One more step

I am pleased that I have met my goal of creating a rough cut of my video to show for my class progress report. I got the video to work out enough to have some semblance of my original vision and I cut it down to a pretty controlled length of 8:45 min. I got a select amount of criticism, but what I heard from people so far was really helpful. There are some very particular things that people drew my attention to:

I need to think about the intro and title, the transitions of scenes, having more problems to display my point further with the plot, adding more humor, adding some of my other types of footage to round out what I have chosen, of course I need to finish trimming it down, and I am considering a bit more video to shoot that could bring together a different kind of conclusion if I wanted a more closed ending.
I am pleased, but I still have a great deal of work to do. It is at this sort of stage in such a project that I think a little discipline and pacing go a long way. In considering this, I was reminded of a song that has always caught my fancy conceptually. It is called "Imprint" by a band that was called doubleDrive. It has always felt for me to be a calming kind of concept to consider when I need to focus on something and take it one step at a time. I will include a Youtube video for this song. That being said, I want to also consider some more audio for my video and try to think about scoring my video also to give a more complete feeling to the finished product.


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Jordan Severson

Philosophy and the Radicant

The second part of Nicolas Bourriaud's The Radicant deals with altermodern concepts further with an increase in discussion of philosophy and and influential thinkers. It seems that this portion is less effective in introducing more concepts, but more concerned with elaborating the concepts already introduced to delve deeper into the meaning and relationships of the continuing conceptual themes.
Bourriaud starts to introduce examples, largely consisting of art work by Damien Hirst and Marceld Duchamp's readymades to point to how art has evolved to new places compared to what used to be acceptable on an intellectual level in the art world. This allows him to propose ways in which art might be changing in the present to become something new in the future and what sort of implications that the birth of web 2.o may hold for the future. Bourriaud discusses ideas of Walter Benjamin that were critical in the development of discourse surrounding topics like the results of image reproduction through mechanical means, which leads to the current question of what will happen to art once digital, and internet media so dominates our culture that those traditional means are all but forgotten. Benjamin argues in one of his most influential essays that an original image has an "aura" comprised of its unique, original existence, individual history and uncorrupted characteristics that cannot be observed by any form of reproduction. What will happen to such an "aura" on the internet? Can art made on a computer and existing only on the internet to begin with have some kind of "aura," or does it even really exist as an art object at all? Critics like Clement Greenberg pushed for art to be produced in its purest and most honest form, which was for him a reduction and emphasis on the use and demonstration of the most basic and essential tools of art. This led to works by the likes of Frank Stella, Barnett Newman, Mark Rothko, Helen Frankenthaler, and many others to create a form of art that best embodied this minimalist sort of intellectual art. What might be the result of such a direction of simplification or emphasis on basic elements when applied to internet and computer media? It seems that Bourriaud poses his earlier concepts and conjectures of the Radicant to answer these questions and predict the direction of his altermodern, but I am not so sure it is convincing.

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Jordan Severson

What drives our art?

Slime mold, matthew barney, wow report, beirut, michael jackson...what do they all have in common? They all provide inspiration and serve as either mentor, or muse to my classmates. These and all the other choices for the projects we've undertaken are all interesting and diverse interests. It would seem that my classmates have a great many inspirations for their work and it is fascinating to see the relationships between some of these choices of inspiration and the projects that have been developed in connection with them. Even though some relationships seem more direct and obviously connected to the end product than others appear on the surface, these choices have all had interesting impacts on individual works of art. I have to say that my own choice seems plain and ordinary by comparison.

I had difficulty picking a mentor that I saw could be easily related and explained to others. My first instinct was to report on my inspiration from a man named Juan Carlos whom I met in Siena. The difficulty is that I have no real facts or information concerning this man and sometimes I am not convinced myself that he actually exists. He was the most remarkably positive person I have ever met, a practicing artist despite all of his life's hardships, and he is a man who has discovered the secret to his own happiness. He is the type of man who can make you feel incredibly good about your life just by sharing some of his life stories to show that your life is not so bad and that if he can still be this positive you had better be. Juan Carlos is the type of man that can tell you everything that you want or need to hear, but make you actually believe it in a way you never thought possible. He is the type man that I aspire to be, an artist who works by his own methods and standards to accomplish his goals and reach people in a way that is very rare. Unfortunately, I have found no traces of this man on the internet yet even though I know that he has art around the U.S. and Europe and has impacted many lives besides my own. He still remains mysterious and seemingly unreal or invisible even though he is impacting so many with his artwork. I hope that some day I may do the same with my artwork.

I ended up picking Christopher Nolan because of his works like Memento, and the Prestige. I half wish that I would have found something a bit less obvious or mainstream to impact my video in a less blatant and perhaps more fruitful way. However, I think that the connections I made did provide some necessary structure and goal to my project. I thought about new video techniques, using filters like sepia tone, to add a reminiscent quality and increase emphasis by using contrast to tie my scenes together better.

