Extra Credit: Elephant Man

During my Thanksgiving break, I went to New York City and saw a play entitled Elephant Man. The play itself was based on a true story of Joseph 'John' Merrick. John Merrick lived around the late 1800s in England, and suffered from a genetic disorder that caused his body around his bones to have growths and tumors, with the exception of his left arm and hand, although he was never officially diagnosed. The play tells a story of a small segment of his life, and death. After being displayed around in a traveling circus-like environment, he was disregarded, and ended up in the care of a scientist named Frederick Treves. Treves helped Merrick obtain a special circumstance of permanent residence at the hospital, and the two became close friends. Merrick's intelligence far preceded his looks, and attracted the eye of many wealthy and powerful people. The play shows Merrick's relationship with Treves and several other people and the impact of science, religion, sex, and conformity effect on an individual(s). Due to Merrick's condition he was forced to sleep sitting, as the weight of his head was too heavy. Merrick died, trying to lie down regularly, from asphyxiation.

For the purposes of this blog post the story is important, as performance of Merrick is extremely relevant to the class. The play began with Treves' explanation Merrick's condition. Bradley Cooper, who played Merrick, stood next to Treves' character. As Treves' explanation continued Cooper's stature became more and more disfigured and peculiar. Cooper himself did not have any makeup to disfigure his face, he was forced soley to rely on performance, which I feel is extremely relevant to our idea of what performance entails. Cooper forced himself into an bent slant, forced his fingers in an uncomfortable position to portray a lobster-like hand, and spoke with a peculiar accent with odd mannerisms of his mouth and body. Being able to contort his body, and perform this multiple times a day, many days a week is extremely taxing on the body as Cooper has said on several occasions.

From this play, I learned how much it physically takes to authentically perform in a piece. I witnessed a reminding example of how caring deeply for the subject matter can enhance performance. As Bradley Cooper was a major force in making this play possible, it would appear he is emotionally invested in the performance of it too. A performance's authenticity relies heavily on the actors/actresses ability to form a connection with the subject matter and their willingness/ability to accurately portray a character, fictional and non-fictional.

 Linked is an article from the New York Times on Cooper's performance, as well as a Wikipedia article on Merrick:
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/02/theater/bradley-cooper-gets-ready-for-the-elephant-man-on-broadway.html?_r=0

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

Extra Credit: Nick Marshall

I attended Nick Marshall's talk and exhibition in Wilson Commons on Nov. 27th. My first impressions of his artwork were that they were somewhat simple to make, but after hearing his explanations I became much more intriuged. It seems that he is less concerned with the actual process of creation than with expressing some sort of thematic message. For instance, his bi-chromatic paintings did not take a large amount of skill to create, but Marshall's idea of combining paint titles involving water and sky to create horizons is unique and creative. As a current film student, the most interesting parts of Marshall's talk was when he discussed his college days. He described art classes in college as "a whirlwind of creation," a sentiment I agree with wholeheartedly. It is good practice to make so many projects, but sometimes it is hard to stop and think about one project and make it as good as it can be, as there is always a deadline approaching and another project looming afterwards. After the event, I stayed to discuss the economics of being an artist with Marshall. His advise to me was to network as much as possible. He is not an idealist who believes one will succeed in the art world simply by creating excellent art. He talked about the need to promote oneself, and probably to have another source of income as well. Marshall currently works at the George Eastman House.

The Medium is the Message- Marika

This paper helped me re-visit some questions I've had throughout the class, especially in our discussions of inter media. One critique that I got from my performance piece was that as a film, it wasn't very interesting to watch because not much was happening. I think that is because I approached it as a performance piece being video taped and not as a film AS a performance piece. McLuhan says that, "..it is the medium that shapes and controls the scale and form of human association and action." I think I needed to consider more how the medium, film, could be used to get across my message in the most effective way. This brings me to my clip, Vito Acconci's Seedbed. In this piece, performance artist, Vito Acconci, masturbates under benches in a gallery for eight hours a day while speaking sexually about the gallery visitors; His comments are projected throughout the gallery. To me, this seems to be a performance piece that is video taped. How are the messages similar and how are they different, depending on the medium through which the piece is viewed. I can imagine that being in the gallery is a much more offensive, crude experience, whereas while watching it on video, it seems almost comical.

