Following on from media landscapes, this week we managed to be apart of a colloquium with the guest lecturer Benedict Seymour to show us a viewing of his film ‘Dead the Ends’ which was essentially drew upon the ideas of late capitalism and this idea of us reproducing media with his essay film. It reminded of Nicholas Mirzoeff’s concept of visuality and the way the London riots and contemporary space is highlighted by the use and example of sourced footage. “The right to look. The invention of the other.” (Mirzoeff, 2011) In my opinion the essay film was a very dense piece and had a large amount of information to digest however I feel I grasped the general concept of the mediation that was conveyed and how the problems discussed weren’t essentially tackled directly. They were explained in a very poetic banal narration with this idea of the looping gif being used continuously throughout.
Afterwards it did give me somewhat of another scope to think about what type of project I wanted to exhibit and it has also gave me the basis to start thinking critically of how I want to go about my idea. In this weeks session we had the chance to write down our ideas and themes to perhaps connect with one another. We used a digital mind map (attached below) to try and see the implications of how viable it actually is.
My initial idea at the moment (although it is subject to change) is to create an interactive piece in which pressure pads are used to show a glitch aesthetic of British politicians called, ‘The Entheogenic Brexit’. The way it would work is essentially there would be thin sheets of fabric with a projection of an image of a British politician/public figure as it is shown and not modified however, when the participant pushes down on the pressure pad the original image is then changed to the modified glitch aesthetic and also to represent them as a divine. With the entheogenic effect this idea of a higher I thought was interesting to touch upon as at the moment we are facing a hard Brexit, and it would be interesting to see the responses from audiences on the difference. My objective is to try and garner a reaction of potential confusion and maybe see if they can also perhaps intemperate any other meaning behind the piece