11.17.13. Day 2 with Michael Morris

Class began with Michael screening his video I Can’t Wait To See You There. The work functions as an elegy and a prayer for musician Kurt Cobain. The twelve-minute video is not only an emotional record of the effect Cobain’s music had on the artist as a teenager, but also a meditation on the subjective experience of public mourning and the ways recorded media affect our understanding of mortality. Michael shared this work as an example of a video with nontraditional structure; rather than following a linear narrative, the story is composed of overlapping fragmentary ideas that merge together.

Students spent the majority of class brainstorming with their partners for their own video project. Several groups began to storyboard their video works and familiarize themselves with the video editing software.

The class concluded with a viewing and discussion of Rehearsal I by Francis Alÿs in the exhibition México Inside Out: Themes in Art Since 1990.