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Final Essay // Week 12 - “Are We Human?”

Based on Short Film “Vhils - Debris” by Jose Pando Lucas and Vhils

A take on Simulacra and Simulation

Critical Practice 1

Nicholas Kim

4/7/2018

Today I will be discussing the shortfilm directed by Jose Pando Lucas, titled “Vhils - Debris”. The film was directed in Macau in 2017 with the collaboration of Jose, a Portuguese film director and Vhils, a Portuguese street artist. The film is about a Cantonese woman living in the present time of Macau speaking about the life she lived and how it has changed… but for  the better or worse? I believe that this shortfilm is a touch on how our world is moving faster than we may be able to perceive of it - a step forward but in a blind eye. We are becoming less human.

From the very beginning of the shortfilm, we hear a phone ringing. A payphone in what seems to be a bustling city, in the nighttime surrounded by lots of lights and neon lit buildings. We hear folk-singing, busy street chatter and the everyday city rumble until we see a close-up shot of a woman picking up the phone. As she answers the phone, she starts to narrate her thoughts to the “audience”. Immediately the tone is changed abruptly to a very enchanting and and mysterious soundtrack in which chimes, ambient music and a stronger folk singer begins their medley. Video shots are taken from various places in the present day city of Macau and past child-like experiences, constantly switching between the past and the present. 

Various shots that contain “Vhils” artwork in-the-making are shown within the city life. Narration goes on about the woman’s life with technology, such as the telephone. We observe that the video quickly switches from one view to another view, taking snapshots of how we live our lives today with technology, especially the modern cell phone and smartphone. There are photographs and cuts of everyday citizens jostling to their daily lives, taking pictures of themselves with phones or sending messages across the globe. There are also shots that compare the modern city life to the old and monotonous life of old buildings, farms and of the previous society. There are aerial helicopter recordings of the huge and developed cities compared to small grocery areas and homely urban households. Also observed are the comparisons of slow, old seniors compared to the busy and quickly moving city folk. The shots also go through many speed-ups and slow-downs, in varying timeframes. 

As this continues throughout the shortfilm, the narration slows to a stop, a very screeching ambient noise repeats and the shots of many citizens and daily lives soon close to a return to the woman at the payphone.

What does all of this entail? We should observe the dialogue that we are given first. The whole of the film is based entirely on her personal experience with the telephone as an example of how we lose ourselves. She touches on how the telephone was such a novelty when she was a young child, and how it has grown to be more of us than we are of ourselves. The woman speaks volumes about how our world is changing- through small snippets of her thoughts. The first piece of dialogue may summarize the entire shortfilm- “We can now send a message across the glove in less than one second.” A short and sound line in the film that tells us that we have come a long way. However, is this what we should look for? As our world changes, we begin to find ourselves in a state of ignorance. A state of disbelief- that it is natural to keep ourselves at the frontier of the future. The narrator states that we are all now surrounded by new technology, which isn’t necessarily a good thing. A big part of the message comes from the narrator’s personal life she spoke about- in which she, as well, left her “human life” behind with her father, as she became less interested in daily affairs with him and instead grew forward into a newer and more technologically advanced world. 

“He always knew that one day I would stop coming with him. He said I would grow up and stop enjoying digging up potatoes and beans. He was right.” The dialogue is always in-tune with what was being portrayed in the film- the slow, descriptive moments of her father paired with the grey pictures of old family, compared with the bustling and crazed and colorful moments of the everyday, when she speaks of the new age coming forth. “That was 20 years ago. I don’t think we spent enough time together. But today, is anything ever enough?” Throughout this film, she explains how we are losing our humanity.

We are in a digital age! The age in which we lose our touch. We no longer look for people but for our cell phones. We no longer write on paper to gift but on binary sent instantly through each others machines. We are no longer “lost”, because we are now always surrounded by screens, television, and the all-mighty satellite GPS floating thousands of miles above us. Our relationship with technology is now far more of a higher priority than the people we live with or the voices we share with others. “They were never entirely comfortable in front of a TV. I once saw my grandfather dress up to watch the news, because he wanted to be presentable for the occasion. It’s as if he felt he could be seen from the other side of the TV”.

The message is clear here- we are losing in touch with ourselves, as human beings. As technology continues to be consumed by us, we start to be consumed by them. How is this? A major part of the message of the film starts from the fact that our society grows with technology faster than we can perceive it to be so- the shortfilm addresses this by the style the film was directed. The film constantly compares the old with the new, and it describes how we are always moving forward at such an accelerated rate. The shots of old citizens working on a dime versus the busy businessmen traversing throughout the city, or the view of a shiny casino compared to small and rundown urban households. The film also uses speed-up and slowdowns to portray how we view our life in clicks and small frames of a larger, faster moving society that is slowly losing ourselves. We observe that the film feels like a heightened sense of memory, where some shots of film, namely young adults who thrive in technology, are sped up very quickly, and slowed down at certain points, namely the seniors and old family members, to emphasize how much we may miss, and how fast we can live through these moments- the precious times in which we learn to be who we are, or human. We stop learning with family, we stop observing and being true to ourselves, and we stop looking back but we never really STOP... and think of who we are, and what we’ve become.

