Stroszek Similarities

Last week I briefly discussed Werner Herzog and one of his many films, Stroszek. Last week I had seen majority of the film with commentary. This week, I viewed the film in its entirety without any commentary. It had a different affect, however, I couldn’t help but remember side notes the director said in the commentary when I was watching the film throughout. The ending of the film was quit clever to say the least. The impact that Herzog left on viewers, both American and to other’s worldwide was out of the ordinary. It was far from horrible, but not necessarily your “fairy tale” ending. I say this is brilliant because of a few reasons. Americans are known to be accustomed to the “happy ending syndrome”. We love it when two people fall in love and live happily ever after, like in Notebook.

We admire films when fathers are willing to sacrifice their life to stand up against the system like in John Q.  

What Herzog said was, No! America is not all peaches and cream. Sure, it is the land of the free, and the perfect place to go from “rags to riches”, but life does not always happen that way.

In my project, I can relate to the message that Herzog was trying to convey. Gentrification is a serious issue, but some do not look at it as such. People have certain ways of thinking that tearing down buildings and homes in poverty stricken areas is a good thing because the new buildings will help those communities. That is not always the case. Building new buildings and raising taxes creates the issue of people not being able to afford their homes, and being evicted. Some people get a little money from the government, but that money is only going to go so far.

Influences from Herzog

Werner Herzog is a German filmmaker with a different style of directing. As a potential director myself, I find Herzog to be rather intriguing, to say the least, particularly with his approach in the film Stroszek. A few days ago I viewed this film with the commentary and discovered so much in depth of his vision. There are major sections in the film that is improvisational, completely off script. There are different locations in the movie that Herzog decided to capture in the spare of the moment. To put the cherry on top, out of all places in America to film a movie, Plainfield, Wisconsin was where he shot much of the film. Why not Chicago, Illinois? Why not Los Angeles, California? Why not New York City? I think Herzog had a perception of America being this place where immigrants come for that typical “Rags to Riches” story. Interesting enough, our main character’s dreams of success in America didn’t come true.

  In chapter 5 of a reading titled, “Herzog on Herzog”, Werner said, “Musical influences have always been very strong, maybe the strongest. He went on by saying he does not read much, but when he does, it is always a very intense experience. He especially likes poetry by Holderlin. I thought that was ironic because I too am influenced by music. For the purpose of my final project, both poetry and music are deep elements to the entire project. Music and poetry does not just influence the piece, it is my piece. Herzog collaborated with magnificent artists, such as Bruno S, so will I. Jinglei Xiao, who is a classmate of mine, has agreed to collaborate with me on this project. With his extraordinary editing skills, and both of our creative minds, there’s no telling what the finished project will convey. However, I can say this much, it will be revelating.          

Do Everything - Andy Warhol

Andy Warhol is an artistic genius to so many people worldwide. His witty intellect and stylish domineer influenced so many artists during his time, as well as now in the 21^st century. I recently viewed the last hour or so of a documentary about Warhol’s life. His life choices were daring, risky, and I am convinced that that mindset rewarded him with successful films and paintings, as well as the issues that come with being famous. Like many famous people, Warhol experienced a near death experience that briefly blocked his creative juices. After Warhol was shot, he created a project that accumulated millions of dollars. In his early days, he created the painting for the Campbell’s soup Ad. 

He made money from simple art people take for granted. Later in his career, after he was shot, he used a similar pattern, creating famous celebrity paintings that reined at the top of pop art culture. He made 100 million dollars for a 1963 canvas titled Eight Elvises. Pablo Picasso and very few other artists have only reached that mark. 

Warhol said, “Do Everything”. He said it, and firmly stood by it, as he created paintings, digital pieces, films, worked with rock bands, and more. My digital project is a lot like Warhol’s “Do everything” theme. For approximately five minutes I plan on presenting a poetry performance piece about different issues I think are significant in America, then it will fade into a music video related to the same topic. In my short video I will have directed, produced, performed, and edited a project that the world could view on the web.  Warhol said everything, my project is very close to that.

Back to Natural...

Synopsis: A short informational video, addressing the issue African – American women encompass with the image of their hair. 

Statement of Purpose: As a society we are constantly over-flooded with imagery, and what they consider to be beautiful. From designer pumps to Gucci and Channel purses, technology is always projecting these images of what it means to be beautiful; But who really creates these rules? For my project, I chose to create a brief video, concentrating on what it means to be a beautiful black woman.

Jill Scott is a poet and a Soul artist who refrains from putting chemicals in her hair. It is not often that she is in the media, but when she is, her image seems to be humble and wise. She is an example of one who distributes beauty within, and embraces her natural looks.      

