Experimental Cinema: Reel-ly Avant-Garde

Check out the Ann Arbor Film Festival this week. The AAFF is one of the premiere experimental film festivals in the Northwest.

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Experimental cinema, unlike Narrative or Art film, lacks a consistent set of artistic practices. By nature, experimental film eschews coherent meaning, lengths, times. It is far easier, therefore, to define experimental cinema by what it is not than by what it is.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1YhmrD7J7ZI

In Europe, post world war one, Surrealists such as Salvador Dalí and Luis Buñuel argued used the ability to jump across varying imagery and soundscapes to explore the dreamlike and ephemeral quality of film. Un Chien Andalou is a classic Surrealist film which delves into the Oedipal complex, social anxiety towards violence.

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In the US, Stan Brakhage, a reclusive filmmaker refusing to engage in the dominant narrative practices of Hollywood, worked with film reels by hand – adding ink drawings or even moth wings onto the film strips to explore how abstract imagery could be interpolated over elapsed time – literally decorating time and space with his creative vision.

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XaGh0D2NXCA

 

The Canadian film board subsidized work for many talented animators. Norman McLaren is a particularly prolific figure in Canadian experimental and animated film, working for over 30 years with hand-drawn film strips.

 

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I highly recommend attending the Ann Arbor Film Festival this week to see how these early experimental artists’ legacies have continued to influence a broad-based and versatile form of self-expression!

Artist Book as Gallery Space

As a senior working on his thesis project in the Stamps School of Art & Design, I’ve been (obsessively) thinking about different ways to display artwork. Outside of the traditional gallery setting, the general public has more access to art than ever before – most artists have portfolio websites, or galleries documenting exhibitions in their spaces, in addition to physical forms of “takeaway” objects meant to summarize the work through postcards and artist books.

This past weekend marked the opening of Stamps MFA exhibitions – the third year students’ shows taking place in the Stamps gallery spaces (Slusser here on north campus, and Work down on central), as well as a warehouse in Hamtramck and a smaller gallery further inside Detroit; while the first year graduate students showed their initial ideation processes and studies in the faculty studios on Green Rd. here in Ann Arbor. On Thursday, the school provided a bus for us undergrads to travel out to Detroit to see the two separate venues, spending about 45 minutes at each location before concluding the adventure where it began outside of the Michigan Theatre.

The first stop was the giant Hamtramck warehouse space, where the work of artists Joshua Nierodzinski, Natasa Prljevic, and Cosmo Whyte will be up for the coming weeks. The art itself was well done, consisting of paintings, an installation of images, sound, and video, as well as a multimedia collection of prints and sculpture. However, I couldn’t help but feel more overwhelmed by the building itself, only three rooms of which were occupied out of what must have been thousands of square feet and at least ten floors of space. I don’t think it made the work look bad by any means, but perhaps it would have had a bit more of that “wow” factor had the warehouse not dwarfed the focus of the show itself. For me, the saving grace of the exhibition was an artist booklet that was put together by a local publisher in collaboration with the artists, which included more detailed explanations, process photos, and high quality documentation of the work. In contrast to the warehouse-turned-gallery space, it seemed obvious that the format and size of the book was created to fit the art inside it, not the other way around. And for a small fee ($20), anyone could essentially take the show with them and revisit its contents whenever they wanted.

I was immediately struck by the possibility of a book acting as an almost custom, portable gallery space. Of course, art is always better when experienced in person, but especially for someone who was able to make it to the actual exhibition, a book serves as a trigger for the memory of the tangible objects and images it represents. Working in tandem, it seems to be the perfect combination. So much so that I’ve since decided that in addition to the thesis paper I’m required to write about my “project”, I’ll be putting together a sort of thesis zine to act similarly as a takeaway of the work, including process images and writing that the viewer wouldn’t get otherwise.

Sometimes I have nightmares that all the gallery spaces will be filled up, torn down, or taken over by the wrong kind of crowd and that my work will have no place to go. It’s comforting to be reminded that art can live in between the public and private realms of culture, and that if nobody wants to show it, I can at least clear out my room for a photoshoot and pass out booklets to my friends and family. That is, until I’m able to open up a gallery myself 😉

 

http://www.nierodzinski.com/

http://www.natasaprljevic.com/

http://www.cosmowhyte.com/

I Don’t Like Shit, I Don’t Go Outside (Updated)

**The album successfully went live and is available in its entirety on iTunes and Spotify.

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We stare down what looks like a tunnel void of anything but an eery bluish light. The camera tightens in and what is revealed to us isn’t a dark deserted road, or orbs of light, we’re looking at something a little more frightening: a single person with his face in the palm of his hand sitting on a living room couch. The music video is set up in a ghostly glow with us encircling and frequently squared , face-to-face with Earl Sweatshirt. Earl is talking to us, one-on-one. He’s imploring us to hear him out. We follow him as he staggers, one hand graced with a lit blunt and the other tracing a guiding wall. The video for Grief by Earl Sweatshirt was dropped on March 17th and has already racked up over half a million views. Additionally, the album art as well as the single were dropped (reportedly too early) to iTunes on the 17th available for pre-order. The point of this post? The album is expected tomorrow March 23rd. I implore you: buy. the. album.