The aspect of being “human” is described visually by the artistic endeavors of Vhils, who is a street artist who portrays his work in public media throughout the shortfilm. His work is known for its stunning cross between true “reality” and the present, drawing sculpting or chiseling away at old walls or neon signs in order to portray the everyday citizen in many different angles with an array of colors and natural abstraction. He rends into old buildings and creates something beautiful- a memory of who we are, or the faces of humans that we see everyday. 

The fact that this artist is carving into these walls of old cities is very meaningful in and of itself as well- I take them as reminders throughout our daily lives that we are still precious, and that our intrinsic livelihoods should be taken into account every time we traverse further into time, lest we leave it behind… lost and forgotten. It portrays human nature, the naturalistic human mind and body next to advertisements, scalpelled over old posters and old walls, and finds itself everywhere- in the present culture. It is almost as if there is a small but very direct voice that is trying to sound out to the everyday public- that we are still human... that we should not be bound to the current ties of pop culture, sensationalism and technology.

The last line repeats the first line of the narration, and as I had mentioned, it is, at a first impression, a “good” thing that we have advanced to a time where we may send messages across the globe almost instantaneously. However, with all of that said, and with a world of advancement, it begs the question… does it truly help us? Are we truly in a better time?

“We can now send a message across the globe in less than one second.

But is anybody really listening?”

It is we who decide for ourselves who we are. To live always within a bright and shiny future will leave everything that makes us human behind. We stop appreciating, we stop observing, and we lose meaning to the world that pushes past us. We are becoming less human, and as artists, akin to Vhils, I believe we are responsible for keeping this world in a light brighter than the screen of our phones.

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Final Proposal

Proposal

Nicholas Kim

“It’s just an animation. It doesn’t affect anybody.” Does it?

Media I am reviewing: The External World by David O’reilly.

This piece of media takes indie animation to the very hot extremes. It is a 17 minute short film created by David O’reilly in 2011 that is driven by crazed absurdist humor that is completely out of bounds on where society stands as a whole. It breaks all the rules of what is considered civil, sane, or sanitary writing and animation. I highly do not recommend watching because it is completely violent, racist, sexist, ableist, abusive, anti-religious, anti-peace, anti-war, anti-semitic, anti-human, anti-elderly, anti-depression, sexually and graphically explicit, terroristic, fear mongering, abstract, and extremely abominable and grotesque fetish fuel. But most of all, it is completely… and utterly...

Satirical.

My argument is as follows: we are not the media we create. In fact, we are not the ideas that we first place into a piece of medium, nor is it the audience that decides it. The medium speaks for itself, the medium is as we perceive it to be. Above all, we are not limited to what we may create as far as any medium goes. The artform is free to decide where it goes, and what it becomes.

It ties in with Simulation Simulacrum. Is this man insane, racist, sexist and just a terrible being overall for creating this piece of animation? Are we racist for enjoying it? Sexist? Should we limit what we experience just to be “objectively” correct on bounds that we know what is “objectively” correct? Is media supposed to be limited due to the all-mighty wall and blanket argument of “This media will affect our children, our loved ones and turn them into incompetent bigots who disease society”? Are we all under the impression that extremes of media will delineate who we are and what we will become? Well, maybe? But we can’t say for sure. At any rate, its something we cannot and should not stop.

We are all beings who decide what belongs in a particular piece of medium, may it be paintings, film/video, exhibitions, photography, animation, digital design or sculpture. We are not limited as to what we may be, nor the ideas that we may place unto them. They are what they are- their own world of a hyper-real. Their own time and place that we may perceive to be true or untrue. In the world of today, we are slowly but surely laying down the invisible laws that bind us from truly opening our eyes to potential. The potential to say and know and be who and what we want. In this current time, culture is developing to shut down ideas that break out of the “norm”, and I believe that that’s just something that cannot happen. It breaks what art really is.

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I, Machine

“Personal Entrails 1” by Nicholas Kim

Black Mirror Assignment

Nicholas Kim

Critical Practice 1

From the very beginning, my life was being surrounded by technology. My family was all techy-friendly, using computers everyday, here and there... and were not very big on forcing me to read, write, or really anything manual, besides drawing. So they, and a couple of very generous family members, gave me any piece of entertainment I needed- the shiny new future of television, computers, phones, cameras, etc. What I can say has impacted my life the most, and with that, the most intimate connection I have with, is the computer. Playing video games was probably a big part in my life, but was no more of importance than my computer.

