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As many of us know, art can be quite moving, but for a very long time I dubbed myself as emotionless. It’s not that things didn’t move me, I just felt incapable of showing it. After finishing a particularly engaging novel I would mourn the loss of the “friends” I had made, by sort of shutting down and reliving the events of the book until I could let it go. That was my way of being moved. At no point did I shed a tear. I know when you’re “supposed” to cry – when things are tragically sad or wonderfully happy – but I always internalized these feelings rather than expressing them through heartfelt tears. My father, unlike myself, is quite the crier. By this I mean when he is moved, he lets it all out. I used to make fun of him for crying at the animated classic Beauty and the Beast, but deep down I always sort of envied his ability to release his emotions in such a natural way. Even my mom easily became tearful when confronted with the intricate beauty of opera or a work of classical art. After noticing my own connections with moments of beauty did not reflect what seemed to be the norm, I began to try to cry. I would stare without blinking to try to well up some dust induced tears, but even though I really did feel the sadness or joy that I wanted to respond to, it always felt insincere to push that hard for something that wasn’t natural to me. Eventually, I just gave up and dubbed myself as “not a crier.” I adopted the tough persona I felt I needed to have in order to explain my inability to express emotion.

However, last year I met one of my (now) best friends, who cried at just about everything. We were complete opposites but still cared about the same things. How could this be? Well, this connection with someone who felt the way I did but produced an entirely different emotional response than I did broke down the wall I had built up of “toughness” and allowed instead for me to accept not crying as a perfectly acceptable response. I realized that not crying is just as valid as crying. After that point, when faced with something meaningful, instead of forcing myself to try to cry, I began to let myself off the hook and instead embraced opportunities to really feel something. I told myself it was okay to cry if I felt like it and okay to just feel if I didn’t. By taking off this pressure I’ve since been able to experience art in a whole new way, allowing it to move me to a natural response and not a forced one. I now realize I don’t have to be a crier or an ice queen, and this has allowed me some good healthy cries as well as some really deep completely internal responses.

What this journey means to me is that art can evoke a variety of responses, but none is right or wrong. No matter how sad, brilliant, moving, or delightful something may be, your experience is only appropriate if it is the one most natural to you.

Last Friday evening I attended the UMS performance of Kiss and Cry. Until about 5 pm that evening, I had no idea what the show was about, just that I had free tickets (make sure you check out Passport to the Arts for more opportunities to see top notch performances for free throughout the school year) and no plans. As my sister handed me my ticket, she told me the premise of the show: finger ballet. For 90 minutes – with no intermission – I would be watching nothing more than two fingers move around on a miniature stage, filmed and projected on a screen hanging from the rafters of the Power Center Stage. Needless to say, I was concerned. Here I was attending a show I had little to no interest in and accompanying me was a friend whose attendance at theatrical events was limited. If I wasn’t going to enjoy this show, what would they think?

As we waited for the performance to begin I flipped through the program and scoffed when I saw the title of choreographer next to a name. The title of choreographer implies that choreography was done. How could someone who uses two of their fingers be considered a dancer? And without dancers how could someone be said to be a choreographer?

After the show I hesitantly waited for my friend to reveal their thoughts on the performance, and to my relief we both had thoroughly enjoyed the performance.

The performance of Kiss and Cry was more than two fingers alternating which was bent or straight and doing their best to mimic traditional dance. There was a clear story, disseminated to the audience through a narrator, following the five loves of our main character, Giselle. While the projection always focused on the table sets and the doll or hand representing Giselle, the audience was free to see what was out of the scope of the camera. This direct commentary on the power of forced perspective was especially poignant in the final “pas de deux” of the piece. On the projection, fingers were seen swirling and stretching in a manner that, while originally interesting, had become trite over the course of the evening. Subtly lit from above, the interaction of the bodies of the two performers moving between embraces and touch in an intimate and near dance performance pulled focus providing new insight to the finger dance.

The most impressive aspect of the entire performance was the camera work. Most of the show consisted of continuous shots that gave the performance a unique fluidity. The lighting in each shot was nearly perfect – an impressive feat given the live nature of the performance – and had the resulting film been the only thing shown to the audience I would have still been entertained.

I am afraid that this post resembles more of review than a blog post but I was so struck by this performance that I couldn’t help but talk about it. Even now when I reread what I have written the performance sounds interesting although weird at best. Yet, there at the theater there was something indescribably relatable hidden behind the layers of strange spectacle.

Would I see a show like this again? I guess it will depend on my mood, but this show made me think. Think about what is normal in art and in life, what is seen and what is hidden, and reminded me that the beauty of art is finding humanity in the unexpected. So for me, that was an ideal way to spend a Friday night.

My name is ke$hav prasad. I am Screen Arts and Cultures student at school here. I want to be an artist. So this year, I decided to devote some time every week to blog about art, because I believe in order to become a better artist, I ought to be having better thoughts about art.

Since this is the first time I have ever blogged, I figure the best place to start is with an important question: so what exactly is art, anyway?

What is the first thing that comes into my head when I hear the word “art”?

I’m thinking of some pissed off, starving bearded dude hunched over a wide canvas, paintbrush in one hand, glass of bourbon in the other, eyes ablaze with a transcendental vision into the unique quality that makes us all human.

But that’s not me. That’s not most artists. Most artists have not recused themselves from society in order to painstakingly craft some ideal opus, they’re day-to-day professionals, just like everyone else, who use their creative skills to produce content for others – be it posters, advertisement videos, a building’s interior decor…and the list goes on.