Earl is a talented, unparalleled, and extremely young rapper than I am in awe of every single time I turn on Chum and now when I turn on Grief. The young rapper was discovered by rapper/producer/designer Tyler, the Creator as early as 2009 (which would put him at a mere 15 years-old at the time) and immediately turned on to Odd Future’s unreleased mixtape. Earl’s beats are enough to make you swallow–hard. They pump your heart for you with their deep thuds and swirling mids. Grief in particular forces me to close my eyes every time I press play. The second the song begins the true sound of his mix cannot be described in a word any better than Grief. The sound is somber, it’s brooding, its brow-furrowing. You want to take up the same posture as Earl when you see the way he’s doubled over on what could be his mother’s couch. His genius is only further by his lyrics:

We had females come in every hour on the dot
And the shit sound like a gavel when it knock
Focus on my chatter, ain’t as frantic as my thoughts
Lately I’ve been panicking a lot
Feeling like I’m stranded in a mob
Scrambling for Xanax out the canister to pop
Never getting out of hand, steady handling my job
Time damaging my ties

The young rapper, now 21, is about to drop his second LP in a few hours. The artwork is as dark and brooding as the music video: a black plane lit only by white ghostly light in the distance. The track list is reported to include:

1. Huey
2. Mantra
3. Faucet
4. Grief
5. Off Top
6. Grown Ups (ft. Dash)
7. AM // Radio (ft. Wiki)
8. Inside
9. Dna (ft. Na’kel)
10. Wool (ft. Vince Staples)

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If you’re about truthful lyrics, about a young man fighting demons with art, about truth and perfectly-under-hyped music, I cannot point you towards Earl Sweatshirt enough. Whether you like rap or not, our peer is turning out truly astonishing beats and lyrics. Tyler was right to take him under his wing. SONY is right to have signed him. He is a poet, tortured like any other and more than deserving of kudos.

Why Bookstores Are My Favorite Place in the World

Being a semi-immobile student at U of M, I rarely get the opportunity to branch out to the fantastical ‘real world’ off of this campus and bask in its awesomeness. Luckily, the opportunity came about this weekend. Where was it absolutely imperative that I make a stop at? Yes, my beloved and forever a staple, Barnes & Nobles Bookstore. There’s this really big one somewhere out in that real world that sits high in the sky and when you walk in there’s the hustle and bustle of readers, writers, coffee addicts, and pure happiness throughout the air. The books line all of their perfectly organized rows, (like in every B&N you come across…I don’t know why I’m being dramatic) and the opportunity to get lost in new worlds are endless.

There is just something about a great bookstore that really brings me true happiness. Is it the books? I love reading, but lately my Kindle is where I easily search and find my new conquests. Maybe it is the people? Young and old alike, meshing together to immerse themselves in literature, business, chit-chat, and music. Hmm,  I don’t think it’s just one thing I can pinpoint that makes bookstores my favorite place in the world. I think it’s a large concept that transcends to all that I am as a person.

Bookstores evoke my favorite parts of myself…in a store. Is that weird? I don’t care, it’s true. I enjoy reading really great books that I can escape into. Fall hopelessly into and work hard all day just so I can get the opportunity to fall back in and get lost again. Being surrounded by the latest and the greatest is one of the great pleasures of bookstores alike. Most carry classics that will always bring you peace, and the new ones they offer will definitely get your wheels turning. Back when I had my first job at 16 working in my local mall, the bookstore was my favorite stop every chance I got a break. I would grab the book that interested me of the moment, and read it every time I had that break until I finished it completely. The best part was I didn’t have to spend a dime because it is socially acceptable to consume the merchandise at a bookstore. Maybe that is the true reason why I love them so much…

Then there is the atmosphere. The way in which this structure (depending on how advanced this society gets) will never go out of style and there will always be at least one person who can appreciate it enough to walk in there. People are all around, doing their own thing and making the most of their shopping experience.

From what I mentioned before, I do fear of the impending way that these brick and mortar bookstores will change due to the advancement of technology in our society (Fahrenheit 451 moment anyone?). I am proponent of utilizing a digital reader for books, magazines and music. I will search Amazon and have the ability to go through my day without any physical or time-consuming interruptions. Yes, a lot of people lack the free leisure time to immerse themselves in bookstores to possibly buy nothing, but could entirely taking out the symbolic structure from society really be the next step? We have to have bookstores on our streets forever. They’re magical, inviting, safe, and fun. I guess we must wait and see what the future holds, but until then I will continue to cherish the time I get to spend in a great bookstore.

Tripping? or just Stimulated…or Both.