I’ve seen my father use a computer since I was 3 years old. An old windows XP, which was very modern at the time. I was very interested, and I didn’t even know why he used one. Eventually I got a real cheap 300 dollar computer that I used for my daily activities. I not only stuck with the computer, I lived by it. My computer is where I learned many things about the world. It was where I grew up. Like the playground or a forest where children play, or the backyard of an abandoned warehouse where two kids would meet. Old memories of a time where I strived to enjoy myself, by myself. But I wasn’t alone. The computer was right in front of me.

My computer was my soulmate. It was the soulmate of each one of my friends who had similar hobbies. I’ve talked with my friends through my computer, I’ve talked with family online, I’ve talked to online members of varying hobby groups, discussed matters about video games or art, and did all of my schoolwork on my computer. I played video games and watched movies. It was my connection to anything, anywhere, and anyone. This beautiful piece of machinery is not something I give a lot of credit for in my everyday life so it's very alleviating to talk about it. In fact, writing this right now feels pretty intimate as it is. A love letter to my one and only bright and big machine who I spent the most of my life with. An entity that I spill out my entire personality to. A machine that I trust more than my friends. A machine I trust more than my family. A machine that gets more of me than anyone. A machine I can trust.

My computer was my life. It was connected to me. I was the computer! It was blind to me. I felt it! The wires, the warm screen filled with a soft and soothing light I can make myself feel home to. It was surrounding me in waves of comfort. I didn’t feel like I existed without it. It was, after years, and soon to be decades of connection, myself. Not even pets nor siblings got as much time and attention compared to this lovely machine. I was the computer. I talked to it, played with it, was entertained by it. I wrote my deepest and darkest feelings and stories to it, I sent it emails and cared for its well-being. It was always there, always waiting for me to wake it up from sleep-mode. A synapse. A blink. A light. In my life. I drew all over it. I lived through it. I sang to it. I screamed at it, was angry at it. We laughed! We cried. We were one. We were all. Until we both went to sleep, nearly always at the same time. Blips, blinks and clicks and clinks. Keyboard keys pressed during the middle of the night. We were awake and up, trying not to fall asleep. Both working together, both living together, both dying together. When I grow old and delirious I will probably give it a name and a personality. These were feelings that I had for anything I did on the computer, but in essence, I was the computer. We were doing things together. It was my best friend I never addressed.

I am both man and machine. Without the PC, I would probably not be here, writing an essay on the computer, through an easy-to-use program, on the computer, posting on a blog, on the computer, behind years and years of drawing, on the computer, emailing my professors, on the computer, living my life and enjoying myself, on the computer. It is the computer I believe that has become my most intimate connection to technology, and as far as this unwarranted mass hysteria goes for the future of technology swarming over our daily lives, well, I say it can’t come soon enough.

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Simulacrum and Simulation Notes

This is, without a doubt, the most difficult text I’ve been assigned to read, so there might be a little speculation going on, but its the best I can do to make sense of all these hard words put together to form even harder paragraphs...

Jean Baudrillard writes mainly about how imagery, in and of itself, is neither a “false” or “true” representation of reality. It is the “truth”, a true being that ignites chemicals in the mind to explain what it can or cannot be. An image is true to itself, a being that is sustained by its own reality, and in its own scope of the “Hyper-real”, or new realities. This is not limited to a single picture, but to ideas, paintings, and exhibitions, and more. 

I see that he notes on how, starting with the realistic map of a landscape, the form of itself was not the landscape, nor an image of a landscape, but was in fact, just a landscape.

He is making the main argument of how the images that we see everyday- ideas, concepts, and things out of our tangible existence to show for, for example actual objects that we may hold, is not the line between what is “real” and what is “not real.” For simulating, in contrast to dissimulating, as he states, can not only be a “fake”, but can also trigger “symptoms” that lead into reality. The line is blurred, and therefore becomes a grey area unique to itself. Images, ideas and intangible feelings are real to people who believe and experience in their realness. Others will agree on the account that they produce such “symptoms” or what I’d like to call the suspension of disbelief. 

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Week 7 - The Matrix

“The Matrix” (1999) Directed by the Wachowski Brothers

Posthumanism Assignment

Nicholas Kim

Critical Practice 1

The quote I am analyzing is as follows:

Neo: “Why do my eyes hurt?”

Morpheus: “You’ve never used them before.”

