind was Rocky Balboa's training montage sequence. from my own analysis I figured that this training sequence goes back and forth between metric and rhythmic montage. At times the pace at which he jogs is in beat with the music and along with the cuts making it metric, while other times, Rocky's movements go against the grain of the cuts and music making it rhythmic. This class is slowly taking away my movie watching experience because I am now much more aware of the techniques! In the best possible way though.

Theater and cruelty

The main point that I took away from Artaud was that what cinema depicts is an exact reflection of what is at the heart of our human condition -- Love, violence, crime, and madness. Artaud states that theater is something that connects with our sensibility and that It is "Unforgettable soul therapy." when done right. Artaud proposes that we reinstate theater but with an appeal to the senses first and foremost. But isn't that the current state of cinema today? -- a show that connects with the senses of the masses (which only ever really turns out to be of sight, and sound.) I understand what Artaud is ultimately striving for, but for me at least, I wasn't able to see the full scope of his game plan on how the senses were to be challenged. This lead me to wonder... What if an appeal of smell or touch were added to the atmosphere of theater? A much more engaging and original viewing experience would be created!
Artaud suggests that there is a great deal of poetry locked up in us all -- even as we trample over ourselves in our chaotic world. Poetry is the missing ingredient that needs to be engaged once more! Maybe this was Artaud's way to differentiate theater from cinema.

Detournement

What I got from this article is that detournement is basically a form of appropriation that reuses works that have already been done, but these works are changed ever so slightly so that the artist can claim it as their own work. Meaning can also be changed by detourning a work. I found this interesting because it's hard to create something totally original and the fact that artists like Duchamp used detournement to mock old traditions. I actually went and found a comic strip that sums the whole idea up. Enjoy!

Detournement

From what I grasped from this article, the concept of Detournement seems like to resemble the ideas of the Futurist. The idea of totally recreating something and removing its entire memory /  context and creating a completely new identity that will create a new embedded memory. I am also confusing the difference of appropriation and Detournement. I see them both walking on the same line by "it is in fact necessary to eliminate all remnants of the notion of personal property in this area. The appearance of new necessities outmodes previous “inspired” works. They become obstacles, dangerous habits. The point is not whether we like them or not. We have to go beyond them." Is there truly a difference between the two? 

A User’s Guide to Détournement

Seems to be exactly what the title says a guide on how to creating Détournement when woking. The authors  Guy Debord and Gil Wolman seem to believe works done using Détournement must not contain ideology as they are a commodity, but despite this they must still teach something political.

A Users Guide To Detournement

this article seems to be point out the meaning and history of Detournement. like using restoration of old museum paintings as a example. also it mentions reworking on old works, so from what i was able to gather from reading this is that by doing detournement, we are changing up what a original piece could have meant.

Methods of Montage

Before reading Eisenstein's "Methods of Montage", I did not realize how many different types of editing techniques there were, and how technical it was, and how each type can portray a story or emotional response for certain scenes.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MzXFSBlQOe4

Tonal Montage

Just thought this would be a good example of tonal montage.

Methods of Montage

In response to this, I watched a couple of Call of Duty (only because that's all I could really think of when I thought of 'montage') montages. I'm still not 100% on all of these different kinds of montages, but from what I did understand, I think a good deal of those montages were tonal montage. Most of those kinds of montages are done with music in the background, and the cuts aren't the same length. The tone of the montage is to showcase the player's talent, so the viewer is supposed to be in awe. In addition, the music is fast-paced to kinda set the mood of the piece.

Eisenstein's Methods

 

Eisenstein's Methods of Montage Metric, Rythmatic, Tonal, Overtonal, and Intellectual are all relatively simple as an explanation and despight being geared toward the use of film in his explination can be adapted for use outside of this. This is easily seen other forms of new media this includes both performance and music.