But…is all of this everyday stuff “Art”? You are getting paid to create something per someone else’s request, after all. That seems like the opposite of being creative. (yeah, this shit keeps me up at night)

So let’s take another approach to this question. Let’s turn theory into practice and look at a car commercial side by side some clips from the films of Martin Scorsese – established and celebrated American “auteur director” (you can tell by the use of the french word in his title that this guy is a fucking artist, all right).

I want to begin with Scorsese. I’ve chosen the opening sequences of two famous Scorsese gangster films: Goodfellas and Casino.

Goodfellas Opening Scene

 

Casino Opening Scene

Both of these films are critically acclaimed, cast famous actors, and are on many movie critics’ lists of classic crime movies. Upon closer analysis, however, note that each film’s opening sequence is almost identical to the other’s. Open with a violent explosion followed by an off-screen monologue from a gangster explaining the events of the film to come. The opening scenes are told through flashback. Both movies are even inspired from books by the same author – Nicholas Pileggi. It’s almost like the movie industry saw Scorsese’s success with Goodfellas and decided to churn out a second movie and recreate a hit for profit.

Is this example too convenient? Ok, let’s look at The Departed.

The Departed Opening Scene

Another Scorsese film that won on Oscar for best picture. Opening scene also depicts gangster violence, this time from the Irish Mafia rather than the Italian Mafia. Still using an opening monologue from a gangster, still describing events to come.

Analysis of Scorsese’s filmmaking style reveals the director tackles the basic challenge of storytelling with a similar strategy across his body of work. This analysis also demonstrates that storytelling, and in this case filmmaking, is still a formulaic and repetitive process. There must be a psychologically defined character at the beginning of a movie in order to draw in an audience. There must be some on-screen action in order to excite us. In other words, there must be a pattern that gets repeated.

Now let’s look at this Epic Volkswagon Commercial

Woah.

This is an ad? This is one of the most compelling series of visuals I’ve ever seen. For a minute and a half, I haven’t seen a single image of a car, but instead a compelling series of shadow puppets dancing across the screen. It’s fresh, original, unlike any other car commercial I’ve ever seen – but that’s probably the point of the ad. Create an advertisement that feels unique in order to distinguish Volkswagon from other car companies using the tagline “hand-crafted: it’s amazing what hands can do”. This artistic statement only serves as a means of product differentiation.

The purpose of the comparison between so-called “Art” and a commercial is to demonstrate that all media requires repetition. As a media student, I’ve learned that any piece of visual media needs to use some repetitive pattern in order to make sense to its audience. Therefore, “Art” can’t be entirely original or unique, it has to draw on some formula or repetition, otherwise it won’t connect with its audience.

So what is that inimitable quality that elevates a piece of media to the rank of “Art”? What gives it that wow factor?

I would argue, based on what we’ve learned from this analysis, that “Art” is…a breath of fresh air. A way of looking at the patterns and routines of our lives and presenting them to us in a way we haven’t thought about before, in a way that feels unique.

Scorsese may be using a formula for storytelling, but every time, he picks a unique character, a unique setting, and a unique way to tell the story that excites us and compels us to keep watching even though we know how all crime movies end.

And even though we know we’re about to watch a car commercial, Volkswagon surprises us with an original, emotionally involved look at what distinguishes their cars from the competition.

In both cases, what excites us about both the films and the advertisement is that “wow” factor, that breath of fresh air that leaves us reeling, awed by that fresh perspective into our daily routine.

I invite you, my readers, to follow me on my quest to find breaths of fresh air in the routine of my senior year, as I attempt to become an artist myself.

The Art Institute of Chicago is currently presenting an exhibition, Ghosts and Demons in Japanese Prints. When I first saw this on my phone, I was thrilled because I have been doing research on the same subject for my senior thesis. My focus is on a sixteenth century hand-scroll depicting the night parade of one hundred demons, but I also look at many nineteenth century prints to get a broader picture of the development of Japanese supernatural belief. Thus, I am super excited about this exhibit and want to encourage you to see it if you have the opportunity to do so.

The work that appears on the exhibition poster is Kohada Koheiji, one of the five Hyaku Monogatari prints by Katsushika Hokusai. It depicts a skeleton-like creature leaning over a mosquito net. This scene is based on the story of Kohada Koheiji, an actor who was murdered by his colleague, who had an affair with Koheiji’s wife. After he died, Koheiji turned into a vengeful ghost and haunted the two to death. The image here shows Koheiji creeping into the bedroom of his wife and her lover.

As mentioned earlier, this scene is from the Hyaku Monogatari (One Hundred Supernatural Tales) series. Hyaku Monogatari was actually a popular game, which originated in Edo period. To play it, a large group of people would sit together with a hundred burning candles in the room after sunset. Then all participants would take turns to tell ghost stories, and extinguish a candle after each story. As you can imagine, the room would get darker and darker as the game went on, therefore creating a scarier atmosphere. It was believed that something frightening would happen once all the candles were put off.

Hyaku Monogatari is developed from hyakki yako, the belief about the night parade of one hundred demons. It is commonly believed that at night, ghosts and demons would come out and form a procession in the streets. The number “one hundred” of hyaku monogatari is presumably to derive from this folklore. Interestingly, the notion of vengeance also echoes hyakki yako. The most famous visual representation of hyakki yako is the hand scroll I am working on. In this scroll, all the demons are depicted as the spirits of man-made objects, such as scissors, a lute, an umbrella, etc. They are vengeful beings roaming in the streets because they were ill-treated and abandoned by their owners, and committing mischievous, if not hostile, acts to punish those who do not cherish man-made objects…

Anyway, it will be a super cool exhibit to see. It is be even more interesting because AIC will present another exhibit, Temptation, the Demons of James Ensor. So don’t miss—that will be an encounter between the supernatural beliefs in Japan and those in Belgium.