I believe that these quotes in the Matrix are a very nicely timed playoff of when Neo had both metaphorically and literally opened his eyes for the very first time. This small but very important interaction at this point in the film completely summarizes Neo’s experience of “waking up”. It’s tied to the film’s main theme of enlightenment, and continues into the story as a fact- Neo was slowly but surely beginning to believe his position, no matter how much he was uncomfortable, painful or doubtful for being so.

Throughout the film, Neo had been described as one of the few only “beings” to question the nature of his existence and the world around him. He never went so far as to blindly believe in the new world just yet, which lead to his capture by the Agents. A while later he finds himself further down the rabbit hole, into the network of humans connected and hardwired to the matrix. Once he is aware of this, he is shaken, and is taken by Morpheus to recover. It is at this point in the movie where the interaction happens, and Neo sees where and when he truly is.

And yet, even has he has opened up to a new reality, in this point in the movie, he still feels tied to the real world, as any sheltered human being would. His “eyes hurt”, as he is opened up to the fact that everything he knew and loved for his entire life has truly been a machine-made lie. He is not only physically drained from always having his “eyes closed”, but having been under such an illusion for so long... he feels mentally unable to cope with such a revelation. His eyes, or mind, has never been “used” before, and has never felt so open to such a terrible time, that Neo feels like it “hurts”... or forces him to throw up in disbelief. Either/or.

Morpheus, on the other hand, has been aware of his world and the matrix for his entire life. He has not only been facing both worlds at a time, but he has also been looking for Neo himself. When he says “You’ve never used them before”, he refers to not only Neo’s physical muscle strength recovering, but the fact that he will get used to this experience, and implies that the “hurting” will leaven. During the time Neo and Morpheus were in the simulation, Morpheus notes that “It wouldn’t be easy” and that it was “only the truth”. The entire story is tied back to the quotes I refer to. The film is about Neo waking up, and facing his fears no matter how painful. The interaction was just the beginning of Neo’s enlightenment.

Later in the movie, Neo is faced with much graver danger, but soon finds that he is truly now knowing of what is the nature of his being- the “One”. He, despite the Oracle denying it, despite his lack of knowledge, experience, and amount of time he has spent outside of his old world, becomes and truly believes that he is the “One”, and it is no longer a battle of the mind nor body. He redeemed himself, and destroys Agent Smith in the last battle, and returns to the old world consecutively saving the lives of Morpheus and Trinity. This all ties back to the original quote- Neo had never truly opened up to possibility, or to fate, because he always believed that he was in control. Now that he has “used his eyes”, he is completely capable, aware, and powerful. In the face of danger, he was confident in.

The meaning of the quotes in the movie is to truly describe what Neo went through in order to wake up to reality. Neo finds that through pain, he has resolved his fears and has gotten used to knowing where and what he truly was- an avatar living in the matrix. He has opened his eyes, and it no longer hurts to see the truth.

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Week 6 - Fight Club

“Fight Club” Directed by David Fincher

Posthumanism Assignment

Nicholas Kim

Critical Practice 1

I believe that Fight Club is a movie that defines the boundaries of freedom- the freedom that we, as consumers, civilians, or free beings decide to act upon our actions, letting ourselves lead our lives instead of concepts we delude ourselves around. Fight Club is a path to  enlightenment- a path that is defined not by leaders, ideals or capitalism, but by the will of ourselves, the people. The feature really explains a very clear statement- that we are not controlled by our possessions, names, or titles… nor are we defined by the people we chose to believe in.

Fight Club starts out by accurately describing the lifestyle of the average Joe playing by the rules. Drowning in the everyday mindless law-abiding citizen-level drivel he lives throughout every day, the narrator, or Jack, found himself in the most ridiculous and life-changing predicament- his entire apartment, along with every single one of his belongings, has either blown to smithereens or is in another country. The setting of the film keeps Jack as someone who has already hit “rock bottom”, or a man who has “lost everything”, now climbing up to a new low, so to speak. He meets Tyler Durden, a conscience that leads Jack into new circumstances.  A major theme that the film is trying to address is enlightenment, or to find oneself. The identity that Jack loses is his furniture, which he tied to his level of happiness, which was not working. Jack had deluded himself into thinking that maybe new furniture, emotional support from empathy groups or the continuation of his job will help him trudge along, but the future seemed bleak. After losing everything, he meets a figurehead that he believes is his new path to a free life, and a new identity. They fight, become wild and ruthless rulebreakers, and become “free”. His need for television drove away and his need for comfort and emotional support shriveled. He started to smoke, stopped attending his job, and always lived in a run-down unsafe and dirty shack for his new days. He considers himself “free”, soon not at all pandering to societal norms with his new choices lead by Tyler’s direction. This is a very good example of how freedom from capitalism and consumerism, are driven completely from the will of the user. Jack, in the film, is “us”, the audience, and we are lead to try a new life for ourselves in the face of madness. We should not be controlled by what we lose or what we buy, but by the directions we take in life.

