Event

On Friday April 18th I attended a lecture by Caroline Jones, and conceptual artist Sissel Tolaas at Kennelworth Square. It was about different kinds of art, such as creating prosthesis where you can smell yourself. It was about new media and how artists are taking laptop screens and altering them into projectors. This event was centered around media, and all of the art was experimental. The second speaker for this event Sissel Tolaas spoke about her travels around the world and how she collects smells. She spoke about her experience creating a perfume that smelled like this very dirty London Street. I liked this event and it helped open me up to a new kind of art.

Fire dust

When we watched the film “the sneeze” I expected it to drone on for about a half hour, not knowing what to expect I was fooled when he sneezed and then the film was over. To say the least that film was hilarious. The film I liked the most however was the film that had all the weird colors and was based in Reno. This film was interesting because it had a plot line, but to me it was more about the colors. My favorite part of this film was when the narrator was talking about the heat and the lawn tractor drives by and the dust behind him looks like fire, because of the odd color usage. I also enjoyed how he put the mountain scene in the film, and casually caught the guy walking and nonchalantly the narrator talked about him for a short while. This was a good class and I learned a lot about different kinds of film and understand them enough to gain the meaning of the films.
Nick Stoehr
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Jerry!

Jerry Springer
Last Tuesday after class I traveled to Chicago with a few friends to sit in on a taping of the Jerry Springer show. I relize that these blogs are for experimental media, but this was an actual NBC Production. After arriving at the studio we walked thru metel dectectors and rode the elevator to the floor of the Jerry Springer Show (JSS). We were seated and then instructed on how to act during the show. There was a Stagehand that told us when to clap, what to chant, and when to stand, sit, and be quite. Then Jerry came out and the taping began. They used these big cameras with mini t.v.s for some of the taping, and they also had two guys with cameras that were quite large still but they could be picked up and filmed from wherever is possible to walk. In total they had six cameras taping at all time. The producer(switchboard operator) was seated to the right hand part of the stage and ran everything off of a small computer. The show itself was funny, but watching the filming was honestly the most interesting part of the whole experience.
Nick Stoehr
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Sonic Outlaws

Sonic Outlaws is a film about the practice of "Culture Jamming". This film produced by Craig Baldwin, is a film which allows the viewer to expand their knowlege in the uses of "experimental media". In the start of the film, a band by the name negativeland is hit with a lawsuit for violating copyright rules. These rules were violated by the use of mixing U2 with voice exerpts from radio personality Kasey Kasum. They were also violated by using the U2 symbol to cover most of their album cover, duping consumers to thinking that it was a U2 album and not a negativeland album. In the film one of the members of negativeland uses a cb radio to illegaly pick up and listen to a phone call over the airwaves. This film was very interesting on how it took a new approach to experimental media. In the film the people that perform these acts take great pride in what they have done, and use it to push the bounderies of copyright laws, even if getting sued in the process.

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Duck Soup was a series of gags and jokes, but it had a plot line. The Way Things Go is a series of stunts, but did not really have a plot line, unless the plot was to knock objects over and use acid to continue the process. I was unable to see the end of the film and don’t know how the finish was but I assume an object fell over and that was the end. These films both contane a series of events, but they differ greatly because Duck Soup has a plot, whereas The Way Things Go does not have much of a plot. It seems as if the point of Duck Soup was to create a movie that the studio can make money from, and The Way Things Go is an art film designed for people with art in mind, and Duck Soup is for a general audience, who watch for humor, a good time.
Nick Stoehr

apr 21

so the film we viewed today that i want to write about is "Media Burn". I liked the idea of this film, it had the grassroots production with being able to pull the mainstream media into the equation. So the idea of this film, burning a pile of television sets, and then running a car into them, is a very interesting one. Was this film a stunt to bring to light the massive amount of television we watch, telling us that we should watch, or that driving a souped up car into a pile of flaming televisions is fun? I liked the film, and that they brought in the "president" and managed to bring in the actual news stations to this staged media event. It was a cool idea, especially taking place on the bicentenial, but if the car was set on fire too, it would have been even better.
Nick Stoehr
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Film201

Table Top Video

So this weeks blog is about my table top video. The point of the video was to create a surreal atomosphere within the alloted space between the table and the camera. The music was there to create a ambience for the image tying together the entire surrealist effect. The video is supposed to create a feel of relaxation with the water and music, and the disburse of color is the performance flowing and moving in the water. The video is about the feel and not about the why.

Week of the 25th

Last week when we viewed the film about the teen girls who turn to god by Althea Thauberger, it seemed as if she was in control. The film itself was somewhat adlibbed and it was almost as if it was pushed by her. What I mean by that is that the film seemed very controlled, yet given space to evolve. The story is serious but in the end with the singing and coming together over a drowned dog (are dogs not great swimmers?) it is really hard to not snicker at.

Nick Stoehr
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