Images in Search of a Narrative

12Oct08

Jeremy Shaw’s 7 Minutes is an arresting work of video art.  Currently in the loop of 25 videos that comprise Thermostat: Video and the Pacific Northwest in SAM’s Ketcham Forum Gallery, I pass the installation daily when moving between my cube and the museum galleries.  I also passed it daily for a period of time [...]

Filed under: art theory, contemporary art, critique, exhibition, film, interdisciplinary, peripheral vision   |  Leave a Comment
Tags: christian metz, contemporary art, film theory, iraq war, jeremy shaw, los angeles, perceiver, photography, spectator, suzanne opton, thermostat

Identity Queue

15Sep08

As I sit in my living room, directly opposite a pile of three unwatched Netflix discs, I can’t help but think of John Swansburg’s recent analysis of this topic in Slate (via Paul Constant on Slog).  The desire for relaxation is undoubtedly a reasonable understanding of why genocide, trauma, subtitles, and experimental structure are unappealing [...]

Filed under: critique, film, interdisciplinary, peripheral vision   |  Leave a Comment
Tags: film, film theory, high fidelity, identity, laura mulvey, narcissism, netflix, personality, popular culture, psychoanalysis

Black Box Apparatus

04Sep08

“Leopards break into the temple and drink to the dregs what is in the sacrificial pitchers; this is repeated over and over again; finally it can be calculated in advance, and it becomes a part of the ceremony.”  “Leopards in the Temple”, Parables and Paradoxes, Franz Kafka.
Portland’s Vladmir has taken Kafka’s classic hermeneutic parable and [...]

Filed under: contemporary art, exhibition, film, interdisciplinary, local, peripheral vision   |  Leave a Comment
Tags: baudry, cinema, film theory, grand openings, henry art gallery, kafka, parable, perception, the believer, view-master, vladmir