Tuesday, October 26, 2010

Dada collage and Un Chien Andalou

Ok, first of all - to make up my Dada collage post.  I've been studying this for the past couple of weeks, actually, for another class, and don't have a whole lot to say about it.  Dada is one of those movements....I love it but I don't have a whole lot to say in any way because I don't really relate.  At any rate, I thoroughly appreciate Dada collage - and other Dada art - especially for the way it is like modern day graphic design or digital art but with the blood and sweat and tears of an artist's hand in a supremely tangible way.  This is absolutely not to say that graphic designers and digital artists don't pour all of those physical tears etc into their work, but you can't see ripples from a teardrop puckering the paper.  Getting a bit metaphorical but what I mean is that these Dada artists - provided, they didn't have the means to accomplish this sort of work digitally, and probably would have done so if they could have - created something physical and one of a kind that cannot be reproduced in a manner that is much like modern graphic designers.  I guess I really mean graphic design more than digital art.  Anyway.  Without technology, these artists were able to create these collages that so mirror modern graphic design with entirely tangible elements.  And that's essentially what this work makes me think of.  I'm so tired of studying art history.  I'm also a little bit afraid of technology; I think all of these advances are fantastic, but I don't trust technology to hang around all the time.  I feel like something will happen that will make the internet die and cell phones die and maybe even electricity die and we will have nothing but I will be surrounded by my books.  I will never throw out my books.  This has little to do with Dada collage. My mind doesn't like to stick to one thing.
Un Chien Andalou.  I didn't realize Dali had a part of this.  Which I like, because he was one of those nutjobs, whether it was merely an act or not, but I dislike the way I push away popular music or something; because it is so "cool" to the masses, I am inclined to shun it.  Again, tangent.  Either way, pretty cool.  I totally spent the whole class period trying to figure out what the f was going on, but apparently I'm not an idiot and there wasn't supposed to be anything going on.  In that case, I feel much less confused, and I very much appreciate the visuals the movie presented.  I almost think it really worked for this film to have been filmed so long ago with such low resolution and with no color.  It added to that mysterious sort of goings-on.  I'm still pretty much lost as to what is going on in the film, but it doesn't really seem to matter, since there is so much emotion happening, despite the complete lack of a plot.  The film makes you feel, regardless of whether or not you understand.  It is so surrealist for so many reasons that seem so obvious.  But in a nutshell, to be cliche:  I mean a man pulls two pianos full of donkeys and rats and dragging men.  When does that ever happen in any sensible situation or realistic scenario or even bizzaro Hollywood movie?  That isn't real; couldn't happen; doesn't happen; won't happen.  I don't know if it was just me, but it seemed like there were pretty much just two actors playing all of the same characters...again, beyond real life.  And on, and on.

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