Immediate Response
All I can think, “What did I just watch?” I watched the video twice trying to understand what was possibly happening. The music was off-putting, the characters were extremely bizarre, and I still do not understand the relevance of the video in regards to myself and this class. I was left with many questions and no answers, including, who are all of these characters, where are they, what is the point of this video, and many more that I cannot even express/comprehend at this point in time.
Objective Description
The video took place in a rather plain building that contained five floors and pillars connecting the levels. The narrative begins with skimpily dressed women in a bath tub. Then, more skimpily dressed women appear who appear to be line dancers, like the Rockettes. A Scottish looking man with a bloody rag in his mouth, a pink kilt, and pink hair appears. He encounters the dancing women and then proceeds to scale the walls of the building, finding a new group of people on each floor. The second floor contains members of a screaming punk band, the next, a women dressed in white who becomes a cheetah and proceeds to fight the Scottish man, the fourth piles of pillars/sculptures that the Scottish man must arrange, and fourth a man throwing a molten substance against a wall. The Scottish man appears to have to complete a challenge on each floor.
Technical Decisions
My best guess in terms of the technical decisions that went in to this film were to choose the most abstract and bizarre music, filming angles, characters, plot etc. and throw them all together into one “work of art”. The video appears to take place in the Guggenheim Museum which is an interesting juxtaposition in comparison to the other content of the film. While the circular structure of the Guggenheim is interesting, the location appears bland and clearly stands out against the bizarre characters and music. It is my guess that there are many allusions and references within the work, perhaps to the Bible (the cross on the second floor), however the metaphors and references were lost on me.
The Work in the World
Even after watching the video twice, I am unsure of connections between the work and the world. One possibility is that each level represents a different challenge that we face in our lives. These challenges could be chaos, represented by the punk rock band, seduction, represented by the women dressed in white and the dancing girls, and time, represented by the liquid/molten material that is moving down the ramp as it is thrown by the man on the top floor. The juxtaposition between the chaos in the video and the Guggenheim may also suggest an attempt by individuals in today’s society to mask the chaos within their lives through a beautiful and sophisticated exterior shell.
The Story it Tells
I believe that the video was meant to represent a game that the Scottish man is playing where he must complete a task, or escape, from the individuals on each floor. The game is being timed as represented by the liquid running down the ramp. Each level of the game represents a challenge that we face in our lives. There are points throughout the game where the man becomes stuck or returns to another level, therefore touching on the ups and downs that individuals face in their lives and the way that they are able to fight through those challenges.