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.

Today was our first day with Michael Morris, an artist and educator who works in video, film, and expanded cinematic forms. Class began in the lecture room, where Michael introduced himself and shared one of his essayistic videos, Confessors. Confessors is a short, personal essay that attempts to retrace bits of lost or inaccessible family histories. The artist’s grandparents gave him a can of film marked “X-rated” without explanation, as well as an old 8 mm camera. The film was lost before he was able to watch it.