video project

ok, i've officially come up with a better idea.
Title: The Real World
The idea is taking the title of the horribly popular reality TV show and turning it into actual reality. I plan to film the real world at its best, and its worst, and its ordinary-ness. The challange will be the amount of clips and editing, and keeping it interesting. I feel like its a challange I can take on and happily conquer. Woot.

Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh thunder!!!!!

I have been brainstorming like crazy, and I just cannot come up with anything for this video project! I searched the innernet for inspiration, thought for the longest time in the library with my pencil held motionless over my notebook. I've racked my brain so much it hurts. I am considering doing a video about myself desperatly trying to make a video. I'll have to map it out, but perhaps something will come of it. Sigh. I'm trying :/

On a brighter note, I started the design for my final DVD menu and i'm loving it so far. Woot.

For my photography project, I was thinking of doing something with the musical I am currently rehearsing for.
The idea I had was to bring my camera to practice one night, and every time the director yells at the cast, I would take a picture.
I'm not sure if this would work
1. because there are many times he yells when I am on stage, and I can't bring the camera up there with me. It's pretty large.
and
2. because the show is next weekend, he isn't yelling as much. Most people have already fixed the problems he had ranted about in the past.

I'll keep considering it though.

In reading the article assigned, I have come to accept the fact that I know nothing about art. Well, mostly about artists. In each article we've read, I understand what the author is saying for the most part, but any references to artists or art movements and such, and it goes right over my head. In class, Prof Allyn will mention an artist and say, you know them right? And most of the class will nod or say, wasn't that the guy who lived in a cage for a year or crucified himself to a volkswagon? But unless it is Leonardo Divinci, I usually sit quietly and wonder who on earth they are talking about. And I learn, I'll listen and learn, but there are so many names and I have a horrible memory. I've learned who Vito Acconci is (and I don't like him very much...) and I'll always remember Wegman and his dogs (mostly because I have a Wegman's supermarket near my house, and I'm a dog person...). There are certain people who stick with me, but the rest are lost in the unabsorbant chaos that is my mind.
Reading the article Performing the moment, I felt as though I was missing something crucial because I don't recognize the names that are mentioned. The only artist that I knew was Yoko Ono, and that's just because of The Beatles.
It doesn't really bother me much, I'm not torn apart for not knowing artists, but i guess it's just interesting to me how much the other students in my class do know them. Maybe it's just the few who speak up that are knowledgable in art, and the rest of the class is clueless like me. At least I know the other IMM majors are usually unfamiliar with artists as well.
I know the article had nothing to do with knowledge of art, but this is just what was brought to my attention in reading it. As far as photography (which was the subject of the writing), I love it. I have no idea who in the world has made a name for themselves in photography or what great experimental movements have gone on with photographs, I don't know who revolutionized the artistic use of the camera, and if I was taught I would probably forget them anyway. Point here is, I love photography, and I love art, and I will always love and use these wonderful mediums to make my life and the lives of others a little more colorful. I'm a hands on learner, and unless some famous photographer is right next to me teaching me their ways, chances are I won't remember their name. : /

I'm pretty excited for the performance tomorrow. Kelli and I love our idea.

And oddly enough I'm excited to present my powerpoint about the Guerilla Girls. (I say oddly because I usually hate class presentations....) They are so cool. :)

Response to Walter Benjamin

"Even the most perfect reproduction of a work of art is lacking in one element: its presence in time and space, its unique existence at the place where it happens to be" -Walter Benjamin This quote specifically made sense to me. Looking at art broadly, from paintings to architechture to literature, it seems to be the only direct thing that survives time and links us directly to the past. People die, and with them their stories and their knowledge. Society changes, languages fade out. It seems that art is only thing that we can hold in our hand or study personally and say, this artifact has been around since the middle ages. It was made by a person who lived then, and it presents to us directly what they valued in beauty and ideas. Art is the ultimate description of any culture. It reveals beliefs, priorities, social norms, physical means. Cultures have changed so immensly throughout time and place and the only way to study this kind history is through art. "We define the aura of the latter as the unique phenomenon of a distance, however close it may be. If, while resting on a summer afternoon, you follow with your eyes a mountain range on the horizon or a branch which casts its shadow over you, you experience the aura of those mountains, of that branch. " No doubt, I have experienced and loved experiencing auras. I recall waking up one morning and glancing out my window. It was spring, and a pink budded tree branched crossed the cloudless sky. It was so picturesque, so real. (As corny as it sounds...) That morning i recognized my appreciation for the auras in life, although I had known no name for it at the time. My inspirational morning was so lovely, that I wished to capture it. I whipped out my handy dandy camera and focused a lovely shot out my window. I knew though that it would not be developed with that aura. I got that picture developed and sighed at the camera's inability to reproduce my inspirational scene. The photograph was enough for me to look at it and be reminded of the feeling I had imersed in that aura, but if I had shown that picture to another person, it would mean absolutely nothing to them. But then that brings me to a question (I suppose the question I will use in class). Let's take DaVinci's Mona Lisa. Because of course Mona Lisa is probably used in every general art example ever... Do you think that DaVinci was disappointed with a lack of aura in his painting? Assuming he painted the portrait from a model, is it possible that he saw such an aura from that woman that compelled him to paint her, but can only be reminded of it when he looks at the painting, like me with my photograph? Then when he shows it to others, perhaps it means nothing to them compared to the reminder of some lovely feeling of DaVinci's alone? Then can we say that reproduction doesn't actually change any aura of the art, because the art is actually a reproduction of something else, and in being a reproduction, it has lost the aura already that the inspiration in real life had? I think art is a reproduction of life. Even if it is not a visual thing in life. It can be an emotion or an idea. Art reproduces life, in truth or lies, in detail or just generalization. Art reproduces culture, relationships, individuality. If art is a reproduction, than can reproducing art really have a negative effect on the original artwork? I'm not saying that I don't believe reproduction of art has a negative effect, in fact I really am not sure. But these are just ideas running through my head.

Guerrilla Girls

Unchain the women directors!

Women directed only 7% of the top 200 films of 2005.

No woman director has ever won the Oscar!

Only 3 have been nominated.

www.guerrillagirls.com

These girls are my heroines.