Personal Declarations in Video: Week 3, February 5-11

As I examine the video blogs on cogblog they remind me of Vito Acconci's video address in Theme Song. His demonstration is a youtubes-esque production almost 30 years ahead of its time. Direct address of the video monitor, one on one, is like a safety net for Acconci and other video bloggers. While they present themselves on a screen they are still ommitted from the presence of those viewing, leaving total control of the situation into the hands of the video maker. Acconci says of this, "my image breaks the face-to-face contact: the viewer faces a screen of me, an image under glass, me in a fishbowl. Rather than being in a situation with me, the viewer is in front of a situation of me." In this particular piece Acconci is able to confine the spectator by confining himself in the video. THe video entitled "sad-eyed anime girl" on cogblog reminds me of Theme Song because i assume the creator is acting, he/she is not theirself, they are a variations of themselves. This and the whole concept behind video is what allows them to be displayed; because no interaction is concrete and what they do is an act of some sort they have a safety net.
These personal declarations in video become ironic. They are often thought of as a way of connecting to people you would never meet otherwise but what you see is never real, it is a production, planned in some way; it is not natural. Connecting in this way can also lead to alienation and a lack of social skills. I notice that the older the person, in most cases, the more open with strangers they are. Myabe this is just because they have become more comfortable with themselves and others but it may also be influenced by the fact that they were forced to connect with people on a much more personal level throughout life- no email, no internet, no video blogs, etc...

Argument, a film by Anthony McCall and Andrew Tyndall is a test on radical media intervention and a viewers way of seeing/understanding. Sustained images, alternating text, and voice-over techniques that contradict the screen's written word make this film an excercise in viewing. Using men's fashion to create a question of ideologies and film practice proves to be an interesting concept. Repetition is used, assumingly to force feed the film's message to the viewer, but this could also be a statement on conformity and lack of innovation or progression in society and popular filmmaking. As three male voices inspect and reveal the latency and bias of an issue of the New York Times we as viewers are actually foreced to think about the "argument" and attempt to comprehend all opposoitional media forms being presented to us concurrently. Argument is a subversion of popular filmmaking, politics, and viewing that is able to retain effectiveness and a unique quality almost 30 years after the original release.


- Medium is the message
- Andrew Tyndall still questioning ideologies in media and news broadcasting today.
- Jonas Mekas has a more real, progressive form of video blogging.
= February 6th
= February 11th
- Acconci Videos/ Biography