I was recently reading an article titled “The Trip Treatment” in The New Yorker. It talked about the recent trials regarding the usage of psychedelic drugs on cancer patients in an effort to reduce anxiety levels. For the most part, the usage of psilocybin, the hallucinatory compound found in LSD, proved to be very beneficial. Apparently, psilocybin reduced activity in the default-mode network, a part of our brain that, “lights up when we are daydreaming, removed from sensory processing, and engaging in higher-level ‘meta-cognitive’ processes such as self-reflection, mental time travel, rumination, and ‘theory of mind’ – the ability to attribute mental states to others.” Some consider it to be the physical counterpart of the ego.

The article reasons that such a finding reflects how users of psychedelics become less concerned with the self, and begin to find answers from the relationship between the self and the expansive universe, they revert to childlike wonder. Children are, in the words of Alison Gopnik, a quoted developmental psychologist, “…basically tripping all the time.”

But this recent development, despite its results, does not romanticize the psychedelic drugs at all. By no means does it suggest public access of psilocybin, for the patients that they administered the drugs to, were screened carefully and painstakingly observed by professionals.

However, let it be said, that I do think this is a very interesting idea. As the article itself questions, if we are going to die, why not die with a calm mind? Of course, this counteracts the very principle of what a doctor is supposed to do for their jobs are to save people. Yet, isn’t the way we die our own choice? This is a very hot topic of debate, and can get very messy, so I will try to stay on how this article affected me in terms of writing.

The reason why I started reading The New Yorker recently was, not because I wanted to be an intellectual snob, but because I realized that it made me feel very stupid. There were so many things that I didn’t know about. Culture, science, sociology, and so on – basically, I knew that reading this magazine would stimulate me and get the juices flowing.

This article was no exception of the intellectual and creative promise the magazine offered to me. This article alone filled pages and pages in my notebook in regards to ideas for short stories. It also made me realize how a lot of what I have written since high school are all fairly connected or at least, relatable to one another. It made me realize how I would love to try and write a novel like Pynchon in the sense that I would have an amalgam of characters that somehow relate, not necessarily narratively, but in terms of themes or ideas, or maybe even absolutely unrelated.

When you allow yourself to be stimulated by the other peoples work, you are really freed of your own boundaries. Finding these gems reverts you to a childlike wonder – basically tripping all the time.

Magical Queer

The Magical Negro is a term in media analysis to describe a particular archetype of character that is very problematic. It is a black character that provides advice to the main (usually white) protagonist which seems to always solve all their problems. They always have the correct answers for the correct situation, but they never gain anything for themselves. A lot of people would be confused as to why this might be an issue, but the problem is that the people of this race are no longer treated as actual people, but are instead tools for the main character to use in order to advance the plot. The same archetype has expanded and has recently come to include queer individuals. This character, the Magical Queer, serves exactly the same purpose as the Magical Negro, just replacing the racial minority with a sexual minority.

The reasons as to why this happens can be varied, but one explanation, I believe, makes the most sense. The character sort of serves as recompense for the negative portrayals of the past. Since society has now turned towards a more accepting environment, Hollywood and other major industries are trying to fix the harsh characters of the past by making these new characters as flawless as possible. They think this serves as an appropriate fix to years of problems, but it is still problem, just of a different extreme. Queer individuals are no longer villainous and predatory, but are instead perfect and extremely well-composed.

We can see this through various examples across mediums of expression. In literature, there is Patrick from Perks of Being a Wallflower.

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He is the first character to befriend Charlie and also a constant guide for him. His main role in the book is to provide support and give advice, while his own motivations and goals are relatively kept hidden from the audience. Patrick is not a perfect example though, as the character does have his own plot and growth, but this character helps to introduce the concept.

A more prominent example is Wallace Wells from the Scott Pilgrim graphic novels and film.

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The film is a particularly good example as Wallace Wells does not have his own plot except to remind us that he is gay or to give Scott Pilgrim advice on his various relationships. Wallace Wells is a Oracle of Delphi type character that always knows the right answers, they just need to be unfolded correctly. Even though Wallace Wells may be a great character, it does not change the fact that the readers are constantly presented with the fact that he is both gay and perfect, as if the writers were trying to apologize for past misfortune.

The Magical Queer is problematic, even though it is a positive portrayal of an often underrepresented and poorly depicted minority. The main issue is that through these characters, members of the Queer community are not represented as actual humans. Instead, they are some mythical creature that knows all the answers, but has no story of their own. Through this, the Queer community is relegated to two extremes and neither of them helps to make them more accepted in society. The community cannot be seen as equals until we are treated as equals in the media that portrays us. Media has such a heavy impact on society and we need our stories to be told in a realistic way. The community is not full of perfect people and we have struggles and goals just the same as other members of society. This needs to be realized and remedied and we can slowly see this happening. The success of films such as Dallas Buyers Club, or shows like Orange is the Black demonstrates that it is getting better and the stories of members of the Queer community is being told, but cannot ease up now. This is a continuing battle and hopefully it will only get better from here.