IRL/URL BLOG
Charlie Cleworth
[ Week 8 ] Establishing Shot 3/29/23
This idea of “the audience effect” is an interesting one. It reminds me to consider not only the weight of being an audience member, but as an artist, how I can consider what the audience’s reaction might be (now, later, whenever) and how I can achieve the impact I want. I doubt Lanzmann wanted viewers to laugh in this uncomfortable way that is described by writer, but its noteworthy nonetheless. It can tell us something about how we process information and I’m curious if it tells us something about our biases. I think watching movies at a theater asked us to present our best selves and pay keen attention to our surroundings while watching the movie, and as we have transitioned to more at-home viewership, our behavior has changed. We can react how we like without worrying about what others next to us think. Even so, I’ve had moments with a few friends watching something together, and we all react differently and even speak up at different times or even together, but I’m also curious if we even hold back our reactions because of others. When you watch something alone, you don’t think of this, but even then I talk to friends that say they don’t laugh at movies or shows if they are alone, only when they’re in a group, and never really in the theater.
This idea of “collective guilt” is interesting too because I see this happen when viewers with more privilege than the artist feel the need to be overly nice or interested in the work when they are doing so out of guilt rather than pure interest. Even in classroom settings, they won’t feel the need to give them critical feedback because they don’t want anyone to think they are higher than or better than the person who is presenting work. This is dangerous because it closes off paths for connection and collaboration by not being completely honest. People try to be too nice and end up coming across as rude when all they can do it laugh nervously or give a stale compliment that doesn’t add anything to the conversation or push the work further. I’ve even seen teachers pick up on this and restructure critiques so that each person leaves an anonymous note about the work but even this doesn’t teach us how to tell others to their faces how we feel about something. We are finding more and more ways of hiding -- behind a computer screen, an anonymous tip, and even a nervous laugh.
[ Week 7 ] Light & Body Video 3/22/23
I have been working on a project that requires sewing and everytime I turn on the machine to get started, the little LED light reminds me of a tiny stage. This assingment got me thinking about the vairety of lights present while I sew in my apartment (daylight, lamps, and the sewing machine) and I thought this would be the perfect setting for my video. I wanted to capture the process of sewing a simple line, how it can be fustrtating, how it works out, and the movement of the hands. To show this, I wanted to create use slightly chaotic camera angle to show tension and give the needle more power by shooting from below. I enjoy the sounds of my machine as well and I think they create a nice score for the piece.
[ Week 3 ] Viewpoints 2/15/23
Coming into it, we attempted to choreograph it with some ideas for blocking but found a more successful process for creating when we just jumped right into it. We used our knowledge of the chosen viewpoints (tempo and kinesthetic response) and a general outline of the piece but letting go of some of those structures and expectations allowed for the connected, spontaneous moments to drive the work. This to us was when the piece got interesting, and we saw the outcome we were hoping to achieve. Overall, we found a certain rhythm to the piece, combing our sense of tempo with kinesthetic response to get fluid, synchronized movement. This happened by chance at first, but we chose to lean into this dynamic and explore how we can respond to one another with varying speeds and reactions. What started as two actors meeting for a handshake led to an interesting, satisfying, and comedic take on viewpoints.
[ Week 2 ] CTMFestival: >>strobe.rip<< 1/29/23
CTM is a “festival and platform for adventurous music and art” based in Berlin that has been collaborating with experimental artists for over 20 years to produce boundary-pushing multi-media work. For their annual festival, CTM partnered with long-time collaborator Freeka Tet and a Berlin-based, Finish-born electronic music duo Amnesia Scanner. Tet and AS have worked together before to build visuals and sounds for each other’s work and are rumored to be releasing a collaborative album later this year. CTM appreciates their experimentation with dance music and technological advancements that have elicited new, creative methods for hybrid performance.
