Here are my answers to the media diet questions you put in the PowerPoint. I thought that it was a very interesting exercise as well and I can see how Soderbergh uses it as a guide to the productions he works on. The main thing I am watching is YouTube videos that fall under the category of humor, self-improvement, motivational, and creative and I’m watching them on either my laptop, my phone or on my iPad. I also am watching documentaries on Netflix that accompanies an addiction to the Planet Earth series and the wonder who is David Attenborough who must be protected at all costs. I would say that I’m not watching as much as I want to because of how busy I am with my coursework but I am able to squeeze in at least 30 minutes of collective watch time. I am very conscious about what I’m watching and if it can serve as a trigger in a negative or a positive way. What I am viewing now gives me enjoyment and I use it as a break from a long, people-packed day so I don’t go and watch a vlog about someone’s depressive episode they had on a particular or someone who is very pessimistic. It doesn’t help me at all mental, physically, spiritually, intellectually, and any other adverb that falls under the category of effects of the human body.
I am familiar with the Andy Warhol screen test with Ann Buchanan since we had to watch it last semester for our Observation course. When we talked about it as a class in the fall, half of the class said that it was weird or creepy but I enjoyed it and was thoroughly impressed that she could not blink for 4 minutes straight. I tried doing it with her and I failed in the first 30 seconds when I reached for my Red Bull. I had to do virtually the same thing for Jack’s Narrative project and I stood in the rain when it was freezing cold and stared at his camera for three minutes straight without blinking. Like Buchanan, the tears started to flow at some point but I’m very positive it was from my allergies or from my body asking me, “Why are you doing this?” I also noticed that this video that you linked to us had sound to it where the same screen test that we watch for Observation did not have music in the background so I also think that played a factor into why some thought that it was a strange video.
The video of Peter Campus I can unashamedly admit that I watched at least three times trying to decode how he created these illusions. Once I thought more simply and didn’t try to make it bigger than it was, I figured it out. I am shocked at the amount of editing and different mirage-like clips that were made in the 70’s. Even though television and cameras were not new during that time, I expected something like that to come maybe a decade or two into the future (maybe the 80’s or 90’s) but that could just be the Millennial in me spewing uneducated nonsense.
Tony Oursler Various Works video was so interesting and cool. I would love to experience that in person. At first, I was out off by the beginning piece where the cigarettes being projected onto the small cylinders but after that, my mind was completely blown. I feel like going the whole exhibit would be overstimulating but in the best possible way and I feel that it was really creative.