morgan schramm

Consumerism is a huge part of our modern life, and we are pretty consistently consuming some form of media at every second of the day, including while we eat and drink, those bare minimum things that we need to do to nourish ourselves and survive. This consumption while consuming can lead to overeating, undereating, and a general numbing of the senses for things that we are meant to enjoy. I made a really overstimulating recording of my radio changing frequencies, police sirens, the television, phones ringing etc., and played it while sitting down to eat. I wanted to create a sense of overwhelm as the last thing on my mind would be the food and the surrounding sensations would turn into white noise.

What sets video art apart from other types of video, such as movies and music videos, has always been my main concern. I can see how the length and plot of a movie or play may make a substantial impact, but music videos, which are often only 4 minutes long, are much more difficult to distinguish. Lighting and projecting are unquestionably looked at as standard elements in these media forms to ensure that all looks the way it was intended. The comparison to painting, which obviously also deals with landscapes, lighting, and shadows, never occurred to me. I think Cubitt debunked a lot of my preconceptions about video art. Video art is still really daunting to me.

video by Qing Feng Wu and Aurora, song is Little Dark Age by MGMT

I was talking to my sister about this assignment and she kind of gave me the idea to focus on women in film. I thought a lot about the very submissive portrayal of women in films as it became a more popular form of media. This obviously didn't come out of nowhere as for a lot of recorded history women are expected to behave in a specific manner. When not adhering to a docile, agreeable, and palatable archetype, women are considered hysterical and unruly and this is used as a form of justification for oppression. It was also important for me to consider intersectionality when exploring this topic as queer women, Black women (really any non-white women), trans women, women who struggle with mental health, and so many others are especially vulnerable in a system that aims to restrict and oppress multiple aspects of their identities. There has been, in recent decades, a surge in the multi-dimensional portrayal of women in film that allows for the exploration of rage, grief, fear, exhaustion, etc. from women of all different backgrounds and identities. There is still so much wrong in this industry that will take years of deconstruction and rebuilding, but it is also important to acknowledge and celebrate the level of diverse representation that has been achieved that would have previously been unimaginable. I don't know all of the old films in black and white but the other scenes in order are from Girl Interrupted, Hidden Figures, Jennifers Body, Tangerine, Widows, Heretidary, Foxy Brown, Requiem For a Dream, and Girl Interrupted again.

One Minute Supercut

For The Loop project, I decided to explore the feeling that comes from body-scan meditation which is something that often gets taught to people diagnosed with depression, anxiety, ptsd, did, and pretty much anyone else who has trouble staying present and calm. It's used as a way to recenter and pull the mind back to reality and focus on what sensations you are feeling: what the sun feels like on your skin, the texture of the things around you, the way your clothes feel resting on your body, your breathing, etc. I definitely took inspiration for some of the close-ups from this video: https://youtu.be/nvr7T4sfads which I highly recommend, but I wanted to find rhythm and colors that were less frantic and disturbing. I used a combination of my sister's hands and clothes and my own. I used the same wash and overlay for all of the gifs in order to maintain the same feeling across, which for a couple of them I do think could have been a little brighter. But, my goal was to make something kind of dreamy but to still seem like that worried attempt to center oneself before losing it, I guess.

Gifs definitely pertain to internet culture and have spilled over into real life as it is a form of art that can isolate moments that everyone can relate to on some level. The use of popular media to bond and create connections with people in real life is not a new thing but is heavily promoted by online culture. That includes gifs considering they've been around pretty much since the internet became accessible to everyone at the creation of the world wide web. I think the way that internet art compares to real-life art is its accessibility of it and the potential to reach more people and fulfill an entirely new potential.