Knife and Chair

Knife and Chair

Goldstein showcases everyday object in his videos that bring a sense of beauty and life to them. The length of his videos adds to how plain and uninteresting these objects are in everyday context and the monotony we put them through even though the have extreme importance in our life (imagine life without out chairs). These objects are victims of form over function and lack ornamentation and excitement. They are mass produced and easily replaceable so they hold almost no value. So shining the limelight on these objects and treating them as art instead of utensils pays some sort of homage to all of the other unappreciated inanimate objects in this world. But seriously though, the colorful lights in Knife create something really beautiful out of something so ordinary. The pattern of the lights also reflects this how they slowly cover the knife from one end to the other and once it is completely submerged the color quickly disappears, reflected the appreciation for the utensil I guess, or just appreciation in general, or any realization for that matter, how it takes such a long time to realize its importance, but that moment is fleeting and disappears almost instantly.

The same idea of a steady rhythm is illustrated in chair how slowly each feather is added to the frame and they slowly start to come together or define something. Again these, harsh colors against the ordinary chair creates this synergistic effect almost where some sort of transference happens and the piece become more about the chair and the space around the chair and not the falling feathers. I liked what Laura said about the feathers defining space; creating a visual and allowing us so map out the depth and form of the negative space. The feathers also help establish a sense of time because feathers fall a slow wistful rate so the audience can establish that the video is in real time as if it were actually happening in font of them adding to the simplicity of the whole project, which further emphasizes the focus on the chair.

Gary Hill

Oh Gary Hill, he does some crazy things. His Wall Piece is kind of interesting where he forms sentences from the words he says while running and jumping onto a wall. It creates an unnatural rhythm to the sentence that creates this painful awkwardness and the viewer can hear his voice changes when he actually hits the wall further emphasizing that he is running into a wall and that he will have large bruises all over his body. But the choppyness of his speech gives the impression of photographs especially with the light flashing while he’s jumping. This relates to one of the first things he says which is I live time through a succession of pictures, the rest of his speech isn’t as related because he goes on this strange rant but I like the idea that he is living his live through these brief moments like pictures and the time in between pictures or the darkness doesn’t matter, just whats captured on film. I also live the way he plays with language in Mediations where he distorts sound coming out of a speaking with sand, but in the end doesn’t eliminate it just change it into something else. Lastly I really like his piece where he straps the cameras to all of his limbs and the different perspectives take his body out of contet almost and he appears to be still while the rest of the world is moving around him.