While at the Whitney I saw a number of experimental films and art, I enjoyed most of them but one that stood out as just plain bad was “Real Violence.” First of all, I felt that the “warning” they give to you before you put on the googles was not preparing someone for what they are about to watch. They said that the video contained violence and blood, okay…I’ve seen a lot of violent films with murder and guts and blood so I thought I wouldn’t mind. However they did not say that this video would entail being up close and personal to a person having the shit kicked out of them and their face curb stomped and skull cracking. It was extremely disturbing, I looked all around the city that it took place in and tried not to watch the figure getting brutally beat. The only thing that made it slightly bearable to watch was the fact that after looking at the two men for a little while I could tell that it was CGI and didn’t look that real, that made this experience slightly better, but my thoughts about this piece were just WHY. Why use the awesome technology of Virtual Reality just to show one thing happening on the side of a road? I couldn’t understand this artist angle. I almost would  have preferred that if they were going to show something this violent I would rather it have been a political piece. Maybe a cop shooting a black man, since this has been too common in the time we are in today. I felt this random man beating another man was just pointless and lacked substance, if it was something that is going on today and relatable would have found the piece much more moving and powerful, with a stronger voice and message. I was defiantly not a fan of this VR piece and I really think the people who were working at it should have given a better warning at the start. When they said voice I figured a war or a shooting not a mercilessness beating.

During the class trip to the 2017 Biennial at the Whitney Museum, I saw many fascinating works of art and film. One of the films that stood out to me the most was Tala Madani’s Sex Ed By God. I found this short piece really interesting. Tala Madani is an Iranian artist, who had multiple pieces of art at the Whitney Biennial, mostly focusing on genitalia. Sex Ed By God is a 2 minute animation which features a young looking female who is being projected on a screen while a pair of lips “God” ramble about sex, while two other men in the room look on, one older one seems to be a child. The pair of floating lips speaks in a heavy breathed voice and seems to be speaking about advice of stimulating a woman rather than typical sex ed classes.The men are staring at this woman on a screen, the words coming out of the lips are at times gibberish and not entirely clear

The part I like the best is how these two men and God are looking and talking about this female who is being projected on the screen, but then she reaches out of the screen and smooches the three of them in her hand and put them inside of her vagina. To me it is the moment when the woman takes control and power over the men who have been watching her this whole time. She then erases the screen she is on, taking herself off the screen and no longer an object to watch.

 

Since the Haeler Echo Earthly Impressions screening was at full capacity I chose to see O Peixe by Jonathas de Andrade at the New Museum. The film was being screened in the backroom on the first floor in a room with 6 seats and a tinted glass wall on one side. I really liked that they had four speakers set up because the sound was really amazing, just the sound of the ambient waters and nature was super calming and Zen- feeling. I felt the film worked really well without any dialogue, and the sounds of the water and the fish made the piece even better. I really connected to this film, as I grew up in a beach town on Long Island and have been fishing my whole life. I found it so interesting the way these men soothed these fish to their deaths, and how the fish kind of just slowly died. Its such a different culture than what I was used to seeing, people tossing fish over the side of the boat and letting them flop and bleed all over the floor until they finally die. It was strange to see someone who was killing a creature for most likely to sell or to eat treating them with almost respect to take the time to sit there and wait for the fish to die. Each man had a slightly different fishing technique, like all fishermen do. Whether it was using a net, a sphere, or spool. They all also has their slightly different techniques while waiting for the fish to die. The man with the chain flipped the fish over and over again and one of the men even kissed the fish. I also really enjoyed when the focus was on the men’s body movements while fishing, it was very visually pleasing to see the muscle in the body being worked and used and only being able to see the mid section on the body left the eye drawn to nothing else. It was also nice when they focused on each fishermen’s eyes which made the experience more intimate.