In the 70's', African Americans were uplifting their natural looks and rebelling against different politicians, and other Caucasions in high powered positions. The Black Panthers was a major part of the Afro epidemic among the black culture in the 70's. Here is photo of the late Michael Jackson sporting his afro, and George W. Bush, being photoshoped with an afro. Although the photo of Bush is meant to be funny, it is also humilating to African  American culture.

Since past generations, society has had this notion that straight hair is more beautiful and socially accepted than Corse and curly hair. In response to this belief, several of African American women put chemicals (perm) in their naturally curly hair to make it straighter and more socially acceptable. To deliver my perception on this dilemma, I chose to interview junior Ashley Dowdy, who has recently returned her hair to its natural essence. Her story is intriguing. To watch my video, click on this link, (Back to Natural), or, you can watch it below.

Manovich and New Media

Do you know your new media history? Well I certainly did not before reading Lev Manovich’s article titled, “New Media from Borges to HTML” in the New Media Reader. Manovich’s article is the opening to this anthology of new media that he also considers to be a radical new history of modern culture. Manovich writes, “a view from the future when people will recognize that the true cultural innovators of the last decades of the twentieth century were interface designers, computer game designers, music video directors and DJs – rather than painters, filmmakers, or fiction writers, whose fields remained relatively stable during this historical period.” He then breaks down the what exactly new media is into eight different propositions which include: New Media versus Cyberculture, New Media as Computer Technology Used as a Distribution Platform, New Media as a Digital Data Controlled by software, New Media as the Mix Between Existing Cultural Conventions and the Conventions of software, and he elaborates on the New media and how it relates to four more subjects throughout his article.

 Rhizome is a content magnet and delivery system that exposes the entire site. (The content, structure, and metadata). So, instead of just creating a site with URL’s that correspond to a page of HTML, you can create URLs that represent just about anything, and this is what our internet has come to today. In other words, everything is intertwined with one another, and the New Media is growing faster than ever. I think it is amazing, especially how Manovich visions the future as people looking back at computer game designers and music video directors as the radical new history of modern culture. That puts the image in me that we are creating history now. In three hundred years, sure someone will still be teaching Picasso, but they also will be teaching Hype Williams.

Video Art with Bill Viola

Bill Viola is by far one of the most important and vital artists in the 21^st century. He is a video artist, taking a contemporary approach to all of his creations. Viola is honorable in that he bases so much of his work on either birth, death, or the human consciousness. I can be honest in saying that researching him, I never was drawn to boredom. Although his work may seem a bit over the top with spirituality, that is exactly his method and what he is pushing for. Viola believes we live in a visual society and that images are our global language. Some of his work is incredibly beautiful, some of it is rather odd. Nevertheless, all of his work is inspirational, thriving with his visions, ideas, and what he feels is important for society to understand. I created a brief slideshow to show some examples of Bill Viola’s work and his concepts. I included some of his works that impacted millions of people, such as “The Raft”, as well as some work that many have possibly never heard of, like “Four Hands”.  

In so much of his work, Viola seems to have a strong obsession with water in his films.  In the slide show I chose to show “The Raft”, “Ocean’s Without a Shore”, and “Two Women”, all near each other to show his infatuation with water. Here is a brief example of  “Ocean’s Without a Shore”.  



 Recently, I had discussed how the medium is the message. Bill Viola responded in a interview with ,“Any time there’s a new development in the medium there are new creative possibilities”. I completely agree, and you can clearly see Viola expresses this through his work.

The Medium Is the Message

"Today when we want to get our bearings in our own culture, and have need to stand aside from the bias and pressure exerted by any technical form of human expression, we have only to visit a society where that particular form has not been felt, or a historical period in which it was unknown." Marshall McLuhan is a fascinating individual. I read a brief article in the book, "The New Media Reader", written by McLuhan, that opened my mind to different ideas about how I precieve different mediums. His ideas in his article titled, "The Medium Is the Message", are interesting, to say the very least. McLuhan has a certain style of writing about present technology and how it compares to earlier technology. Aside from this, he also has a very strong belief that any form of media is always a combination of another media. I fully agree with his concept. Here are a few pictures of differnt mediums doing more than one task at the same time.

Today, almost all media is made up of another media, from television, to IPods. I tried thinking outside the box by going as far back as books, in saying that this is one form of media that content is not another media. In some cases this point would be valid, but nowadays, there are so many books that contain works by a collaboration of different authors that I am convinced that argument will soon no longer exist. McLuhan also brought up a point that technology acts as an extension to our body. I thought this was a very original and clever way of forming an idea that so many others have also had, but could never articulate in this fashion. I have heard people say technology influences society, and I have heard people talk about the positives and negatives in how technology advances so rapidly. I have yet to hear anyone argue McLuhan's argument, and yet I see his argument in so many other's. I find this to be ironic, considering one of his main arguments was how no media is without some form of another media. Does this have the same affect with ideas?