Film Responses

Watermark

            I felt that this documentary was very moving. Before watching this film, I was already a fan of Edward Burtynsky. I think that his work is very powerful because of the way he photographs landscapes around the world gives arise to environmental issues. I thought that the filmmaker mimicked Burtynsky’s work very carefully in Watermark.

            This film really brought awareness to the viewer in the way of how humans use and consume water. In most of the United States, we are so fortunate with the water supply that we are able to consume on a daily basis. Like many, I had known about California’s issues with water supply levels for sometime now. With watching this documentary, I was amazed to learn about the aquifers that California had made in the past and some of those are drying up. I think this documentary is very much eye opening to say the least in the fact that water in a lot of places is so easily consumed without hesitation and there are places in the world where it is hardly even existent. Even before watching this documentary, one could say that water shortage is a global crisis, but I feel like this film put this into perspective even more.

                                                       

Aziz and Cucher

            After watching the artist talk of Anthony Aziz and Sammy Cucher, there were several thoughts that came to mind. One of my first thoughts I had was how frustrating it was that they were not showing the work that was being discussed. I think this talk would have been a little easier to understand if they would have shown their work in the video. Besides that little mishap, my second thought that came to mind was how intriguing the content in the video in which Aziz and Cucher were discussing. I thought it was really interesting in how these two artists collaborate with their ideas and through their work. They discussed how the concepts of their works come into play. It starts out with something that would trigger a conversation such as an event or something that has happened on the news. This leads from a conversation into an idea and from the idea to a mental picture and putting that mental picture into a physical image. I love the idea that Aziz and Cucher have with bringing the viewer into the conversation through the work that they create. These specific properties that they chose translates their ideas.

            I thought it was really interesting in their discussion about technology and the use of Photoshop in their work. They will use Photoshop and other elements in certain ways that creates corruption in the screening process. They take the image and then reconstruct by pushing Photoshop pass the limits of what it is expected to do. This process denaturalizes the image and creates of how they described it as a metaphor of ideas. The body of work in which they are describing creates different points of views, leaving the audience their own interpretation of what is actually being created.

            When Aziz and Cucher started to discuss their work Dystopia, I really thought the concept behind it was very interesting. With the advancement of technology, society has reduced our everyday face-to-face contact with one another creating a disillusion of physical contact. This concept is really moving because technology has taken over I feel like, people always have their heads down in their phones distancing themselves from one another. I feel like this body of work really captures this concept because of the manner in which they treat each image.

            Towards the end part of the video, Aziz and Cucher started to discuss with the introduction of technology in the photographic world, the believability amongst photography can be pushed passed its limits. The digital world has created this question of what is actually a photograph. To me, a photograph can mean different things. Capturing an instant in time that will forever spark a memory, creating a multitude of images from a conceptual standpoint or just taking a formal portrait. I feel like the “definition” of photography is an ever-evolving thing that is hard to pin point of what is believable and what is not. That is one of the things I love about photography, a lot of it is left up to the viewers’ interpretation.

                                                          The Cost of Living

By DV8 Physical Theater

            This film is really unlike anything that I have ever seen before. Like most of the class, I felt sort of taken off guard by this film by the randomness of each scene. As the film went on I keep trying to find the meaning behind it and wondering why none of it was making sense and then started to realize that there wasn’t suppose to be a specific meaning behind it.

            I think one of my favorite scenes as well as my classmates was during the dance scene when the guy is dancing to Cher. This part struck a memory of mine and I related this scene with Napoleon Dynamite’s dance scene in that movie. I found it quite comical.

            The main guy I felt was so all over the place at times, but reflecting on the film that is what seems to be the intention. I was amazed by choreography of this film and felt it was done really well. I thought this movie was chaotic, but overall I really enjoyed the dynamic aspect that it gave.

           

RIP!!! A Remix Manifesto

            I really enjoyed this film because I felt like it puts a lot of important issues that people do not normally think of in perspective. I do agree that there should be copyright laws, but the ways in which these laws have been twisted really bothers me. I feel like all that really matters in these cases is that the record labels gets the settlements, in other words it is all about the money. I think even in this documentary it stated that the artists do not even receive a cut from these settlements, but I could be wrong about that. I feel that artists really play off of one another’s idea and sometimes collaborate on ideas. I feel that musicians do this as well and I feel that it is ridiculous when musicians get sued for doing something creative. I think it takes a really talented person like Girl Talk to come up with the music that he creates.