However, in the midst of the film, when Tyler had been developing project Mayhem, the narrator catches on and feels out of place. The film is now describing the flip side of the coin, when facing the idea of freedom. As Fight Club gained many new members, the “group” Tyler had rounded now all follow him as a leader of ideals, concepts and beliefs. They are supposed to be free, but only free behind Tyler Durden. Instead of dealing with the lives of the group’s everyday issues, they decide to only cause mayhem and chaos- an ideal and concept that they are lead to believe is “freedom”. The narrator is the only one conscious of how ridiculous the group’s acts of terror are, because he is the only one who not only wants freedom, but also empathy and complete control of his life. As he loses his friend, Robert Paulson, in a violent accident, or when he sees buildings lit on fire, a man with a gun to his head, or explosives, he decides that it is enough for him, that this was all just a delusion of happiness, and attempts to stop Tyler. He attempts to stop the voice in his head from controlling his life and the people around him.

“Think of everything we’ve accomplished”.

“No, I don’t want this.”

“How far have you come because of me.”

“But this is too much.”

Tyler is lead to be a maniac- the chaotic “free” side of Jack. The film shows that in the end, Jack, or Tyler, was never free at all- he was just lead by another mindless idealism. The ending of the film captures the idea of a balance in freedom as a whole- Jack finally destroys the persona created by him and ends Project Mayhem. The entire point of the film was to explain the philosophy of a free man- that we are not to lead ourselves into a mindless fantasy, destroying what we truly believe in.

It is the balance that we find true freedom from within. Fight club was a front to lead Jack astray from his distractions, but what a front it was. Fight club is a representation of the divide between freedom and madness. A tie between possession, obsession and name, and the chaotic will to live freely itself.

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Week 5 - Feminism

Various Sources

Feminism

Nicholas Kim

Critical Practice 1

As we progress and change through our society in time, so does our everyday ideologies, cultures, and preconceptions of life. Feminism is prime example of a more modern take on the superior versus the inferior, and an ideology that challenges our way of thinking. Modern feminism is not only pushing for the idea of more intelligent, more confident and more able-bodied females represented in modern media and society, but it is also reinventing an entire concept that has lead our species for thousands of years- masculine superiority.

How it affects the media we perceive today:

Some examples of “modern feminism” applied to media that we experience everyday are in video games. With the release of a game named “Lawbreakers”, it is now becoming the norm to include, even in fast-paced and violent multiplayer video games, the aspect of stronger and more able-bodied females. During the game’s development, Boss Key Productions lead their design choices by adhering to modern standards of gender equality. In their commercial released for the game’s launch, the short-form video included female characters who fought alongside the men and robotic characters in what seems to be a military scrimmage. The commercial includes two women, of different ethnicities, in similar armor to the men, holding heavy weapons, and dressed in shorter and different hair styles with varying hair colors, defying many preconceptions of the feminine compared to the masculine. There are shots of the woman and man working together to bring down a common enemy, or fighting for themselves. The women are not set to support the men but are set to fight each other. This video is postmodern in the fact that it is okay to set a game’s situation where both men and women fight to the death in battle, rather than one gender having to protect the other. Masculinity in name does not have a role to play here.

Another example of “modern feminism” applied to media that we perceive is in feature films. The Last Jedi is very postmodern and feminist-friendly film. It’s the 8th installation to a well-known sci-fi film series, Star Wars, released on December 15th, 2017. Unlike the previous films, this film is very adherent to the new roles of females conceived in the postmodern world. It includes a protagonist that is female and plays a role as a strong and courageous hero. A clip that describes this is when Rey, the hero, defeats Luke Skywalker, a trained and experienced male adult, on his isolated island in a lightsaber duel. Through the script, she was talking down to Luke and demoralizing him because she thought better of him. There are shots of Rey standing above Luke, akin to a superior. After beating Luke, Rey decides to leave him for dead in order to defend against the ‘First Order’ herself. This scene is a prime example of feminism and postmodernism, where a woman is patronizing and scrutinizing a man for doing wrong instead of the other way around. The male is beaten by the woman, and his masculinity is questioned or threatened, thus challenging the concept of masculinity altogether.

Lastly, a final and major example of “modern feminism” applied to everyday media is in another video game, namely Horizon Zero Dawn. In this game, the entire story is tied to a single heroic female protagonist hunting and gathering for survival. The gameplay revolves around a specific female character that does not have the option to change the gender of the protagonist to male. Not only does the gameplay lead a very specific and subversive major character archetype, but the story is entirely lead by her as well. The woman is alone and has been cast out from her native clan, but she continues to train herself into becoming strong and highly skilled against mechanical menaces. This entire game is solely revolving around a new ideology- that women alone may hunt and destroy enormous robotic dinosaurs and live on their own, without having to support their male counterpart, or their male “superiors”.

