Wednesday 30 December 2015

Her Story, Star Wars and Cyborgs

This week has been calm and relaxing, filled with watching films and idly sitting around, enjoying the simplicity of everything. In terms of art, not a lot has been happening, small ideas are being thought of here and there that may eventually become fabricated thoughts, but nothing so substantial is yet to occur.

I have however watched a variety of films and played some really thought provoking video games that have made me ‘feel’ something, whatever that means. I decided to delve into a few Hitchcock films, alongside Lynch’s back catalogue of movies. I’d seen a few of their creations before, but some of the supposed ‘classics’ had for one reason or another never appeared before my eyes. I watched Vertigo and Psycho, which were both quite brilliant. The twist ending of Psycho was amazing, if a little obvious, having watched a lot of the films that came after Hitchcock’s time.

After watching Mulholland Drive and Lost Highway I’m no closer to understanding Lynch and his work, but I’m sure that would be the case if I had watched every one of his films. I also watched Enter the Void, which was a filmic masterpiece, and my first viewing of a Gaspar Noé film.

As well as this I had the pleasure of watching the new Star Wars film, which turned out to be everything that I wanted it to be. This may or may not be a good thing, I’m not totally sure yet. It did make me want to revisit more of the originals however, so the other day I watched The Empire Strikes Back again, which was as superb as ever.

On top of this I watched Sicario (brilliant and distressing), Spectre (dull and diluted for family viewing), Steve Jobs (a film that held me at the edge of my seat for the 122 minute running time), Snowpiercer (a movie with a nice concept that was executed badly), Brooklyn (a beautiful tale detailing the growth of a young woman moving to the ‘big city’), Joy (Jennifer Lawrence doing what she does best) and Serenity, which added a lot to the hilariously awesome Firefly TV show. My final two films of the week were A Life Less Ordinary, which was fun and enjoyable; as I am a fan of Ewan McGregor and the majority of Danny Boyle’s films and The Hateful Eight, which had some incredible acting from Jennifer Jason Leigh and quite an intriguing story which did keep me interested throughout. I do like pretty much all of Tarantino’s films, with my favourite being Jackie Brown, because of the excellent female lead.

Alongside these films, I watched a TV series titled Nathan for You, which I would highly recommend to anyone. It features a man called Nathan, who approaches small businesses in California to ‘help’ them improve their company. It is hilarious.

I’ve also been playing a few videogames, one was called The Beginner’s Guide. It’s a sort of interactive storytelling experience, where you wander through a variety of ‘levels’ being guided by the developer of the game. The whole experience is quite distressing and looks to dismantle the idea of a video game as well as your general ‘living’ experience. A particularly fascinating moment for me was when, whilst cleaning a house, a character within the game starts to have a dialogue with you about the act of cleaning, and the repetitive nature of it all. Instead of being unhappy about this, they were embracing it, enjoying the act of knowing what’s going to happen and how everything works. This made me think about the work that I’ve been creating, and allowed me to consider whether or not the idea of a monotonous life is in fact a positive thing. More than anything the game just made me think, which is in itself an accomplishment.

I also played Her Story, where the entire game involves you (the player) using a database of police video clips to solve a mystery. The quite dark and distressing story slowly unravels as you learn more about what happened, leading you on a confusing trail. I thoroughly enjoyed the journey that I was able to take myself on.

Another was a very short game called The Cat and the Coup, where you play as the cat of the first democratically elected Prime Minister of Iran. The aesthetics are quite beautiful, with intricate patterns and Monty Python esque figures inhabiting the environment.

Throughout the weeks and the days I’ve been attempting to create work, making a few short video pieces that don’t quite make sense yet, continuing on with my Zooks and the ideas that are associated with those. It’s a shame that the work has slowed down, but I feel that that was always going to happen. Over the weeks I’ve been collecting quotes from TV shows and films, noting down whenever I hear someone talk about how life is repetitive, dull or simple. These will, at some point, become part of a video.

I have however been reading a number of books and essays. One being ‘A Cyborg Manifesto’ by Donna Haraway, where she uses the idea of the cyborg to talk about gender and boundaries. Traditional feminism is heavily critiqued throughout the text and is supported by the idea that everyone has flaws, whether you’re a man, a woman or a ‘Z’.

I’ve also been reading a book about the artist collaborators Joanna Hadjithomas and Khali Joreige called The Rumors of the World centred on the work that they create using ‘spam’ emails. It’s been an interesting book to dip in and out of, and learning about some new artists that I haven’t come into contact before is always exciting. It also made me start to think about the small collection of text messages that I always receive on my phone, advertising ‘the best slot games’ and ‘cash now’ and how to create work from that. Or the feeling that one gets when they receive a text, but to their dismay it’s from a bot advertising worthless ‘junk’.

On top of this I’m looking at ‘Hacker, Hoaxer, Whistleblower, Spy: The Many Faces of Anonymous’ which is all about the Anonymous movement and what it’s about. It’s an interesting read and ties in well with one of my favourite TV shows from this year which was Mr Robot.

A few other books that I’m slowly wading through are ‘The Value of Art’ by Michael Findlay, ‘Fictions’ by Jorge Luis Borges and ‘Think Like an Artist’ by Will Gompertz. These are all interesting pieces of text that I really want to pursue and read into further.

During the next week I need to write my essay and will be continuing to read a variety of books and essays, as well as hopefully making some new work if I can motivate myself to do so. It would also be great to play a few more thought provoking video games, as I see it as an incredibly involving art form that (if used properly) allows the player to actually ‘involve’ themselves within the work.

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