Field Report Three: stop.look.listen

Hello,

I chose to do a video art response based on the nature of the this assignment. I went to the Heggrity Musium today and I thought it was amazing to be in an environment that is surrounded by purposeful ideas. I really appreciated all the video installations. They all seemed to focus on very particular techniques and feelings and had an intense focus to them. They allowed me to see thorough demonstrations of specific strategies. One that stood out significantly was actually a video instillation we watched in class by Mads Lynnerup, his masterpiece, Untying A Shoe With An Erection. I love the piece because it really does cause the viewer to imagine what is happening off screen and I am interested in exploring this method and incorporating it into my own work. I believe this is a technique that is not utilized enough.

However, the two video installations that I would like to compare are Jesper Just’s Bliss and Heaven and Christian Marclay’s Telephones. On one hand you have Bliss and Heaven, a sexually charged video with a message that was extremely clear because of the cinematography. The video used symbols like an electric wire that leads to a power plant, to demonstrate a charge, a blood pumping, knock your socks off charge. The symbiotics in Just’s video also help make it the point clear, a man’s ponytail, the truck, the power plant in the background. These symbiotics are the backbone to this video. But, it is the sound of this video that completes the moment because it creates an environment . Aaron Ximm wrote an article called, “Sound, Art, Music?” In it, he encourages the exploration of sound and strongly encourages articulating the different relationships sound negotiates with its environment. So, I have been focusing on just that. I believe in Just’s video, the sound negotiates a mixture of feelings. You have the voice of the truck driver singing, what I consider to be emotionally expressing himself, the clapping of hands, the crying. These are the most profound sounds I believe in the video. The environment is a stage, empty seat surround it, and the man singing has a spotlight shining down on him. Now, just stop for a moment and consider if the video didn’t have sound....... I don’t believe the pain and excitement in Just’s video would have been as impactful, had it not been for the sound. Glen Bach has recommended me to close my eyes and listen to a film or video and contemplate what the sound does for the image. How is the experience different than just seeing the images? It is a method that defiantly works.

Now please consider the video “Telephones” by Christian Marclay. It uses sound in a similar way to Bliss and Heaven because the sound conveys a meaning to a image that is somewhat ambiguous. In telephones the image is continually changing due to the design of the video. She edited together clips from many films that span across many years. What ties each piece together is the sound. It would be extremely less effective to not have sound in this video because the environment is never exactly the same, but the similarity is everyone is talking on phones. So, you could argue that the images are tied together due to this, but it is the sound of the people talking that take us on a journey through time. To hear the different voices and their pitch, the variation of it and the words that come out, are interesting. I think that without the sound the pictures of movie stars holding a phone would be boring. I would argue that we are more interested in what is said vs. what is seen in this video. Also, the sound creates a more intimate feeling between the viewer and the images. This confirms the environment
The images in both videos depend on sound to convey their meaning. In Bliss and Heaven, it is the sound that establishes a feeling of pain. The image of a man singing is too vague, and I considered it one dimensional, but when we hear his voice it changes the message being sent. In the video Telephones, the viewer could interpret several different meanings, but because of sound, the image of people on telephones creates a place in time, a complete environment.