Comments

On this week's lecture we listened the speech given by a Canadian artist, and her works revealed a discussion of the boundaries between sincerity and humorous at the group discussion. It is indeed exist the risk that one's sincerity might be understand as a sense of naïve and thus humorous, and it is true that every viewers has its own perspective towards an artwork. Among all the films Thauberger showed at the lecture, I found the first one Not Afraid to Die is the most interesting one. It first depicts a girl alternatively waiting and the shot is static, then a slightly change is she begins to snack and drink water. Immediately following her movement the sound changes from birds to airplane. I found that the artist’s intention is showing the sound’s changing in terms of the static scene, and thus demonstrates that one figure’s look can be perceived different by the sound atmosphere. It is even tends to a trick film’s effect. Nevertheless, I found my viewpoint was not what the artist analyzes her work, which she is depicting some spiritual voice that the girl heard.

The last film Northern shown by the artist is about Canadian treeplanters. The film plot is inspired by the notable painting The Raft of the ‘Medusa’, also intends to present the environment damaged scene and related to human being. The artist mentions that the country is where Brokeback Mountatin is filmed, and it reminds me of the nature presented in that film: the director of BBM once talked about how the scene should be shot in low angle in order to involve air, and how air and trees can create the sound of the wind and melted into the characters’ motion. Since I was very impressed by his using of nature in BBM, I expected to perceive more interactions between the nature and the people in Thauberger’s Northern.