Textual Poaching: Fear in False Advertising

Fear in False Advertising

Artist's Statement

I am a 20 year old, LDS, American male who attends BYU. There are a lot of different things that I, according to society, should be doing at this point in my life. Men my age are supposed to be enlisting in the military, to prove their dedication to their country and to their masculinity. Men my age are supposed to be getting married, so they can have a wife to take care of. Men my age are supposed to be having kids, the ultimate sign of your life being on track. And if you are a man my age, at least at BYU,  and you aren't doing these things they you should be on a mission, to prove your dedication to God and Church and to make everyone proud that you are doing what you should be doing.

Except, I'm not doing any of those things. I am 20 years old and I'm not in the military, I'm not married or even engaged, I'm obviously not having children anytime soon, and I have not and likely will not go on a mission. I am an anomaly, at least according to the ideal. Honestly, all of these things that I am supposed to be doing, that I am so clearly failing at doing, terrify me to no end. I can barely take care of myself, let alone a spouse and kids. And so, I've taken old advertisements of what men are typically supposed to do, and combined them with still from old horror movies. Army recruitment propaganda mixed with Michael Myers, the Preach My Gospel cover mixed with Leatherface, an ad for fatherhood mixed with Linda Blair, a man and a woman passionately kissing on the streets of New York mixed with Freddy Krueger. Mixing the typical with the horrific, to show that I am both missing these seemingly important milestones, and actually, to some extent, scared of these things to varying degrees.

This is similar to Eileen Maxson's Cinderella+++, which mixed classic Disney scenes with audio from more modern films. She gave a new meaning, a darker meaning, to these innocent classics to show just how different reality is from the expected. Following along with the idea of an incongruity between societal and medial depictions of what it means to be a man, and what I experience as a man, recent studies have shown that men are incredibly effected by the sexist way they are portrayed in advertisements. The Huffington Post wrote an article entitled"Be A Man" which discusses how advertisements, both modern and not, are promoting a hyper-masculinity that is causing men to feel generally discouraged with their own self image, and this in turn is leading to low self-esteem, poor body image and, in extreme cases, things like drug use and violence towards women.

Webspinna Artist Statement

I was really excited for the Webspinna battle, because I love any project that involves me getting attention. But, I was a little worried when it was announced that it was moving up a week. And then I didn't get a partner on the Thursday before it was due, which was very worrisome. Really, I only had two days to work with my partner on out presentation - which is very stressful. But, in the end I really like how it turned out. Taylor and I decided to do Halloween vs. Christmas, which is awesome for me (ignoring the fact that another group had the same idea).

We decided to have Christmas sort of encroaching onto Halloween's territory, and Halloween not being happy about that. It was sort of a reflection on how, during the holiday season, decorations for the next holiday go up before the current one has even happened. At the beginning of October, Christmas decorations had already been put on display in stores, despite it being three months, and two holidays, away. One of the sounds I used was for an Onion video about how Halloween has become over-commercialized, poking fun at how people have lost the true meaning of Halloween and are taking the shortcuts to make their experience easier.

It was interesting only being able to use sounds that already exist, and not being able to edit together anything or record anything. From other people's work, we had to create our personas and out entire presentation. We needed to raid things that had already existed and break them up and reform them into another, separate work. In this week's reading "The Ecstasy of Influence: a Plagiarism" by Jonathan Lethem, there is a nice quote about this idea about literature being broken up in this way to great new works: "Literature has been in a plundered, fragmentary state for a long time." This project is more obvious in its breaking up of previous pieces to build up a new, greater piece. But, this sort of thing has been happening since the beginning if literature, people borrow from previous things in order to augment their creations more.

One thing I thought was fun about this project was how it was live, which meant things could (and did) and we needed to improvise and create. We had an issue with our Webspinna that required me to improvise a lot. The last few clips didn't work, which meant our presentation lacked an ending. Instead of floundering in front of everyone, I simply yelled out what our ending was, and then threw the prop glow-sticks to show that something happened. 