            I was certainly amazed when the filmmaker brought to attention how this goes on in the medical field. I thought it was a very interesting point on certain countries like Brazil and how their government broke patents to create their own copy of the HIV drug for a fraction of the price. The result is to create a better life for the people of Brazil who suffer from certain diseases. I feel like it just goes to show you that with these intellectual property laws the only thing that matters is money. I do agree with the point in the film with how hard it is to be creative these days because I feel that artists/musicians influence one another and it is really the large corporations who have a problem with this.

                                                           Waste Land 

            I thought this documentary was done really well because not only did it show the process of how the garbage portraits were made, but it gave an insight on what life for these people is really like. I was amazed by the amount of workers who took pride in the job that they were doing. All of the workers in which the filmmakers interviewed said they would rather be a recycling picker than to turn tricks by either prostituting or selling drugs because it was good honest work. I think this documentary really captures the essence of these people. I liked how Vic Muniz stated that his whole goal was to bring attention to these people because most of the time the public just does not care about them or even gives them two thoughts. I thought it was interesting when he was making the portraits out of trash that he had hired the person that he took the portrait of. I felt like this gave the workers an insight that what Muniz was doing was a part of a greater cause.

            I loved the way Vic Muniz came up with interesting ways in how he photographed the garbage portraits. I felt like he really captured the emotional side of these workers. I think one of my favorite portraits that he did was of the lady who was the cook. I thought each portrait was extremely beautiful, but for some reason this one stands out to me. I loved the splash of color that was at the top representing her tub that she was carrying on her head. After everything was all said and done she was so humble when Muniz brought her the photograph. She keep telling her family that she was famous all over the world. I thought it was amazing even though she left the dump; she ended up returning to it because she missed her coworkers. I loved how all of the proceeds that were made from this series went towards helping these people and the recycling organization that they were a part of.

  1/24/15:After watching the film about Georges Rousse and how he creates his work, I really found it interesting in his process behind it. I love the idea with the paintings in which he creates a completely different space and then the photograph becomes a memory of the space. I think it is really interesting in how Rousse works in this fashion because it really creates an alternate space that comes to life in his work. With some of his work in which he built a circular form and shot through it really gave a different perspective. Rousse said with these certain works his intent was to create a ring metaphor of a lens that lets us see and lets us enter the image through the imperfections of the deconstructed space.

            I think my favorite work from the film was when he created spaces of where he had visited by using survey maps and drawing contour lines. By doing this type of work Rousse feels that he has created the appropriated nowhere. I found it fascinating of his idea with these works because it is like he has almost created a whole new way of visually understanding a space.

            What I love about his work is trying to figure out where he began the painting. My eye follows the lines around the space in his images and what looks like a three dimensional space turns into a two dimensional space when photographed. I think it is interesting in the way he comes up with his concepts whether it is hatching out his paintings with chalk or using Polaroid’s to help him fix his final composition. I also found it interesting when he started to incorporate writings into his images and his idea of how these words meanings became parallel with having a second meaning.

   

   1/18/19: After watching the film Nobody’s Here But Me, I thought it was intriguing in the sense of how Cindy Sherman carefully creates her vision. I loved how some of her work had first started out creating black and white images where she would want the viewer to think they were vintage photographs. I think this body of work is very successful in that sense because as a viewer it makes me feel that these film stills really are something from an era where women were expected to fill a role in which were seen, but not necessarily heard. She intended for the viewer to create their idea with one film still and go from there. Her work in which she created herself to be perceived as a centerfold, I thought it was really interesting in how she described the viewer would be a violator. She stated how she subconsciously thought about the male gaze.

            I love how she pulls her inspiration from horror films and fairytales. Traditionally in these roles, women play the victim or the damsel in distress and Cindy Sherman brings these roles alive with the images in which she creates. When she shoots, Sherman does not necessarily know what she is going for until after she has created it. I think it is interesting how she does not consider herself as a feminist artist, but instead she wants the viewer to create their perception of her work.

            When the NEA had created censorship in art, I thought it was interesting with how Sherman reacted against it. She took plastic body parts and really highlighted the issue of sexuality in art. She really wanted to challenge the audience with this kind of work because she had completely removed herself as the model and in her place were these plastic body parts. Sherman wanted to stray away from her famous works and turn to something that would give the viewer a different concept.

      I really enjoyed this film because it gives us an insight of what inspires Cindy Sherman’s work and how she perceives her own self. I think it is interesting of how different her work really is from the black and white film stills to images where pieces of plastic body parts were being captured. She really helps bring post modernism to its forefront.