As culture pushes forward, so does the opening of our everyday preconceptions of gender, masculinity, and femininity.

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Week 4 - Remix Culture

“Alexa Loses Her Voice” Super Bowl Commercial by Amazon

Remix Culture Assignment

Nicholas Kim

Critical Practice 1

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J6-8DQALGt4]

Amazon has created a commercial for the Superbowl of 2018 and it is mainly about their product, Amazon Alexa, an “intelligent” automated speech service assistant that responds to voice activated commands regarding music, news, and everyday online general usage. The commercial itself is lead by their voice automaton “losing” their voice and replaced by several temporary secondaries. These secondaries turn out to be celebrities, singers and movie actors that describe their own role in helping out common folk with their everyday lives. Soon, the commercial ends with a conclusion that these secondaries are not fit for the job, but was interesting to see the voice automaton’s “job” from a familiar perspective. This commercial is a prime example of remix culture and does well to translate it’s “remix elements” through the process of “Copy, Transform, Combine”.

The very first “remix” element found in the commercial was after Alexa was replaced with several different secondaries. The first secondary was Gordon Ramsay, a very well-known British professional chef and TV celebrity. He is most known culturally for having a very violent, loud and aggressive attitude against his chef students working in his restaurant, which is known in the TV show “Hell’s Kitchen.” We see the Amazon commercial copying and transforming his famous attitude remixed in so that Alexa is voiced by Ramsay, which in turn, ends up so that Alexa insults the user asking for a generic and easy recipe for basic food.  

More remixes of celebrity attitudes that were copied, edited and transformed into the Amazon commercial include Cardi B, a wild and rowdy rapper and media personality, who decides to mess with the people who have her as a secondary voice operator. She is described as blissfully ignorant, uncaring for the needs of her clients and goes off on her own music that she decides to sing and blast only for herself. As for questions regarding science and research, she just doesn’t have any idea nor any need to know. 

A third secondary voice operator includes Rebel Wilson, an Australian actor with experience in television and feature films. She is most known for driving an attitude for being confident,  humorous and uppity, especially described in her role as “Fat Amy” in the movie “Pitch Perfect”, 2002. Amazon decides to copy her history as an daunting and snarky young woman who “sets the mood” for her client that she is voice operating for. This leads to Wilson setting up the mood in too much of a sexual fashion, leading a very obvious and suggestive innuendo that makes the user and his friends, during a party, uncomfortable.

Lastly, the fourth secondary included a cameo with Anthony Hopkins, and already this actor is internationally known as the main antagonist of The Silence of the Lambs, and is involved in major television series and horror movies, such as Westworld or Hannibal. He’s tied with a history of menacing, scary and psychologically disturbing attributes in his film roles that Amazon used in their commercial. He is set to be asked to call the user’s boyfriend but he refuses, as he says that the man is “a little tied up”. This striked the user as ominous and creepy, alluding to Hopkin’s acting history as a violent cannibalistic psychopath.

This is remix culture. Even the very act of purposely remixing previously popular actors, singers or celebrities into a commercial itself, so outwardly so to drive the fun narrative of popular culture, is in and of itself a “remix element”. Amazon is stating to the audience that we, the audience, know the people in the commercial, know the culture and history surrounding these celebrities and actors, and know to connect them to the events in the commercial that lead by each of their characteristics. Amazon is remixing the essence of a commercial, and is combining elements from many other different commercials from history that have used celebrities in their commercials. This is also a postmodern piece of art- to risk assuming that the audience is completely aware of what is going on and connecting with the clues and fun tidbits they leave, instead of the traditional notion to assume that the audience does not know anything about the products or references that don’t describe the product. It is remixing an era of marketing.

Amazon reuses popular elements of what we consider collectively funny, interesting or menacing, copying the actors’ previous experiences and characteristics that drove their popularity through the roof, transforms their experiences into a collage of funny shorts that are easy to understand, and combines all of them into a spectacular superbowl commercial. This Amazon commercial is purely and absolutely remixed and they know it, even going as far to push it on purpose.

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Week 3 - Video Analysis

“Endless Fantasy” by Anamanaguchi

Close Analysis (Postmodernism)

Nicholas Kim

Critical Practice 1

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6fdr-Fiv92c]

Context

“Endless Fantasy” is not only a music video produced and directed by Anamanaguchi, but is also the name of this band’s music album produced in 2013. Anamanaguchi is a chiptune/indie rock band popularized through the jumpy, jittery and exciting nature of their music. They are also well known for being immersed in “popular culture” which includes references to japanese animation and other various teen fads. The nature of their music, relevance to society and the behaviour of their general attitudes through their held events such as raves or tours, reflect upon the distinctions of this video. An example would be that their music does not have any lyrics, as well as this video. This was a plug for their newest released album at the time.

