Communication Developmental Research/Reflection Week 2 Day 2 Music Videos (and "Fire Walk with Me"

I wasn’t thinking of emulating anything when I made my initial six drawings. I was listening to brain wave music to help me concentrate (whether or not this particular genre’s helpfulness is backed by science it makes for an effective placebo), and although those subtle pulsations might have influenced the nature of my work, there wasn’t a specific narrative or made I was attempting to capture. I drew a pair of legs in old-fashioned hosiery and high heels. OK, it had to be private. A window. A window shut. A woman by the wall. A crooked woman on the wall. The door may be open but it is not a recognizable exit. Why is there a need for one? It was slow motion stream of consciousness and I ended up liking it. I’d recently been re-obsessed with “Different Class” by Pulp and had rewatched David Lynch’s “Fire Walk with Me,” and I can see pieces of them poking through.

I wished to interrogate these unconscious elements of inspiration to make my “final” work more deliberate. I watched some Pulp videos and scrubbed through “Fire Walk with Me” (someone uploaded the entire thing to Youtube) to see what kind of thing compelled me in the first place. The common thread seemed to be a story telling through symbol. Even though the images moved, a story could be told through individual tableaux. Although perhaps nonlinear, nonliteral, or nonsensical, a story emerged nonetheless. I was most drawn to the simpler compositions, ones that conveyed richness, mood, and atmosphere with succinct yet striking symbols that interrupted the cliché of necessary archetype with apt specificity. I expanded into other videos I’d remembered liking liking that had a similar tone. Music videos lend themselves exaggerated symbols and atmosphere; one has to be immersed and affected in very little time. (And David Lynch does this in his movies anyway.)

The images I liked best were the ones where the familiar is made alien. Brett Anderson kisses a pig-man in his lap. Scott Walker sings poetry that seems to come from the mouth of a firearm amidst his black-and-white visions made manifest. The inside of Candida Doyle’s ring sloshes with nauseating green stuff as she plays the opening notes of “This is Hardcore” (I’m bored of “Different Class” at the moment) and makes me feel seasick before Jarvis Cocker has even started singing. A glowing white horse stands serenely in the center of Laura Palmer's living room. Simple things—no doubt, my scenes are simpler! It’s the tone I’m after. I’m not sure I’m succeeding so far. My work seems so underwhelming in comparison. But it’s silly to compare them qualitatively right now. I’ll try to continue enriching myself instead in the meantime.

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Communication Developmental Research/Reflection Week 2 Day 2

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