Last but by no means least…

Well there we have it, the module is almost at an end. I’ve thoroughly enjoyed looking at new material this year, and it has certainly opened my eyes as to how interesting the process of research can be. I’ve noticed a big trend as to what’s been my key interests this term, and it seems to be all linked to power. A lot of my research has been based around propaganda and the ideas of manipulation and persuasion, and perhaps this is something I can take on to the final project. Whilst radio has been my forte, I am also happy that I have challenged myself with other medium, and have learnt lots of new skills particularly in the editing process.

I know for sure I want to concentrate on a radio project for my final artefact, as radio is the career path I am striving for. Looking at the propaganda pieces I made for power and spectacle, I can certainly see they are the strongest artefacts I have made, although making the memory video has been a challenge and a breath of fresh air.

Over the Christmas break I intend to look deeper into my research and conduct some more, hopefully to come up with a few ideas related to power in radio, or maybe even bring in a few other mediums to further challenge myself..

Anyway, that’s it from me for a week or two, time to enjoy the break…Merry Christmas!

Spectacle Research 2

Consumerism

Starting off with a quote from the lecture earlier from Larry Law,

“The world of pop music and fashion appears like a section through the Spectacle and its spurious opposition. All the elements are there——–primarily it is a a show for passive consumption—–
offering release, not in real rebellion, but in dressing up in the image of rebellion. It takes the desire for real revolt, contains it, and sells us back its image.”

Sitting here in the Graham Sutherland building, I’ve had a brainwave as to who I can look closely at (whichever way you want to interpretate that)…

Lady Gaga once said “The way that Andy Warhol attempted to make commercial art that was taken seriously as fine art, is the way I want to make pop music, pop art performance and pop fashion that’s taken seriously as high fashion and highbrow.” New York Post: Lady GaGa does it her way (October 28, 2008)

It’s no surprise that she’s certainly heading towards being a modern Warhol. Her shows are an intricate spin of music, self designed costumes which stretch the imagination of even the least intellectual of pop fans, all woven within a certain theme – her latest tour entitled ‘The Monster Ball’ encourages fans to ‘dress accordingly’, which suggests that it will not just be a music concert, but an immersive experience, and check out the costume from her last tour, The Fame Ball!

And of course Gaga isn’t the only artist to utilise immersion – U2 recently encased their audience in a giant claw, placing the stage at the centre of the action:

An article about the stage…

http://www.musicradar.com/news/guitars/u2s-new-stage-set-is-the-claw-211445

Spectacle Research – 16 October 2009

After Monday’s lecture I now have a better understanding of what Spectacle is, especially after hearing Debord, Klein, and Marx’s views. From the initial introduction to their works in the lecture, my understanding is that ‘Spectacle’ has many meanings. From Marx’s perspective, the most meaningful representation of spectacle is that which is self produced, reaching out to other people to identify with, instead of media produced by a mass corporation, which is managed by capitalists. Debord argues that the capitalist spectacle is the most dangerous, which distorts reality, cuts real relationships, and in consequence has created a consumerist society relying on relationships with ‘things’ other than people.

 I’m now planning on reading up over the next few days, in a bit more depth, these theories, to see if I can understand this any more.

My personal response so far is that spectacle seems to be linked extremely well to power and memory - it is those with positions of power in the media that control how the spectacle is constructed and represented, injecting their authority and ideologies of the past to influence the present and indeed the future, as shown by the videos “The Shock Doctrine” by Naomi Klein, and many world events, such as the spectacular circuses of the Beijing Opening Ceremony, a reminder to the world of China’s grandeur and power, fueled with high political tension and questions of democracy, and the awe inspiring symbol of liberation and change, the Obama Inauguration

Interestingly with the Obama video.. In another lecture today we were talking about how some theorists beleive that the internet will never be the dominant force of sending out messages of political power – Gordon Brown’s podcast had only 641 views – Obama’s video has over 4 million views, so perhaps this dispels that myth..

Speaking of Spectacles, I went to see the new UP 3D film on Wednesday, and was mightily impressed by the 3D technology. One little nag I had though was there wasn’t the traditional ‘out at you’ effects that are normally associated with 3d films, but I tell you, 3D is the future for cinema! It feels much more realistic, although I don’t think it would work with ALL films, but this technology will definately grow within the next few years – oh and in case you havn’t seen it yet…

And so it begins..

Had my first lecture for 310mc this week. For this module we will be looking at the ideas of Power, Memory and Spectacle. To begin with we were introduced to two big names to get us stimulated, setting the tone for the module – Lars Von Trier, and Jorgen Leth. After a few Google searches, I discovered more about them..

Lars Von Trier (I make no apologies for linking to Wikipedia, since it’s the most up-to-date profile!)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lars_von_Trier

Jorgen Leth

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J%C3%B8rgen_Leth

As mentionned in the above articles, Jorgen and Lars teamed up on ‘The Five Obstructions’, which was a challenge set by Lars for Jorgen to re-create his famous ‘The Perfect Human’ short film in 5 different ways/restrictions:

1. Leth must remake the film in Cuba (but with no set) with no shot longer than 12 frames, and he must answer the questions posed in the original film; Leth successfully completes this task.
2. Leth must remake the film in the worst place in the world but not show that place onscreen; additionally, Leth must play the role of “the man”. The meal must be included but the woman is not to be included. Leth remakes the film in the red light district of Bombay, only partially hiding it behind a translucent screen.
3. Because Leth failed to complete task 2 perfectly, Von Trier punishes him, telling him to either remake the film in any way he chooses, or redo obstruction 2 in Bombay again. Leth chooses the first option and remakes it in Brussels using split-screen effects.
4. Leth must remake the film as an animation. He does so with the aid of Bob Sabiston, a specialist in rotoscoping, who creates animated versions of shots from the previous films.
5. The fifth obstruction is that Von Trier has already made the fifth version, but it must be credited as Leth’s, and Leth must read a voice-over narration ostensibly from his own perspective but in fact written by Von Trier.

My initial thoughts after watching all 5 is that this was not only a great challenge by Von Trier, but was also a great stimulus for Leth, as it pushed him out of his comfort zones. The true great Directors are ones who are diverse and creative, never backing down from a challenge, and this was a great test of versitility. I think however, perhaps Von Trier, as a punishment for Leth failing the second task, should have been a little harder and made him retake the task again, instead of giving him options.