Response to The Medium is the Message

The thing that stuck out to me the most when I read McLuhan's article was his discussion of how improvements in technology affect our lives. I thought of the film Koyaanisqatsi and how it strives to interpret the dynamics between what we have built and ourselves. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qHAKqVvGj3w The film consists of an extended series of time lapse shots showing the repetition of motion throughout our cities. We see traffic circling a highway, factory workers cutting and dicing meat on a conveyor belt, and office window lights turning on and off. Each scene highlights humans and machines functioning simultaneously, with machines as "extensions of ourselves," as McLuhan puts it. Our technology aids us in performing functions, but also defines us: without it, we would not be able to live the same lives or act in the same ways as we do. It facilitates, but also manipulates. I believe Koyannisqatsi calls into question whether technology is driven in the direction which we desire, or whether it possesses its own direction which changes the ways we act and think without our consent.

McLulahn's article response

My interpretation of the article is the following: “The medium is the message”- How we use the tool to create art is what is important- i.e a photograph versus a portrait; the message might be intended to be the same but the medium adds to it giving it its own meaning. The definition of the art or how it is interpreted depends on the medium. Unless you use the medium to create something it does not have the effect of giving off a meaning or we do not see it’s value until we use it to do something of human interaction or expression, like an electric light and surgery. Sarnoff says that the medium technology is not to be blamed for how our world has turned out but how we have used it. Again, how we use the medium creates the message. A robot is a medium of labor and we think of it as just that. But we should also realize that, as stated on the article, “The effect of the medium is made strong and intense just because it is given another medium as ‘content’”. In the robot’s case, the other medium would be architecture, logarithms, text, etc. This link talks about robots, automation, and how what we do with these robots are going to be the consequence of future unemployment. http://kottke.org/14/08/humans-need-not-apply

The Medium is the Message-Response

After reading this article, I got a little confused about the meaning of differentiate medium and content. Since the borderline between them is blurred. Thinking about human conception, the medium already enables us to find a way connecting the content and medium. There are two of the examples McLanhan gives in the article: “For the "message" of any medium or technology is the change of scale or pace or

pattern that it introduces into human affairs. The railway did not introduce movement or transportation or wheel or road into human society, but it accelerated and enlarged the scale of previous human functions, creating totally new kinds of cities and new kinds of work and leisure. This happened whether the railway functioned in a tropical or a northern environment, and is quite independent of the freight or content of the railway medium. The airplane, on the other hand, by accelerating the rate of transportation, tends to dissolve the railway form of city, politics, and association, quite independently of what the airplane is used for.” For my understanding, this could be explained in the films. As for a medium, films functions in so many ways. It gives people the possibility of thinking more than what we just see. If a person wash the blood on his clothes and then kill anther person. That may not happen in the real world. However, as the plot being the content of a film, that makes sense for all of the audiences. No one will question about why the order is not present with time passing by. The medium’s personality allows the viewers to get the message and have no doubt about the abnormal things in real life. In this way, the medium is already a type of message. There is some setting before we even see the contents. We acknowledge that actions and words will be exaggerated in dramas. Illusions could be pictured in poems. These mediums play roles in message passing. It reminds me a famous movie called “Momento”. I only found the trailer on YouTube. The medium makes people to hold their memory for all the film pieces. Then, when all the fragments reach to some point, all the things could be connected. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0vS0E9bBSL0

The Medium is the Message - Response

One question that bothered me about McLuhan’s article is the extent to which the medium and the message are extricable. Clearly, one cannot consider the message without the medium, and oftentimes the medium effects the message, and vice versa. But I am curious about the extent to which this is true. Is the message of a poem read on paper fundamentally different than the same poem read from a screen? The medium has changed, but it is still text, and the message (in my opinion) remains the same. The only change is in how we experience the medium – looking at a screen and scrolling through with a mouse rather than turning pages. One example of a change in medium affecting the experience of the content is kinetic typography, where a sound clip is played and the words move across the screen, often in a way that provides a visual representation of the words. There are two examples below; both are from films. In the Fight Club one, the typography brings the physicality of the words to the forefront; in the movie, there is no real action during the monologue (although there is a lot of tension). In the V For Vendetta monologue, it highlights the most distinctive part of the monologue – the repetition of the letter “v” – although the connection between the meaning of the words and the action we see is not as specific as the Fight Club monologue.
Fight Club: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fbMa4MGFCOg 
V For Vendetta: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Otv5ywOa-8U