Art 2840 Reading 4

Instead of a reading, I watched the video Lemak Bakia by Man Ray. This film was made in 1926 and contains lots of flashing images. Most of the film, it is hard to tell what image is on the screen. There is a lot of dramatic flashing, spinning, shiny objects moving around. One thing that I found interesting was when a person was shown in the film. I can relate back to the previous reading by Roland Barthes about how looking through someones eyes can be so revealing. I felt engaged when looking at the people because I felt like I was looking at the past. When the lady was dancing, it showed how people danced back in the 1920s. Or when the lady was putting on makeup, it shows how people dressed. All the portraits tell stories from the past and I was very interested to learn. Although I found some points interesting, it was hard for me to keep focused on the video. As a viewer, I felt the video is very scattered and left me with nothing to grasp on to. I honestly wonder if I had seen it on a different medium, like reel film, if it would make a bigger impression on me. Walter Benjamin talked about reproductions losing their aura, and I feel this is an example. I think it would be far more engaging in its original format. I also think the music that accompanied the film worked well. It kept up with the upbeat of the images– the film would not be the same with the music. In the reading by Walter Benjamin, he talks about film/photography related to speech as lithography relates to newspaper. Although the music did not have speech, I feel this is a good representation of that thought. The film’s constant changing images worked with the music. They complimented each other.

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