Visual Arts and Film Studies - Essay Example

Visual Arts and Film Studies Ryan Trecartin is known as one of the most talented and innovative young artists working with video production today. He fit into a cohort of artists that have directed their focus on the deep effect of the immediate circulatory and spiral nature of participatory visual and image making via the internet. He was born in 1981 in Webster, Texas. Trecartin obtained a BFA from the School of Design in Providence Rhode Island in 2004. He did solo exhibitions like Any ever, which travelled from Power plant in Toronto to The Museum of Contemporary Art in 2010. His work has been seen in groups exhibitions at San Francisco, MIT/List Visual Arts Center, Works from the Saatchi Collection, Chicago Underground Film Festival, Chicago and Whitney Museum of American. In 2009, He received the first Jack Wolgin Fine Art Prize that was given to him at the Art at Temple University in Philadelphia. That is known for recognizing the peak level of artistic excellence on an international level. He is currently residing and working and living in Philadelphia. Ryan Trecartin’s video “A Family Finds Entertainment” is a video that was released in 2004 and stars a clownish but psychopathic boy called Skippy who locks himself up in the upstairs bathroom during a wild party. He is persuaded to join in the party but he refuses. He cuts himself with a knife and musing opaquely on his dilemma regarding King Lear style delirium. Whereas, downstairs, the partiers have having complex mood swings that are constantly disrupted by a burst of animated sequences and visual effects. This seems to disorient the characters similar to many lightening strikes. Eventually, Skippy comes out of the bathroom, borrows money from his sexually inappropriate parents and heads for the outdoors. He meets a documentary film maker who decides to make a movie about him but, Skippy is hit by a car and apparently dies. Back at the party, a hyperactive gal called Shin, a cat played by Trecartin receives the sad new regarding Skippy (Trecartin 2004). She spends twenty minutes of being hysteria filled with the sad news as she prepares to tell her friends what has happened. After she has informed her friends, the band compose a song that seems to magically raise the teenager from the dead. Everybody runs outside the house and sets the fireworks. However, on the event the police appear, they run back to the house. Ryan Trecartin’s video “A family Finds Entertainment” unfolds with a similar intent like futuristic fever dreams. This is a collaboration that assembles the cast of family and friends. He displays the skill of being able to merge complex digital manipulations with footage from pop culture, animations and internet employing widely stylized performance and sets. Despite the fact that, this video has drawn major comparison to early John waters, Jack Smith and Perr – Wee play House, Ryan Trecartin’s video is thoroughly unique. His video, sculpture performance, photography and installation creates scenario that are displayed with the collaboration of his friends. Critical study of the video The quote from the video “I believe that some where there is something worth dying for and I think is amazing.” Skippy sounds sarcastic but envious. In the video he polariods himself and cuts the picture into half. When he cuts himself while looking at the mirror, he tries to test a true reflection of his soul and knowledge of himself. In the other room, a young man says “Show me something beautiful and, I will live, show me something worth holding on and I will hold on.” Veronika tell the young man that they are planning to go on a tour very soon. This is an indication that this group contains musicians who like to sing and go on tours. While Skippy is still hiding in the toilet, Veronika come to tell him that her friends want to leave because his show is boring and the environment is not intriguing. Accidentally, Skippy cuts himself but pretends that he cut himself more dramatically while he was singing. “it is not that I want to keep things this way, it is just that I want I may be impersonating people that are not me, Or may be the seem to be.” In this video, Trecartin plays six different roles. He plays the role of three females in this video (Shin, Snow white and booty girl). He also plays the role of two gay males (Skippy and closeted Bland runner gigantic guy). He also acts as a video face which is an intermediate human face (Trecartin 2004). One of Skippy’s companions tells him “I shall cry for you and not because I care for you but because I am emotional”. This is an indication that Skippy seems to be longing or lasting for something that is out of his reach. He is searching for something that is more real but, feelings are not always as they seem to be. This tension or confusion is compounded by the media in which Skippy and his friends find