Synesthesia

Synesthesia is something I've become very fascinated with every since I had heard about the condition nearly a decade ago. I found it to be incredibly interesting simply from a biological point of view, just the fact that the mind could go a little haywire and sort of confuse senses. In a show I had seen about a specific type of synesthesia, some people would often hear sounds and interpret them as colors. While this condition is extremely rare and, in many cases, it was unclear how it was caused, it affected many peoples artistic skills for the better. One woman happened to become an artist, basing her art of how she perceived sounds (similar to what I read in the wiki article). Another man, on the other hand took up music. He very limited experience with instruments in his life, but after being able to convert sounds to images and shapes, he could take up several instruments easily, even mimicking music he heard almost instantly. While synesthesia is very interesting in its own right, I don't particularly like how it is applied to the art world. Art, to me, is independent of everything else. I don't think art by synesthetics should be looked at with any differently than those who don't have it, nor do I think art in the synesthetic style should be critiqued any differently than any other art. Anyone can choose to like or dislike it and that is fine, but I feel that sometimes people hold some sort of exception to it because it is either created by people with this rare condition, or it is meant to mimic it, somehow making it exceptional. Like anything else in the art world, it can be good or bad.

Scratch Film Junkies

I really enjoyed To The Beat. The film itself was especially strong towards the beginning and end. The combination of found footage with the "scratching", to me, was where the film felt most interesting. Particularly towards the end of the film when the older gentleman was boxed in, almost engulfed by the scratching, I felt this segment moved extremely well. The middle, however, did feel a bit lacking. Even if it was meant to be slower, both the color and sound felt insufficient. It just felt like it broke up the middle and end without really properly connecting them or providing a meaningful segway. The sound, of course, was a crucial component to this film (as the title suggests). I really felt a soundtrack like this was required to keep the film entertaining. While I know we were meant to concentrate on the visuals, it is impossible to ignore or subdue the audio track in anyway. It was clearly made in conjunction with the film and I believe that both serve each other equally here (which is not always the case with films, experimental or not). The pace of the visuals themselves, though, were excellent. I am assuming that the film were created before the sound and to keep the intensity of those visuals up for so long is very impressive. I really felt the effort that this team put into creating this strip of film. After getting my hands on a piece of film and begging to screw around with it, I do realize that this sector of experimental films (that is scratching, bleaching, hands on, etc.) is an art of its own and could be taken advantage of much more in the film world. The only instance I know of where something like this occurred (outside of experiential films) was in Citizen Kane for the "archival" footage. I really feel that filmmakers could take more advantage of playing around with their film strips in more "traditional" films. I know it takes more time and money (if you screw it up you either have to use it or reshoot the scene), but I think it adds a great deal of charm, personality, and auteurism. It is something I will certainly keep in mind in my future of film.

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