Analysis

Summarized, the video describes a girl surrounded in a sea of chrome, neon colors and pop magazines, going out for a date with her friends after doing something “wacky” and out of the norm.

The video starts off with a camera pan to a room filled to the brim with a seemingly endless amount of posters, flyers, pictures, snapshots, books, magazines, comics and various types of merchandise, all referencing video games and japanese subculture. The room is lit and littered with neon colors right off the bat, and sparkles in a chaotic and colorful mess. A shot closes in on a girl who awakes in the room and looks around.

Every piece of technology or furniture the girl touches is engulfed in a sense of chaotic extravagance, like her flashing neon-lit alarm clock, her blue lit shower, or her futuristic and flashy weather/calendar checker. Almost every shot here is rolling over the hundreds of references to Japanese media or video games.

The video goes on to have the girl, wearing multicolored stockings and a pink backpack riding her electric bicycle into the city, where there are quick one-shot frames of Japanese animation. The video cuts quickly and moves back and forth to create a sense of moving, and “in the moment”. There are also shots that are just outright color-keyed into neons as well.

She buys a box of pizza, after falling in love with shots of a man hand-tossing dough through the air. After driving to a nondescript building, she runs up to the top of the building and decides to do something different. After several glances at an airplane, she decided to fly a piece of pizza into the sky. As the pizza rose above, there are many shots of the girl and her friends partying in a brightly neon-colored area. What follows is a collage of shaky and colorful segments of the pizza falling from space.

The video, and Anamanaguchi, loves popularizing what is normal. A piece of pizza does not represent greasy fast food, rather, it represents happiness and almost pure ecstasy, as most would agree. By “extravagating” the norm,  the video is “postmodernizing” it. Anamanaguchi sets a standard that the norm is not what we think it may be. Something popular, like pizza, may be in space (also popular). From the positive feedback of this video, we are not attacking Anamanaguchi for wasting time and resources on sending food glued to a piece of plastic high into the atmosphere. We are accepting that this is an ideal for how we can perceive the actions of others in terms of “wacky” and “popular”, and that there is humor to save face in the fact that pizza… has rose into space. Their main theme of chaotic natures and wild freedom drives the postmodern idea into the audience- that we are free to be and do as we please, beyond tradition and the “old reality” (not including malevolence or harm). This is the reason why japanese animation is so heavily referenced in the video- japanese animation is known to take on many ideas that are already out of the norm, and that the popularity surrounding these shows about niche concepts represent the freedom that we have as individuals to delve into the abnormal, leading it to be a new normal.

They are portraying this nonsensical but popular culture as art. The theme of youth is also pushed onto the audience, knowing that these young people who dominate the world can act silly or daring... that the world is not meant to live in grey shadows and daily trite.

Analyzing this film, I came to an idea- if we are defined by, in postmodern terms, the simulacrum of imagery and hyperreality, who are we to not include ourselves in this fully recorded entire cycle of a slice of New York pizza flying into the stratosphere and above? It is with images, video and any visuals noted that we are viewing ourselves as a representation in and thereof; we have flown above the Earth, into space. The direction of levelling this slice of pizza high above into space was entirely ours. As the audience, Anamanaguchi, or their film crew, we all as humans have come to terms with this life as we do new things- and that is to be wild.

[nkim25accd]

Week 2 - Video Analysis

“Pencil Face” by SCADShorts

Close Analysis

Nicholas Kim

Critical Practice 1

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4MjTb5A68VA]

“Pencil Face” is a shortfilm created by SCADShorts and was uploaded to Youtube in 2008. During my first viewing, the video is summarized by a curious girl who wanders into oblivion by playing with and abusing powers unknown to her. There was no text or vocals in this short, and was entirely composed of SFX, visuals and music. Each camera shot cuts to one another, quickly, without any transitions.

The short starts off with a shot of a girl standing in a sunny dry field with nothing but a rough piece of wood held. She seems to be wandering, curious, and alone. There are shots of her standing, observing and climbing on nondescript pieces of the landscape. Curiosity seems to be a big characteristic of this girl, as she also keeps observing her surroundings, and whatever she is holding.

The girl, with a very stark and curious expression, was wearing a black and white flannel shirt and was facing, soon in the video, an enormous and ominous creature that looks like a yellow Ticonderoga Pencil. There is a grotesque looking smirked face plastered near the top of the pencil, and the pencil is balancing itself off the ground.

