David / DTC 355 Multimedia Authoring

Kaiser and Eshkar's 1999 work Biped presaged a performance I attended a few years ago in Los Angeles. Kaiser & Eshkar combined live dancers with animated figures, which was similar to a performance of Hatsune Miku my son and I saw. Hatsune Miku is digitally animated and 3D projected onto transparent screens onstage, while a live band performs the music she sings to. It's all clearly and painfully rehearsed by the band, of course, but the animated Miku does instant costume changes, can fly above the stage, and can conjure things like cherry blossoms swirling through the air. Pretty cool possibilities there. It was not quite 20 years after Biped .

One of the things I think about when I read passages about these artists is, what did they think about themselves? Like, there seems to be some pretentiousness about calling yourself an artist, as we discussed in this class, around Martin Creed, I think ("What the fuck am I doing?"). I don't know, maybe I'm projecting my self-doubt on others, because it's hard for me to reckon someone without self-doubt. Like does Mühl take himself completely seriously? Is Scheiss-Kerl supposed to be serious and profound? I know that rocking people's assumptions is part of art, but really? I know, art doesn't have to be serious; I guess simply prompting disgust in the viewer could be a legitimate goal. Others, however, looking at the "'bathetic sadomasochism', of the Aktion artists, whether directed towards men and more specifically towards women, fatally undermines their claims to liberation, catharsis and expiation" (A.L. Rees).

(5/8/20)

My wife recently became hooked on a Facebook live stream, Pearls With Sharon . Her sister told her about it shortly before the lock-down happened. Every Thursday, Sharon does a 3+ hour QVC-like live video stream where she sells colored pearls. Some light research indicates these are dyed, freshwater pearls, but I don't understand the mechanics or cultivation process. She opens presumably live oysters on screen while calling out the buyer's name. After a frequently used catch phrase, like "1 - 2 - 3, for good luck!" she does a reveal of the number and colors of pearls the buyer 'won.' The stream is part game show, part shopping channel, part reality show, chat, gossip and commentary. I get the sense that it is a multi-level marketing type endeavor. Sharon also streams on other nights, hawking women's tights and Pampered Chef products. She occasionally mentions these during her Thursday night stream. Sharon also works for Uber Eats, Grub Hub, and Instacart o...

Whose toes are those?

I think this section really challenged me to expand my idea of what art is. While I can appreciate Nauman's Clown Torture as amusing and maybe a little disturbing, some of the other performances , such as Pier Martons's Performance for Video , where he beats himself with a guitar until it disintegrates, may make a particular statement, but it's also hard to distinguish from possible mental illness. I think we might've discussed something like this in class. What distinguishes some art from mental illness? Can it be both? Probably. Some of Muehl's performances (pg 56) border on the latter, or certainly deviant and possibly criminal.

This section makes me think about how some of Rauschenberg's performances would not be possible in our current COVID-19 environment. Especially Open Score (Bong) , which had 500 volunteer performers. I'm sure there are ways to make something similar with social distancing, but certainly not on the scale of 500 performers in close quarters. What art will emerge out of this experience? I'm thinking of a performance that happens behind Plexiglas, and each viewer must mask and glove up in their own Plexiglas observer booth, then use disinfectant to clean their booth before departing.

One of the things this passage made me think about was that it would nice to have a good way to share films like those mentioned in the text. I know some have probably been recommended along the way, but a structured opportunity to watch them would be cool. This could be in class, after class, or through the Culture Club. I was perusing the WSU LLRC site yesterday, and there are streaming movies available for WSU language school TAs and staff. I've asked them if there is a way for club officers to use the service. Not sure if it's in any way associated with Kanopy, but the movie they are showing this month at the Pullman campus (??!!) is  La mafia uccide solo d'estate , a black comedy that is available on Kanopy.

Midnight Gospel is a trippy animated series on Netflix that uses a somewhat podcast format conversation as the audio track. Clancy runs a universe simulator and visits different worlds to interview interesting people for his space-cast. The conversations are about consciousness, mindfulness, and other philosophical topics. It uses art and fictive worlds to explore difficult topics like death or the nature of reality. Don't skip any of the early episodes, but the finale is absolutely mind-blowing and heartbreaking. Meaaw (spoilers!) rightly says "the episode is so beautifully made that it will break you and reduce you to tears." Recommend 10/10