Methods of Montage

seeing how shots in certain different directions are used help try to relay the effect that the director is trying to get out of the audience's possible reaction. like during a showdown in the old west switching every few seconds to each person involved in the main area of the scene. Zack Synder's use of montage  in "Man of Steel" confused me like crazy, because his method was erratic at times, where it was emotional on certain parts or it becoming metric at certain bits. but a better director at using montage was christopher nolan in his batman movies, where he established forms of montage at the right length without swinging from scene to scene like zack sender.

Theatre and Cruelty

I feel that the idea of theatre is still existent, but there are other forms of performance that seem to change what we think of as theatre. I found this article interesting in the fact that Artaud feels that we are too sensitive and theatre is that only thing we need to wake up from reality. It seems that this act of cruelty in theatre serves more of an eye opener. I feel that it's important to have something completely shocking and mind-blowing in order to gain attention to an idea. Theatre is something that is a display of a performance and it's important to fully think through on how do you want your audience to react. It's the same thing with any sort of performance and I agree that it's important to think about the emotion of your audience. I feel that Artaud wanted to make that an important point and used cruelty to enhance emotion.

Cruel Theatre of Cruelty

The Idea of a surreal, immersive experience in theatre is not exactly 'avant Garde' any more. Though today's theatre often has the more standard story, plot, and line, the idea of a 'Box Theater' is a theatre space which can be completely customized. Everything from the location of seating, to the walls and ceiling can be changed to make the theatre experience more immersive. As for Antonin's comments on the audience having subconscious responses to things like music, color, and lights, all of these things are normally seen as being subconscious and unnoticeable. The job of a theatre technician often goes unseen unless something goes wrong during a performance. Normally everything from lights to sound cues have to be 'perfectly unrealistic' to fit the space, and the play itself. 

 

Theatre of Cruelty

well this reading seemed interesting to read on how Artaud wanted to get in people's heads with his form of theatre he made. his attempt to pull out the emotions from a person's subconscious was interesting, he wanted to pull out a person's emotions that they don't normally show. i feel that his method is a good one cause it would bring "your" own emotions and not the kind you have that you show among others when they may have a very similar emotional response. expressing emotions without words may bring something out that words could never do seems like a good idea of artuad. he tried to get responses from the mind only instead of just all the senses. i would like to see something short that has this method applied to it and see a normal nonartisic audience respond to it.

Cruelty Theater Reply

This article seems a bit optimistic in the way of the masses turning away from cinema and other various forms of entertainment. from what I got from it he wants theater to instruct and inspire rather than be folly and to entertain. His idea of "total" theater is intriguing but I wonder its appeal range. He wants a universally understood and appealing form of theater, which seems a bit odd because rarely are things ever universal. A theme itself ( such as war) can be universal but when translated into something like scenes and acts and depicted visually there can never be a global understanding. Using gestures, words, and nonverbal mediums as a way to enhance the poetry of theater might make getting the message across a little harder but this is coming from a traditional theater student who hasn't really dabbled in the avant garde, so I might have some strong biases.

Ethnographic Autobiography - Luke Peterson

Does the 'genre' of autobiography go through phases and fads like any other genre? I was always under the impression that an autobiography was simply a truly spoken narrative or series of memoirs regarding one's life. while this is generally accepted as true, I wasn't aware that there were multiple styles of an autobiography. In this essay Russel talks of a "new autobiography" which is an ethnographic analysis of ones history in society and how it relates to the author. I have observed this "new autobiography" in books such as "A Long Way Gone - Memoirs of a boy soldier" by Ishmael Beah. But why is it that this is the new autobiography? Hasn't it ALWAYS been of importance to analyze one's history in society and how it plays a part in their lives today? What about this is "new"?
Perhaps this is only the new standard for autobiography -- What we as people need to see in 2015. Making the ethnographic autobiography the new autobiography may leave us more room to understand the worldly community.