For this performance (>>strobe.rip<<), which happened this past weekend, they combined a soundtrack written and produced Amnesia Scanner, 16k digital art and soundbites by Freeka Tet, and “spam poetry” by Jacob Bakkila projected amidst the detailed, provocative imagery. Directed by Sam Rolfes, these elements strung together depict an immersive concert experience inspired by “today’s collapsing ecosystems and information environments. This is an event I deeply wish I could’ve attended because the combination of mediums and the overall tone of Amnesia Scanner’s sound is right up my alley. Unfortunately, the concert was not officially filmed for mass-consumption (assumably to keep up with AS’ usual enigmatic and mysterious antics and we must wait for the album release to come) so I will be relaying what I have interpreted from viewing audience recordings posted on social media. However, AS and Freeka Tet have appeared to try to repost every video they come across to give fans who couldn’t attend a small taste of what occurred the other night in Berlin.
promotional images courtesy of Amnesia Scanner and Freeka Tet
The duo stands behind their wide-array of music production equipment, fading into the back as the large-format screen draws the most attention. At points, Freeka Tet is on stage in front of the booth, dancing along and performing by what appears to be a vocal arrangement paired with the instrumentals. It’s hard to say whether the vocals are prerecorded and Freeka Tet is simply dancing and lip-syncing along to the unreleased body of work or if we are witnessing a truly live performance. With a flashlight on his face pointed towards the audience, Freeka Tet has included the audience as a part of the work, reversing the traditional intention of lighting and creating a flashing screen so bright and putting projectors and lights facing out, the performance is almost reaching out to touch and calling for the audience to be felt as an element of the show. As skittering drums and alarming synths come one after another, the non-sensical poetry is combined with strobe to create a jarring and borderline nauseating representation of media (over)consumption. Through this visceral show, electronics seem to voice the anger and frustration coming out of our changing world. In using computers, we hear and experience something very human.
When considering the story structure, I can assume the group has leaned further into circular structures since their early musical releases. Their first EP AS felt like a small window into their musical world, and their debut album AS Another Life, while longer, also feels a little choppy and unconnected, perhaps representing their at-the-moment catalogue of released music. However, their 2020 release Tearless pushed the duo into a colorful, emotional world that rises and falls with concrete lyrics and a wider release. Now, as we see the outline of a new collaborative album, we can wonder if AS has found their voice and dived further into well-rounded stories. With more help from Freeka Tet with sound, projection, and lighting, we can see how these elements enhance the viewers reception of the work. Finally, the curtain has been drawn and we see AS in all their glory.
I love AS music, and what makes them stand out amongst other producers working with deconstructed club music is their ability to bring these harsh sounds into a vivid visual representation by working with artists like Freeka Tet. Their works enhance one another’s, allowing sound and image to combine for a new concert format. Speaking of the past, their previous collaborations were at their highest potential during the pandemic. When attending live performances was nearly impossible, Freeka Tet was able to produce mechanical and digital artworks that took the place of the performers on-stage. These forward-thinking performance styles not only have the power to elicit stronger reactions based on their duplicity, but also make room for creative solutions to artmaking in a physically separated (but digitally connected) world.
concert image by Thomas Philipp
More about CTM and this recent performance:
https://www.ctm-festival.de/festival-2023/programme/schedule/event/ctm-x-transmediale-finale-i
Other AS x Freeka Tet works:
Amnesia Scanner Live at Appleville: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r94N8zoh_sU&t=266s
Anesthesia Scammer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zBdZog4ZkRM
AS Merge (unreleased): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qC2uWmU3tN8&t=123s
concert image by Brandon Rosenbluth
[ Week 1 ] Dan Harmon: Story Circle 101 1/29/23
From taking film studies and writing classes, I have run into a similar storytelling structure before. I haven’t seen it explained in this exact way before
and it was a lot more interesting and specific than an overdone explanation of the ‘three-act structure’. I liked how Harmon encourages identifying
the pattern in media all around us, and even if we “as natural humans” try something else, this pattern somehow finds its way into the story. That makes
me wonder if he is onto something where this is the most obvious and common way of experiencing life and that unnatural parts of our world perhap try to
distract us from our primal way of being. I appreciate his cadence of being sure of this, and I will consider how I revert back to this pattern even subconciously.