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Jordan Severson

Objective: Succinctness

This week I did shoot a little more video including some scenes with friends and my nephew. However, I also came to the realization that I need to revise my ideas a bit. I am putting my original objectives aside in attempts to reduce my concepts into something practical and streamlined. In researching mentors I have considered the benefits of taking bold, decisive steps with my video to convey a message that meets my aim. I have plenty of material, so I have primarily been reviewing and editing it. I have one final cut project that is already close to five minutes, but does not adequately encapsulate what I imagine for my final product. I think I will now reorder and reconsider those clips, cut them down or cut them out, and try a slightly different approach to matching up scenes once I have redesigned the structure of plot points and interviews. I now see that I must be more deliberate, and concise in my integration of the two. I hope to spend enough time editing in the following days to be on the right track by the showing of my rough cut next week. I believe it takes a great deal more skill to make a short video than a long one. Perhaps, I will continue with my larger ideas later, but for now I hope I am up to the task of revising my vision for brevity. I am going to try to think about styles and techniques of condensing narration that are used in music videos and movie trailers to find a better way of conveying a strong message in a few minutes of time.


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Jordan Severson

Where to roost when your home is deforested

Hearing Jodi Sedlock speak about her personal history and path to her current profession was very interesting. Her unorthodox pathway to a career in science through the beginnings of artwork shows how people can achieve their goals through their own methods and by figuring out everything as they go along. Going to art school to find that anatomy classes and an injury lead to an internship and a desire to pursue biology is certainly not the usual way to find a profession, but it does point out that alternative avenues can be useful in finding ideal prospects.

The idea that art attracts attention needed to support scientific research as well as other avenues is very reassuring. Often many overlook how much art plays a role in the things around them by contributing something that they do not recognize or interpret as art.

I think that is very encouraging to someone pursuing art because it shows that there is a place for creativity in many areas that may not consider at first. It is true that desperation breeds both motivation and creativity. I think Jodi shows that it is possible to pursue a course that is natural in order to find what it is you want to do. Sometimes you may have to stray from your interests to find new ones. I think that my video relates to the idea of cryptic diversity that Jodi spoke of in relation to bats. Sometimes, we assume that since we are all humans or all of a particular religion, race, country, etc. we must have the similar perspectives and beliefs. However, often the people that seem the most like us on the surface end up being deceptively different and we don't really know until we look closer. The difference in bats can be small or large in something as simple as navigation when some bats have a vastly wider perception of food sources just because they see in a different way. I hope that my video demonstrates that the same is true for people. Upon closer inspection of ideas and perspectives that those in close proximity take for granted, we may realize that there is a greater variety of perspectives and methods available to us and it is foolish to settle for only one fraction of them. The Bat theme also correlates with my mentor research as I have been researching Christopher Nolan as a possible candidate. Although it is not the reason why I have been researching, Nolan has achieved a great deal of fame recently as director of the newest Batman film franchise.

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Jordan Severson

A Reading Period's Progression

I feel that I have made some valuable progress over reading period. I always think there could have been a little more, but I am satisfied that I got some great footage of events that will help me structure the daily events portion of my film that will help to advance some kind of plot with in my piece however minimal it may be in the end (I would like to point out that some of the most successful videos to my mind are capable of having very little plot, but survive on character development and other elements: e.g. Seinfeld and the show about nothing idea). Anyway, I have begun using the flip style mino camera, which I like now that I have gotten used to it. It is a bit shaky at times, especially while zoomed, but it is decent to manage. I also do like some of the differences in film quality and as before I do embrace some of the home-video feeling for my project. I really like that the camera is so small and portable. I have been taking it around with me and been able to capture a lot more unplanned events as they occur to assist in obtaining a natural, organic feel to my scenes. I don't want them to feel stiff and scripted, but realistic and believable. This camera seems to allow me to accomplish this with much less effort and also more discreetly. Another good aspect of this camera is the ability to capture the already created clips from usb connection, rather than from mini dv tapes, which can be frustrating. This is a lot easier and less hassle when I want to keep shooting video and worry less about securing my footage.

This weekend I was able to film: interactions with one of my friends from Florence study abroad, some first person view fencing, public encounters in stores, and a development of characters/ establishment of cameraman identity.

I plan to have some more shots in the coming week that will follow more of my original vision: a professor interview, interactions with my nephew, more conflict development, the role of friends, and some of the resolution to the film.

Overall, I think that my video is getting much closer to the point where I can delve into a lot of editing and reduce the amount of time I spend filming.


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Jordan Severson

Continued Efforts

This week I began shooting footage of the daily events in the storyline of my project. I hope to get most of these done soon, perhaps next week to really get the important plot points shot to add into my project right away to establish a good structure. Currently I have just been capturing and sorting out a lot of my clips. I have also begun examining the larger chunks of footage to create the necessary subclips for insertion into the project where necessary. I feel like once I have those most important scenes captured and placed in my project, I can start editing and progressing a lot faster with Finalcut without worrying. I will continue to conduct interviews as I have been and the rest of my filming and addition should come pretty naturally to develop as I go. I have also gotten a lot of good fencing footage, which may play into my video more or less than I originally thought. For now, I have done some work and gotten a lot of good footage at my disposal to select exactly what I want, whether most of the footage is used or not. I have included a clip here as this is some of the most recent footage I have captured and I promised to include one this week.