themselves in. It provides quick stardom, but is builds an obsession with appearances and looking good. This means you have to be in constant fun lest you want your peers to abandon you. Life is ours to “re- mix”, Skippy denotes that we are surrounded with choices but what is mostly with our reach is freedom. Skippy refers to it as “free –dumb”. When Skippy goes outside, Skippy meets up with Zoey who is making a documentary on teenage kids all over the world’. The documentary is called “The other version of me” It tries to show that life is fun but teenagers seem to have more than fun. Skippy with a lot of frustration asks Zoey to tape him. He dashes into the rod and accidentally gets hit by a car. This incident happens when Zoey is still filming him. The taping is temporarily competed and this acts a metaphor thorough which the film is being associated with stuck, cutting and eventually getting killed. Trecartin’s role as Shin is less tragic as compared to Skippy. Her character is more of a clown in the quest for freedom. This shows that she is a bit desperate. However she is perky and she seems to be having a lot of fun. When she hears about the dead boy in the street, she tries out one of her experiment is music (Trecartin 2004). This music seems to revive Skippy from the dead. From this point, Skippy seems to be transformed as he is “baptized” in the Child’s wading pool. Shin is also baptized. The song that was played in the beginning “Show me something beautiful and I will live, show me something worth holding onto and I will hold on.” is played again. This shows the stylistic device of flash forward of a song that was sang by a young man in the other room and the singers later on sing it after Skippy has been magically revived from the dead. Analytical study of the video Art panelist and critic Kevin McGarry asserts that “Ryan Trecartin was able to establish a video practice that in function and form advances the understanding of the post millennial technology, identity and narrative”. Additionally, this video seems to propel these matters as significant mediums. Ryan Trecartin work was able to depict societies where the consumer culture is known to be nihilistic or meaningless and the characters circuitously seek find meaning or agency in their lives. This kind of combination that entails assaultive, avant- garde logics, equally outlandish and nearly impenetrable character uses form, drama, color, and montage. Ultimately, with these visual effects, the end product is a sublime, flow of conscious effect that produces the bewildering feeling that is true to life (Trecartin 2004). The wonder in Trecartin’s video is the approach that seems to be intuitive and driven by a barmy scientist style tunnel vision that is sophisticated and rigorous. Grounded with his expertise in editing and inordinate gift of developing complex narrative this video is a classic. “A Family Finds Entertainment” is a digital fairy story about the demise and subsequent rebirth of a suicidal youngster called Skippy. A combination of family and friends contribute contemptibly tailor made characters in the video. Living in a decidedly contemporary art face, almost every frame has undergone intense computer function reflection and raw video digital editing. Dialogue or communication in this video is delivered in both electronically developed attitudes and horrendously fake or tailored accents (Trecartin 2004). The images are also stylistically choreographed. In the video, a REM sleep like cloud and the plot is carefully knit together. Skippy seems to be overwhelmed with guilt that is surrounding his queer identity and contemplates suicide. However, he gets a message telling him to refrain from the act (Trecartin 2004). After heeding to the message, he leaves home to meet with the film maker, Zoey Spelling. However, moments after their meeting, Skippy is hit by a car. Spelling has no choice but to use the help of the four “experimental hipsters” namely Ed, Shin, Linda and Phalangena. These were artists that she had been documenting. Their perfomative – identities, egocentric personalities and compassion despise the or mock a sincerely two face culture while indulging in a highly complex language, friendship and love story that they do not understand. Most characters often feel like they are communicating to the audience directly while performing their seemingly spontaneous choice of words. With the constant feeling of getting to laugh at a joke, the audience becomes an integral part of the film (Trecartin 2004). The theatricalities of the characters in the film offer a hyper mediated counter culture which puzzles the audience. The double meaning and dimensions in this video show the misplacements of social stereotypes or norms that are being experienced in the contemporary world. Work Cited A Family Finds Entertainment. Dir. Ryan Trecartin. Perf. Ryan Trecartin. 2004. Movie Read More