Gary Hill's interest seems to be in creating a physical or gutteral sensation through image and sound. For example, by flashing a strobe light against a wall as he runs into it, shouting a word, Hill creates a narrative montage. The single flash of the strobe light is meant to act as a sort of camera, revealing and capturing a split second scene both on film and in a viewers mind. Another piece involves him strapping cameras to his limbs and head, each camera capturing an image of the attached extemity. Once played together, the five videos create a surreal sence of both movement and stillness, as the limbs do not appear to be moving, but the background is. Amongst his other works involve images of the human body flashing over and across a row of television monitors, a young girl reading outloud a language exercise (and mispronouncing several words), close up shots of a book dissolving into waves, which eventually drown a character, and a shot of a speaking being slowly buried in sand, with the voice coming from the speaker causing the sound to jumb and vibrate. All of these images involved or produced physcial movement or gutteral reaction. By producing work that is so rich with energy and movement, Hill makes his videos transend their two dimmesional plane and envelop the viewer.
Shirin Neshat's "The Woman Moves"
Neshat's works carry strong feminist and anti-militarism themes, as well as an omnipresent under current of throwing off traditional values. The artist was born and raised in Iran, and although she criticizes Iranian culture in her videos, she still has a strong sense of Iranian identity. The pieces all have a narrative, and for the most part are told without any dialogue (the exception being a piece in which an Iranian figure of ambiguous authority addresses an assembled congregation) but rather through action. All of the videos shown symbolize women's exclusion from the world of men, and how the world might be a more peaceful and rich place if women were allowed greater participation. None of the videos are in English, which is not a problem when viewing the silent films but becomes a stumbling block in the more dialogue heavy pieces, which makes Neshat's commentary on the DVD much appreciated.
Marlon Rigg's Tongues Untied
Quite different from the other films, Tongues Untied is not a documentary about art, but a documentary about the black gay community. But while art is not a theme of this film, the film itself is certainly a work of art. By splicing in brief clips of lips making deragatory statements against black gay men, one man's story of pain and rejection becomes much more powerful. All of the narration in the film is very powerful, poetic language that brings across the pain, hope, and frustration in a way that would not have been possible if the film had utilized simple talking. By pulling no punches in its exploration of the silence, rage and fear brought on by living in a world full of both raciam and homophobia, this film leaves an impression far greater than any left by the other two films.
Overall, I enjoyed each of these films, for different reasons. Gary Hill's work was all very experimental, and while some pieces, like the one where he's laying naked on the floor and speaking nonsense, were confusing and hard to interpret, while others, like the one where he attached cameras to his limbs, were visually engaging and seemed to were easy to understand. Shirin Neshat's films focused more on storytelling, and I appreciated the great lengths she went to to bring powerful images to the screen to get those stories to come to life. Marlon Rigg's film, which had nothing to do with art but was certainly a work of art itself, was the most moving for me. While listening to artists talk about their work is interesting, hearing first-hand accounts of discrimination from members of a minority amongst minorities told in such beautiful prose was quite an experience.
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