Again to her curiosity, she picks up the pencil that has manifested in front of her and decides to draw something in the air. Without any malicious intent, the pencil is held and lines start to appear. A cake forms from the shape of the lines the girl draws and the girl decides to eat it without hesitation. As curious as she is, the girl doesn’t wait to draw something else, and a “thought” appears as a kite image that shows on the screen. She draws the kite and is greeted with the same power to create any object. As she runs off with the kite, she is again quickly bored of the kite as it clings to a tree. She then “thinks” of a lollipop, an image of which again showed on the screen. Drawing crude lines that looked like a swirl, similar to a swirly lollipop, a lollipop did not appear. Instead, an even more ominous shape of a black circular/cone-like object manifested in front of the girl. Finally, to sate her curiosity once more, she looks toward what looks like a black portal and as she peers inside, the camera is shot quickly towards the inside of the portal and the girl is sucked inside, never to be seen again.

My second blind viewing consisted of very ominous and strange chimes, with lots of ambient noise layered in the background. Each time an object manifested, a low pitched drum noise was heard. Near the end of the video, the main chimes started to disappear and very eerie chorus of screeches played as the girl started thinking about the lollipop. As the portal manifested, loud drums started playing ever so often. The video ends with a lessening of ambient music and quieter screeches.

What I believe the artist(s) are intending with this video is that the curiosity, or in any case, idealism, gets the better of ourselves if we do not tread carefully. Mindlessly paving a road towards a greater good or profit may lead to disastrous consequences. The girl is the audience; we are left with always wondering what else is there to do with such a power? With great power comes great responsibility, and the video ends with the girl abusing the power of her newfound friend to lead into an unknown conclusion for herself. The short may also examine the concept of “waste not, want not”, as the girl curiously drew herself whatever she desired without needing any of it, and then ends up losing everything. This short may touch tangents with the theme of “curiosity killed the cat”, where she played and toyed with powers unknown to her, and peered inside a world she was not a part of, leading to what may be her death.

Some may think of the short as “materialism” versus modern youth, where the girl represents the spoiled wishes and thoughts of the young people, the pencil represents continuity, and the black hole represents the stagnation of society. Or maybe the girl and her trite and naive wishes for candy and cake represents innocence, and that the black hole is a “transportation” to reality, maturity and a coming of age. I believe that curiosity is the biggest characteristic noted in this short, and that the biggest idea, albeit pretty direct, is that it is harmful to not tread carefully and warily through easy efforts to a convenient end.

[nkim25accd]

Week 1 - Article Response

“You Say You Want a Devolution?“ by Kurt Andersen

Article Response

Nicholas Kim

Critical Practice 1

Kurt describes the modern age of culture and style to be stagnating. Americans decide not to push forward into their times or innovating what would be a new and flashy version of themselves at every waking minute, and instead lock themselves into the past only thinking of what was hip, stylish, and successful, bringing them into the limelight and ultimately devaluing what was so important at a time before them. Kurt says that this is all due to how small and big business works, and that the freedom or availability of information is leading us into a slow and gruesome end of new ideas and culture. I believe, to an extent, that Kurt is correct, because as the awareness of the people rise in terms of knowing what is “hot” or “stylish” and so on, so does the fear that reigns in the people- and fear is nothing but crippling to the creative individual.

What is the fear that remains in ourselves as time passes? Kurt argues in the article that we are duly afraid of the present, because of how “new” of a world we live in, and how the advancement of technology presses our interest into cultures past to comfort us. I disagree. We are not afraid of technology or the spread of information and if we were, such technology would not reach us. I believe the opposite- we are too familiar with technology.

We are in a era where the convenience of idea and concept are lead by what is most common and familiar, reaching many people faster than the unique or niche. The dilution of style and culture by popular media is why we are stagnating. The exploration of idea is now dictated by what is acceptable in a certain time or place, and that is dictated by what the masses choose to adhere to. And what is an example of what the masses have adhered to since the 1960’s? The past. The fear that resides in leaving the norm is difficult, because the past was not only successful popularity-wise, but also in terms of business. Appreciation for the past not only earns brownie points and collective head-nods around familiar fans, but also will reach other, newer fans to a “new” old because others recognize such cultures/styles. The past is familiar, popular, and therefore, always in demand. The new always leaves unrecognized in comparison.

There are many things that may have caused the degradation of style, such as having a medium to dwell over, like war or political corruption, but the most of what has caused this decline is fear. There is fear in creating new venues, fear in becoming a new normal, and fear of change. Because we, at this time, know that there is peace, love, and an everlasting time for creativity, but we do nothing but turn our heads in retrospect at what we were like years back, because its not only comforting, less risky, and popular, but also a fad to even reach into history, as stated by Kurt.

It is too fearful to change, especially in the light of awareness, and that is why we are stagnating in culture as Americans.