Watching videos is somewhat of a hit or miss experience ... but to watch something and desperately look for a connection while standing in a dark, stark, cool room is another thing.
About 10 years ago I went to the Whitney Biennale, you know, the huge exhibit, at least 3 floors thick, in New York - They shows all the most bestest, exclusively contemporary selection of artists that exist in America today. As I waded through a deluge of visuals my desire to rush and go shopping in NY put on hold, I started quickly looking for something that was going to catch my eye. I believe I found one object, and it has remained with me for years, a fabulous little video, 
no more than about 6” (or was it just the LCD screen of a portable video camera.) Done by this young MAN who had digitally removed and repeated basketball images (and I hate Sport on tv) This video had an historical resonance and emotional resonance. Because I am a good educator this led to do a bit of research, and I found The Long Count, his erased or camouflaged animations of Mohammad Ali removed from the rink.. His name is Paul Pfeiffer - … he has now win lots of awards that I have no chance of getting – if you can find his videos LESS IS MORE...
Following this line of thought in the mid 2000’s at Orange County Museum Lounge a fabulous space in the South Coast Mall , Southern California ( that has now shut down) I saw another MALES work. He had taken the Road Runner, Coyote and other objects out of the landscape of the Road Runner Cartoons. What was on display was a very beautiful series of graphic landscapes… As a website states (sorry I lost the link) Mungo Thomson –has videos that are “fat free”.
the screen an ostensibly narrative-free wall of dancing color, silent but for the occasional roar of a train or the tinkle of pebbles after, presumably, an invisible Wile E. has slammed into the base of a gorge. On some primal level, this scene—with its absent narrative that cannot be entirely effaced—calms, delights, and calls up memories of sunlit romper rooms of yore.” Totally appropriated from the internet. Is that wrong? Cause there is no way I could have written that descriptively. They did a dam good job eh? LESS is MORE
Mungo Thomson
32-minute dvd video projection
Less is more? Or is my old age showing simply revisiting my past, conjuring up memories, when I was stuck in a chair, glued to the Saturday morning TV.
This year was the death of Michael Jackson and the showing of Untitled #100 (Fantasia)
Unfortunately, Josh Azzarella slow, lethargic video and sound played in the side room. I slid around the corner after quickly viewing the newspaper drawings. I stood, I cocked my head, I walked up close, I walked back. I looked for the description. I tried to get into the feeling of the distressed imagery and thought about the sound. Eerieishish? What the heck was I missing…? . I stood, I cocked my head, I walked up close, I walked back. Why am I just seeing a dark building or back street? Boring...... Yet another MALE artist had erased again. Michael Jackson and other figures had disappeared from the Thriller video – stupid me? I shold have known …. But I didn’t know? Does that make me an old fart or is the video just CamelBacking on Michael Jackson’s death? You decide? Perhaps I was a bit distracted?
So let me CamelBack on this idea of LESS IS MORE. I live in Southern California and have been thinking about the loss of teachers across the counties. Out go the teachers in go smart boards. Less is more?
Consequently work is now a little slow for me and I have been trying to start my own digital media, interactive, technological, creative, critical and money spinning, timely, intelligent, cost free small business off the ground. So the other day I had coffee, in the sun with my older friend and mentor. My mentor was feeling a little out of touch, like an old codger. You know, that age thing that slaps youin the face when you you pass the late 40's. After being in yet another staff meeting, where the "Youngens" were extolling the benefits of the new $10,000 white/smart boards. “They are brilliant, they will save the children, who are a bit distracted. You can access endless information online ….. wooooo weeee, aahhhhh. Think about it you can match word beginnings and endings so interactive and engaging……”
My mentors response was a little weary .... “ While laudable this process has unfortunately, greater unintentional, negative implications….. Because of the emphasis only on the animating features of Computer-assisted activities, the Curricula offered are fixed on the lower levels of skills acquisition such as Recall and Matching Games or Fill-in the Blank Exercises….” (Is there a connection here to the Untitled #1 video piece?)
Does LESS mean MORE?
Why am I so disconnected? In the Arts and Humanities, In Science and Technology, in Medicine and Finance what ever happened to critical thinking and improvisation? Problem solving and critical thinking, is about alternate solutions. Alternate solutions to the same questions. Ideas can be refined through interaction, flexibility, imagination, and critique that collaboratively produce new solutions? Can a match and mix interactive game help cross disciplinary interaction? Think about it, the Smart Board could be seen as a regurgitation of programmed intelligence, handed down to us by monopolies and the government? Ohhhhh, ooooh that sounds a little irrational eh? How interactive is that, search for information, reconfigure and plop it together and “viola“ education?
Here is a challenge. Lets collaborate and educate and earn some monies…..
Our idea is to create critical thinking, interactive media that teaches a child to think – so here is the challenge. I am and artist designer, my friend has a PHD in early childhood education and we need a volunteer computer programmer and marketing specialist. We have some ideas…..
Contact me ..... angela@awillcocks.com