Webspinna Battle Playlist

• Spooky Scary Skeleton- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XTgFtxHhCQ0
• Nightmare Before Christmas ST- https://play.spotify.com/album/32hXKuDkMnpQaOI67xQj86
• “What’s This”- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oVSpfQHEsNY
• Anaconda Laugh-https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jy-QbberpXM
• Halloween Overcommercialized- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0McggLIYmnE
• This Is Halloween- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oVSpfQHEsNY
• Halloween sound FX soundboard- http://www.soundboard.com/sb/halloween
• Psycho Theme- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Me-VhC9ieh0
• The Nightman Cometh- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OR4zefzP7d0#t=308

Medium Specificity: Filming a Photograph

The Video

Artist's Statement

      For this week's topic, I was worried that I would not be able to produce anything that actually captured the idea of medium specificity, and that I would end up just creating a few Pollock knockoffs and resign to unoriginality. However, once I started thinking past the well known and into newer mediums, and idea formed in my head and I realized that I had found my project: Photographs. Specifically, amateur photos people take of their friends and family in order to remember that specific event.

     Vacation photos, graduation photos, birthday photos etc. all share a common aesthetic: people standing, posing in what they believe to be the most natural way. Except, it isn't really a natural pose at all. It is an idealized pose that the subject uses because that is how they want to be remembered when they look back at these photos. Although people want to have nice, candid photos of themselves, they usually end up with idealized forms of themselves, slipping their way down uncanny valley.

     So, I wanted to explore this idea, this space that last all but a fraction of a second when someone takes a picture. Only, I wanted to expand that small moment into uncomfortably long moments. I asked subjects to act as if I was their brother, father, uncle, friend taking a photo of them at a significant moment in their life. And then, I pressed record. They assumed I was taking a picture, so they waited until I said I was done. After a while, they typically started to change their pose slightly, to make it more comfortable. Eventually, they caught on and told me to stop recording. At that point, they realized just how silly they had actually looked.

     I do have to admit that the idea of filming people when they think you are simply taking a picture is not originally mine, I first saw the concept about a year ago on Youtube. A man named Dean Fleischer-Camp took five second long videos of his friends in a short he titled Smile (Warning, some language). Drawing from this inspiration, I decided to extend this thing that is only supposed to be a second of a second, into a clip long enough to show how silly posing really is.

     The people who helped me waited to be captured, without realizing that they were already being captured. Without realizing it, the people on camera were a part of the creation. This is a similar idea that John Cage had in his song 4'33", which is a piece of music which has no notes. It is performed by having a man or woman sit at a piano and time themselves, occasionally shifting for each movement but never playing a single note. This causes the audience to become a part of the piece, every sound they make becomes the music of 4'33", and without knowing it, by just is existing a space, they have embodied the meaning of the piece of art.

Historical Script: Ted and Genghis' s Fetal Adventure

Ted and Genghis's Fetal Adventure Script

      

Artist's Statement

Our script, Ted and Genghis’s Fetal Adventure, tells the story of Genghis Khan and his twin fetus Ted. This script is based on the Mongolian legend that Genghis ate his twin fetus in the womb, which was considered a sign of his greatness to come. Obviously, there is no evidence to support this historical tale, but the rumor exists and served as a great platform to write our script. All of the details, which are few, come from word of mouth over generations. One of the inspirations for this script is Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure. In this film, famous historical figures are taken out of their original histories and transplanted into a reimagined 80s context. These characters are exaggerated and their traits and personalities are fabricated to fit into this new 80s-themed world.

          We did essentially the same thing in our script. We adjusted the environment of the womb to our own liking, and then exaggerated the traits that we assume Mongolian fetuses would have. It is absurd and almost completely unrealistic. However, this imagination of the story generates a few interesting ideas as to what caused Genghis Kahn to eat his twin. It also explores what kind of effect this act had on Genghis, and how this act directly influenced Genghis's personality and his effect on mankind. Another source of media that had an effect on this project is the film The Bad Seed. This film deals heavily with the idea of nature versus nurture. It makes us question if some people are just bad seeds, or if everyone is good and then simply becomes bad. Marjane Satrapi's Persepolis tells the story of a girl who, because of her upbringing, decides that she wants to become a prophet. She wants to create a way of living that will help people the most, it can be argued that she is a very good person. But, she comes to this decision because her country is put under a new, pro-Islamic rule. Satrapi, after being forced to wear a veil at school, sees the ways that religions are failing and this is the spark that causes her to want to create a new, more helpful code of life.

          While our script was not meant to send a message either way, due to circumstance it clearly sides with the idea of nature and that there are bad seeds. It is an interesting argument that currently has no real answer, so it was interesting to, albeit unintentionally, throw our two cents in. Our script argues both sides, really. In it, Ted is a bad seed, he was conceived bad and is bad throughout. But, he pushes Genghis to his limit and causes Genghis to snap, which leads to him become the ruthless warmonger he was. Some people are born bad, some are made bad.