The Colonies is an exhibition at MoMa by Neil Beloufa, a French artist. He combines sculpture and moving image media to create fascinating viewing spaces. The Colonies is an installation made by hand by Beloufa from inexpensive materials. You’ll see seating arrangement across from a closed CCTV system with monitors and cameras.

You’ll see the installation rotate- its built with pieces of transparent materials with monitors projecting media works. Each monitor projects a different visual scene, and the scenes are nature based with bird sounds. This installation is unique and unlike a film or video, it comes to life as layers of media work projected on actual objects that are most likely recycled.

Not only is this a great environmental purpose, but it’s taken experimental video art to a 3D level.

I watched Schwarze Sunde (Black Sin) by Jean-Marie Straub at MOMA. This film was made in 1988 on 35mm film and in German. It is based on a book called “The Death of Empedocles”, by Friedrich Hölderlin.

In this film, the plot is pretty much an older man, Empedocles, debating a younger boy, Pausanias, his disciple, “about the divine powers of love and strife that govern all matter, whether the strange and mystical elements of air, fire, water, and earth, or the mercurial and tragic behavior of gods and humans, mad in their compulsion to forsake nature and each other.” (MoMa) The film starts with a still shot of a statue, then the older man lays without moving on the mountain, all with dialogue in the back. The boy joins in after couple of minutes and they speak. There are only a couple seconds of shots where both are in the same frame. The pan shots of the mountain and the Sicilian landscape captured a great sense of location.

Another character is introduced. I wasn’t sure of his purpose or who he is. He dressed in tribal prints and spoke across from Empedocles and the camera switches back and forth on the two while they exchange dialogue.

The film ends with a woman now sitting on the mountain while an up and down orchestra soundtrack plays in the background. She speaks.

I didn’t understand the film due to the German dialogue, but the visuals were very interesting. However, the characters only exchanged dialogues in this film and there were little to no actions. The wardrobe made me believe it is back in time in ancient European history.

 

I’ve watched the film Coffy over the weekend at Anthology Film Archives. It is a 35mm film written and directed in 1973 by Jack Hill and starring Pam Grier as the female protagonist. The genre of this film is Blaxploitation which is an ethnic subgenre of film in the 70s targeted for an urban black audience. Pam Grier played Coffy who was a nurse seeking revenge on drug dealers who got her young sister addicted. In the beginning of the scene, she lured a drug dealer using her sexuality to his house and killed him. After returning to the operation room at the hospital as a nurse, she had to leave the job because her hands were shaky. What also triggered her to go on a hunt and kill drug dealers was the scene when two men broke into her police officer friend Carter’s house while he and Coffy were catching up.

She then targeted King George who was a pimp at a prostitution business and wanted to work as a prostitute. She was at a party with other prostitute women who were jealous that she got the attention of George and spilled food on her purposely. Coffy went back and stuck sharp pins in her hair and when she went back, she got her revenge on the women and started fighting all of them alone. One of the prostitutes actually pulled Coffy’s hair and her hands bled everywhere.

The leader of a mob, Vitroni wanted Coffy to stay with him for a night. He was a racist white man who spit on her and called her names. She came prepared with a hidden gun in her teddy bear but was knocked away by Vitroni’s associates. Coffy told them King George sent her to kill Vitroni. The mob kidnapped Coffy and locked her in a room then killed King George by dragging him on a rope while driving their car on the streets.

Coffy again used her charm, sexuality and vigilance and escaped from the kidnap. She killed Vitroni and his associates then her boyfriend Brunswick, who she saw at Vitroni’s mob meeting and found out he was a part of it. She went to Brunswick’s place and when he begged for a second chance, a woman yelled upstairs for him to come back to bed. She fired her gun at him.

This film had couple of interesting experimental shots although not completely an experimental film. Some shots were filmed through a fish tank with an unusual, different perspective.

-Siyu Liu