Event 2

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I attended the Metaphors on Vision: Films by Stan Brakhage event at the Billy Wilder Theater. The event began with an hour-long Q&A. Unfortunately, I found it difficult to participate in this section of the program as I had no prior knowledge Stan Brakhage and his work. I believe it would have been more beneficial for viewers such as myself to get a chance to see his films first before offering critiques and questions. I did, however, listened to the numerous questions asked. Gauging from the audiences' line of questioning, I could sense that the majority of them were huge fans of Brakhage's work, as the questions were concerning his past works.  Before the showing of the films, the program also gave a very long, detailed, introduction to Mr. Brakhage's life. I thought this was a good way to introduce him to people who were foreign to his work, such as myself.

As for the films, I found them to be very interesting. There were four different films: Sirius Remembered, The Dead, Mothlight, and Thigh Line Lyre Triangular. All of the titles were all made between the 1950s and 1960s. Through his direction, Stan Brakhage wanted the people to "Imagine an eye unruled by man-made laws of perspective, an eye unprejudiced by compositional logic, an eye which does not respond to the name of everything but which must know each object encountered in life through an adventure of perception"(Sadie Starnes1).  Brakhage was ambitious, often referencing elements of technology, science, and art through his film: offering discussions on the intersectionality of the three fields. This reminds me of what Professor Vesna speaks of in her journal, "artists working with computer and other technologies from the scientific world are also often informed and inspired by the exciting innovations and discoveries taking place in science" (Vesna 121). In many ways, I believe this statement can be applied to Brakhage because he uses a variety of technology and biology (science) as inspiration for his filmmaking.

Furthermore, Brakhage approaches his movies in a very unique way. His films are more analogous to visual poetry than your typical story-telling motif. Brakhage utilizes technology in his filmmaking which allows him to speed up images so they look different to the human eye. In addition, none of his videos contained sounds which allowed for his audiences to focus solely on the visuals. Though I found it challenging to stay engaged in the beginning, my attention grew stronger as the movie went on. In Mothlight, Brakhage taped moth wings, twigs, and leaves onto clear film and made prints from it. The pictures were played really fast in succession I found it hard to look at the detail of the moths. I did not know what I was looking at first. All I could see was flashing art. Then I remembered the name of the film and started to look for moths.  My eyes were glued to the film because I did not want to miss a single image. I wanted to know the significance of the film and how it represented a metaphor. Ken Kelman describes the film as “A paradoxical preservation of pieces of dead moths in the eternal medium of light (which is life and draws the moth to death); so it flutters through its very disintegration"(Kelman 1). Truly I found Brakhage's work to be both bold and refreshing. His way of filmmaking is not what I'm used to but it does convey his message strongly. I can see why he refers to his work as visual music or moving visual thinking. 

 References
FANTASMALOGIC. “Mothlight, De Stan Brakhage, 1963, 4'.” YouTube, YouTube, 3 Dec. 2010, www.youtube.com/watch?v=4EO264yUxDo&t=11s.

 Kelman, Ken. “Metaphors on Vision | UCLA Film & Television Archive.” Rodney King Case and the Los Angeles Uprising | UCLA Film & Television Archive, www.cinema.ucla.edu/events/2018/04/13/metaphors-on-vision.

 Starnes, Sadie R. “Stan Brakhage: Metaphors on Vision.” The Brooklyn Rail, brooklynrail.org/2017/10/art_books/Metaphors-on-Vision.

 Vesna, Victoria. “Toward a Third Culture: Being In Between.”Leonardo, vol. 34, no. 2, 2001, pp. 121–125., doi:10.1162/002409401750184672.

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