I am not a big fan of New Year's Eve. I think it's a conspiracy on the part of the alcoholic beverage industry working in collusion with the diet and exercise industry. Honestly, there's no more point in celebrating the end of a calendar year than there is in celebrating the beginning and end of daylight savings time (which I'm sure there will be cards and candy for by next year, if the economy doesn't improve). There is, however, a "leap second" at the end of this year, which makes it...no, makes it no more interesting to me.
I actually make my resolutions and set goals and such at my birthday. My preference is to celebrate the Year of Me rather than the calendar year. Of course, my whole life has fallen apart since my last birthday, so perhaps I need to rethink my perspective.
Needless to say, I'm not going out tonight, or having anyone in, and will probably be asleep by midnight. I did, however, go out yesterday to the Museum of Contemporary Art here in Chicago. They have the standard collections of things that pretentious people look at in awe and say, "Oh, how perfect a metaphor," and even more pretentious people look at and say, "Oh, of course, but is it art?" There's a major installation called "Protect Protect," which is made up of a series of blown up declassified documents pertaining to the war in Iraq and a room full of different displays of crawling LCD screens which are meant to both show our culture's transfixion with information overload as well as simulate "white noise" torture being used by the U.S. military against Iraqi POWs. (I believe I just invented the word "transfixion;" please use it and spread it around.)
The display I was interested in, though, was a work by South African artist William Kentridge called "The Main Complaint." It's a series of chalk drawings and an accompanying animated short film (animating the drawings) depicting a fat white businessman in a coma having visions of violence, X-ray film prints and ultra-sound images. It's meant to be a comment on the continuing human rights violations in post-Apartheid South Africa, the overbearing nature of the white-led reconstruction efforts, and the culture of forgetfulness the end of Apartheid ushered in.
What was really interesting, though, was the way the drawings of the X-rays and ultra-sounds masked the bodily injuries by articles of bureaucracy, such as typewriters, telephones and rubber stamps. The other element that I think was crucial to understanding the message of the piece was in the film. Dozens of doctors (white doctors) try to help the comatose man, who is writhing and groaning with the pain of his visions, their stethoscopes are being shown as penetrating the man, running through his internal organs and creating a tangled mess...that is, doing more harm than good. When you additionally take into consideration that Kentridge himself is white, the whole display is so heavy with guilt that I'm surprised it wasn't sticky. (In my head, guilt is sticky and oozy, and a navy blue color.)
I don't know. I'm very interested in the delicate and contentious structure of post-Apartheid South Africa, and the richness of art and literature that emerges from it. One of my favorite films is In My Country (based on the book In the Country of My Skull), in which the heinous crimes black South Africans commited against one another are being formally forgiven (and in which Samuel L. Jackson plays an angry black (man) American reporter who is absolutely put in his place by Juliette Binoche). I also really like the book Disgrace by J.M. Coetzee, which discusses the racial tensions in rural South Africa. Kentridge presents yet another facet of the situation, trying to give a voice to the unsayable/inexpressible problems of race and domination.
Following this I took a cab home because it was quite late and dark outside, and the cab driver gave me a Jesus. Okay, it's a prayer card from The Chaplet of the Divine Mercy with a picture of Jesus on it, but it really surprised me when I got a good look at it. I had thought he was giving me a receipt.
I actually make my resolutions and set goals and such at my birthday. My preference is to celebrate the Year of Me rather than the calendar year. Of course, my whole life has fallen apart since my last birthday, so perhaps I need to rethink my perspective.
Needless to say, I'm not going out tonight, or having anyone in, and will probably be asleep by midnight. I did, however, go out yesterday to the Museum of Contemporary Art here in Chicago. They have the standard collections of things that pretentious people look at in awe and say, "Oh, how perfect a metaphor," and even more pretentious people look at and say, "Oh, of course, but is it art?" There's a major installation called "Protect Protect," which is made up of a series of blown up declassified documents pertaining to the war in Iraq and a room full of different displays of crawling LCD screens which are meant to both show our culture's transfixion with information overload as well as simulate "white noise" torture being used by the U.S. military against Iraqi POWs. (I believe I just invented the word "transfixion;" please use it and spread it around.)
The display I was interested in, though, was a work by South African artist William Kentridge called "The Main Complaint." It's a series of chalk drawings and an accompanying animated short film (animating the drawings) depicting a fat white businessman in a coma having visions of violence, X-ray film prints and ultra-sound images. It's meant to be a comment on the continuing human rights violations in post-Apartheid South Africa, the overbearing nature of the white-led reconstruction efforts, and the culture of forgetfulness the end of Apartheid ushered in.What was really interesting, though, was the way the drawings of the X-rays and ultra-sounds masked the bodily injuries by articles of bureaucracy, such as typewriters, telephones and rubber stamps. The other element that I think was crucial to understanding the message of the piece was in the film. Dozens of doctors (white doctors) try to help the comatose man, who is writhing and groaning with the pain of his visions, their stethoscopes are being shown as penetrating the man, running through his internal organs and creating a tangled mess...that is, doing more harm than good. When you additionally take into consideration that Kentridge himself is white, the whole display is so heavy with guilt that I'm surprised it wasn't sticky. (In my head, guilt is sticky and oozy, and a navy blue color.)
I don't know. I'm very interested in the delicate and contentious structure of post-Apartheid South Africa, and the richness of art and literature that emerges from it. One of my favorite films is In My Country (based on the book In the Country of My Skull), in which the heinous crimes black South Africans commited against one another are being formally forgiven (and in which Samuel L. Jackson plays an angry black (man) American reporter who is absolutely put in his place by Juliette Binoche). I also really like the book Disgrace by J.M. Coetzee, which discusses the racial tensions in rural South Africa. Kentridge presents yet another facet of the situation, trying to give a voice to the unsayable/inexpressible problems of race and domination.
Following this I took a cab home because it was quite late and dark outside, and the cab driver gave me a Jesus. Okay, it's a prayer card from The Chaplet of the Divine Mercy with a picture of Jesus on it, but it really surprised me when I got a good look at it. I had thought he was giving me a receipt.
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