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Jordan Severson

John McKinnon: Misconceptions of the late Andy Warhol

Warhol's embrace of commercialism is, in some ways, continually relevant for artists. But even more relevant than that tendency to examine and use the commercialism that is still so deeply embedded within our culture is the reality of getting trapped between the old habits and bodies of work as one's repertoire might tend to find comfort in repetition and the urge to branch out in search of a new direction of creativity. The risk of this is that for someone like Warhol it means that the public may not follow his new interests and thus, he was relatively ignored in the latter period of his life. McKinnon makes this point up front as a reason to explore and understand Warhol's later works outside of the instinct to ignore his later works. It is interesting to find how fruitful this time in his life was following the attempt on his life when he began searching for new avenues in his art. When I think of myself as an artist, I have similar struggles when trying to consider whether it is best to stick with a style, series, or project long enough to create something larger and more recognizable of to change more quickly toward improvement and untouched potential. I am currently trying to find a way to explore this personal tension in my work while drawing off of my experiences abroad in Italy.

Warhol was able to find concepts and ideas worth pursuit anywhere he went (e.g. suggestion of camouflage or looking through magazine ads) and he also made use of collaboration to draw off of artists like Basquiat. While visiting the Museo di Capodimonte in Naples, I saw a silkscreen of Mount Vesuvius that was a commission from Warhol. He also appeared in many photographs in another part of the modern art wing as a collaborator and social figure. I think that this sort of reach and depth of Warhol even after he was regarded as washed up (though he was still producing copious amounts of new concepts and pieces that revisiting old subject matter) shows Warhol's true artistic strength in his ability to draw from a variety of sources and inspirations, internalize the concepts that he witnessed or designed and reapply or redistribute the benefits of his experiences through works that took advantages of all the connections he made with the world. It would seem that this sort of characteristic is what made Warhol a modern artist with a success that remains after him even if his popularity waned during his lifetime. I hope to find ways to combine my own interests in all my artwork, and especially my video, to make similarly strong connections that take advantage of my experiences.



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Jordan Severson

Klaus Nomi: Personality Construct

Prior to watching this film, I did not really know who Nomi was, but I had some vague familiarity with him. I think it must have just been as one of my classmates pointed out, he is one of those character types that has been digested by American pop culture and regurgitated in small pieces every now and again as new stars in the mainstream spotlight see fit to take cues from Nomi. There were many good perspectives and concepts that came up in our discussion regarding his appearance as a deliberately constructed persona who may have merely stumbled upon post-modernism. But what really strikes me is that no matter how many of his "friends" were interviewed, one could never get much of a feeling from the documentary as to Nomi's "real" or private identity. Maybe he became completely consumed by the character that he designed to play for the rest of his life, but I have to believe he was something else initially and once he was there on his deathbed, with everyone too afraid of Aids to come and visit the sad and lonely performer. It is sad that things ended up that way and that it seems somehow fitting in the eyes of certain people that he had such a dramatic end, but it is also understandable. I don't think Nomi realized everyone he pushed away in his search to achieve a tangible fame, until he needed those whom he alienated. At any rate, I understand that a lot of figures since have developed similar stage characters to stick with, but there is more ambiguity in Nomi. How conscious was his stage character's development? I have to wonder whether some of the aspects and character traits were not just parts of his imagination ready to surface or things that were already close to him and just seemed natural to develop further and accentuate or exaggerate. It seems like he became virtually indistinguishable from his stage self, and that makes me wonder how intentional each aspect of that personality was for him. Perhaps his imagination and intuition led him naturally down the path of such a character combining opera and other types of music in a unique juxtaposition. I think, in some ways that separates him from those figures who came later trying to find some sort of strange, yet memorable gimmick to cling to in hopes that it would catapult them effortlessly to fame. Little bits of many things remind me of Klaus and I think that shows a remarkable impact for such a performer that really only produced about three albums without much behind them. An example is a rather minor connection I made with a musician that I admire, (not personally, but for his music in content and style, as well as the great obstacles he has overcome just like Klaus) Chris Volz. Volz is a vocalist that founded some bands I listen to like Flaw and Five.Bolt.Main, and then went on to make a solo album that turned out a little strange in my opinion. Volz lived with a stepmother when he was young and she trained him vocally because she was an opera singer. Later, Volz had gone through a very difficult childhood including experiencing the suicide of his stepmothere and he went on to form hard rock or metal alternative bands like those mentioned. What I like about him is that he incorporates those experiences he's had into his music and feeds off of them to create something that many "angry teenagers" can enjoy or at least relate to. He also has a unique vocal style due to the formal opera kind of training that he received. He is able to display a beautiful voice and then switch in a brief moment to yells and screams of agony and betrayal only to return to a soft and gentle melody. I find all of these characteristics interesting parallels to Klaus and although I see no direct correlation, I am sure that some of the Chris Volz type musicians in the world could not survive today without having had certain avenues paved by the likes of Klaus Nomi.


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Jordan Severson