It's Like 60 Minutes on Acid

I'm taking a video class to improve my knowledge of higher-end cameras. Having gone to a liberal arts school for my undergraduate degree, I essentially had to teach myself how to use the few cameras we had, and since then I've only been teaching on consumer equipment.

Anyway, I have been working on a project for this class. The assignment was to do a basic Charlie Rose style interview using only one camera. Since I've probably taught that same assignment about 20 times to my middle school students, I asked the professor if I could do something more challenging (and essentially more self-serving).

Considering the nature of my work deals with narcissism and scopophilia, I asked if I could do a self-interview.

After committing to this project, someone reminded me of this great self-interview that David Byrne did. I saw it years ago, but had forgotten about it. Since being reintroduced to it, I've probably watched it about 25 times. It's incredibly quotable.




As it turns out, I've taken on more than just a technical challenge, I've forced myself to take a risk in terms of illustrating my own identity construction.

Those who know me have seen some of my past work, where I've inserted myself into my videos. For example:





However, when I first started putting myself into my work, I vowed that I would never speak in any of my films. I know it was probably because I couldn't deal with the idea of watching my face move while hearing my voice at the same time. We all get disgusted by the sound of our own voice when we're not used to hearing it without our bodily vibrations attached. It's even more horrifying to watch your face move along with it. Does my mouth really look like that?

Anyway, I figured if I'm ever going to execute my secret backup career plan of being a television comedienne, I would have to start getting used to watching my big dumb mug on screen. I churned out a few versions of script in a couple hours.

I kept pushing off and pushing off filming this. It's just very hard to put yourself into a character that is essentially a caricature of yourself. Of course, once I was ready to shoot, I completely lost my voice, so I had to postpone it an extra day. By the time I started shooting, it had come down very close to the line and I couldn't really do any practice takes.

So now, I have to edit this piece. That means I have to look at myself for hours and hours and hours, hearing my still-hoarse voice squawk these awkward lines over and over again. Then, THEN, I have to show this video to my class. It's so hard to look at your face with a group of people who are also looking at your face. It was difficult with the video i posted above, especially the last 10 seconds of the video. It was like sitting in a room full of people watching you masturbate on camera. I usually close my eyes when I show it to anyone.

I can't imagine how I'm going to endure sitting in a room full of people watching me interview myself about my creative work, which is all about narcissism and how we project ourselves into the world. Will they get it? Will I hate it? Will they be totally freaked out? I guess we'll find out.

If I am satisfied with it, you will all see it in a couple days, if I hate it, I'm going to have to rewrite and reshoot it at a later date, because I still think it's something I need to do.

In the next few days I will also be posting more in-depth and academic musings about narcissism, scopophila and the artistic process.

Finally! The Look I've Always Wanted!

I recently had a project for my design class where I had to develop a visual campaign for a social action cause that would appear in a public place. Our topics of choice included Energy and Environment, Hunger and Plenty, and Youth and Opportunity. Of course everyone interpreted these concepts very loosely, and there was some really good work (and some so-so work) presented.

Anyway, having been a teacher for 3 years I decided to go with familiar territory, but to promote ideas I was never allowed to touch working in the public school system. I developed a media literacy campaign targeting teenage girls, challenging them to question representations of the female body in the media. I had a few initial designs that all dealt with issues like plastic surgery, eating disorders and unrealistic and unattainable body types. But none of these original designs really isolated media representations as a specific trigger for poor body image.

I settled with a design where my process itself was inspired by a particular medium that I find needs careful speculation when it comes to studying representations of the female body. While there are plenty of media to be held under fire for creating body image issues, the women's magazine must be carefully deconstructed because unrealistic interpretations of the female body are cloaked in a guise of female empowerment. In such periodicals, power is more often than not equated with beauty, sex and fashion.

During my research, I bought a couple teen magazines to see the sorts of images that were featured, so i could get a sense of what techniques advertisers use to lure the teenage eye. I found a lot of fun and playful images, but what I also found were a lot of cosmetics. When I went back through one of the magazines and counted, there were approximately sixty different products advertised or “suggested” within the context of beauty articles. Aside from an article about whether or not you could “catch” an eating disorder from a friend and a feature about a girl who overcame a tragic accident, I couldn’t find many mentions of how to be a confident woman in ways that don’t involve the way one looks. Seeing this onslaught of beauty products inspired my “Look I’ve Always Wanted” piece.

So the following is my final submission for my class. The photoshopping took countless hours, but in the end, I'm very happy with my project, and like to imagine it hanging in a bus stop. What do you think?