2/11 SM 1701 contemporary and new media art wirting

Gary Hill Mediations, 1986

In this video, I see a speaker, a hand and sand have appeared on screen, together with a voice of man which seems to be describing the action that shown in the video. It might be the narration but I think it is more like a poem. The man keep repeating the words as poems always do. There are several words repeated a lots such as speak, speaker, picture, hand, voice, sand and underground. Although the man keeps talking some repeated words, they are not always the same. For example, the word of underground only appears in the last part of the video. At the beginning that we can see the vibration produced by the speaker when the man is talking through the kinetic of sand, but at the end we hardly to hear the voice and the sand seems very quiet as there is too much sand on the speaker. It implies the speaker is totally buried by the sand, so called the voice is buried ‘underground’. I remember that what Linda said last week about repetition and variation. The words repeated by the man are not always the same; they are varied in the process.

Actually, I don’t really get the relationship between the topic of ‘mediation’ and he content of the video. In the very early part of the video, it says that it is about the mediations of image and language and they are no acceptation. I am wondering the action of burying the voice (speaker) is saying that cinema is no necessary to be added narration to describe the image. We can get the meaning through the images we see on screen, but not the language or words.

 

Michael Snow- (2003) Wavelength for Those Who Don’t Have the Time

This video confuses me a lot because of its abstract content. In the whole movie, I see two images superimpose on the screen. The image behind is revealing an indoor environment. It is a room with two big windows. However I don’t know what the front image represents. Maybe it is a wall or door which was stuck a rectangle picture on it. I think it may be taken in outdoor place as there are cars and humans passing by. Sometimes, I can see two women get into the room and set aside the windows. They are also listening to some music. In fact I really don’t know what they are doing. Most the time I can only see the flashing screen and changing color of images. I also found that the whole scene of the video is passing several days and nights. I can see the outside view through the windows so I know the change of time. The camera shot seems to have no movement and it is only shooting in the same area of the room. In fact, the camera is moving forwards very slowly to the two windows. The front image also follows the track and become closer and closer. Therefore, at the end of the video, we can see a clearer view outside the windows, and we can see the black see in the rectangle picture posted on the wall of front image.