Luke Peterson

Autoethnography

From this reading i have learned that filmmakers like Jonas Mekas, George Kutchar, and Sadie Benning used person video diaries to look back on their ethical and cultural views of the world around them. I absolutely love this type of filmmaking, you can express a lot of information within the piece while portraying how they express their personal past experiences prior to the filming. What i believe makes these pieces so mind catching is that you are being able to see within the artists emotions and being able to understand the balance between the audience and the performer. The intimacy between the audience and the performer are what create these pieces to be so constructed fully. Without that connection these pieces could or wouldn't have any meaning. It is noticeably easy to understand and notice the issue they are showing you from these film makers.

Knowing exactly what auto-ethnography is, i am able to love the aspect of reflecting on ones self to find understandings and meanings rather than ethnography to conduct certain "interviews" to gain the understanding. 

Autoethnography Post Thingy

This week’s reading focused on a variety of filmmakers like Jonas Mekas, George Kuchar,  Sadie Benning, Kidlat Tahimikas and Chris Marker, whom used personal video diaries to reflect on their ethical and cultural views of the world around them. The major artists had several aspects of their metod explained such as Mekas for whom memorialization and loss are the defining characteristics of his diary films ha is diaries described as prototypical autoethnographies. Many of Kuchar’s diaries are discussed in which he makes no apparent break between experience and representation allowing him create an impression that he carries the camera everywhere with him. Benning used found footage to refers back only to herself as an ethnographic referent. Tahimik’s  Diary of a Third World Filmmaker show his belief that filmmaking, is above all a craft, through which he can be aligned with preindustrial modes of production. Marker's film Sans Soleil: The Infirmities of Time invisibility, omniscience, ubiquity, and mobility situate him as yet another belated traveler. All of these artists techniques and fills are discussed to give the reader a better understanding of Autoethnographies and their meaning.

Autoethnography

What I got out of the reading for this week was that filmmakers like Jonas Mekas, George Kuchar, and Sadie Benning used personal video diaries to reflect on their ethical and cultural views of the world around them. I found it interesting how they can say so much in these type of films and even finding a way in incorporating how they go about telling of their personal experiences that already have occurred prior to filming. Also I feel like these films that they create are very informative in a way that you are able to understand where they are coming from and understand the issue at hand that they are describing to you. The intimacy between the performer and the certain audience is important too in the act of creating video diaries because the performer could be being filmed without knowing so much that there is an audience, but they are acting as if there is. Overall, I feel that autoethnography is something that we can accomplish through reflecting our experiences in way that our audience can see that personal connection that we have with a wider culture, political, or social understandings.

Catherine Russell - Autoethnography

i have read this enough to understand that this writing by ms.russell is seeming to explain different types of biography films with some of them being video diaries or diary films. such as walter benjamin trying to chronicle his childhood in berlin. like his social relations or getting to know gender roles. Jonas Mekas's diary films are perhaps the prototypical autoethnographies, he seems to have been a guy who could mix how history remembers events with the memories that he made through those events. with it having a sad and yet poetic narration in his films. George Kuchar's video diaries are extensive, voluminous, sometimes tedious, always cynical, and often amusing. from what i gathered from george's way at going at is that he wanted to shatter the barrier between a representation or having a experience of a event by taking a camera everywhere he went. he did that by making many event videos from the activities near his home and also his friends,family and colleagues around him. so to put in summary using these three guys as a example, they have taught me that through how we create video diary films, we can hope to give the viewers the same experience we got through making the films we were inspired to create.

The Futurist Manifesto

I just finished reading the Futurist Manifesto, and it was an interesting perspective from a futurist's mind on rejecting the past and celebrating speed, violence, machinery, youth and the industry. The manifesto is also an advocation for modernizing Italy. The first part elaborated on the futurists' love for machinery when they went up to hug the decker trams, and celebrating their youth by jumping and playing in the mud. The second part then specified the futurists' views or beliefs on their love of violence, war, machinery, speed, youth, and their hate for static things such libraries, museums, fighting against morality, and feminism. The second part of the manifesto also speaks about modernizing Italy, where the author described Italy as a "second hand market".
Although I don't agree with futurism's views against morality and feminism, I do, however,agree that countries such as Italy during the early 1900s must accept change and adapt to the growing industry.