I’m a mess.

well at least if you take a look at my digital files. which is a bit scary considering most of my life is digital files. this past year has flown by, and suddenly i’m about to graduate. now i’m looking back at some of the pieces i worked on during graduate school and trying to look at them from a more objective point of view, or at least see what is there and how i might begin to present them to a new audience, or rennovate them for consumption.

state of design was one of only a few pieces i made in graduate school that was prompted by an outside source. i was asked to consider what the state of the design world is today. my answer was an ever-changing television set that screamed numerous unrelated message to the viewer. my idea was that there is so much information exploding out of numerous media sources that it becomes overwhelming and nonsensical.

however, in reviewing this short film, it’s interesting to see how personal this is, especially after spending my thesis year heavily devoted to self-exploration. i took nearly all these clips from youtube, except for a few that were from other art videos i was working on at the time (buffalo wings, alka-seltzer, sound project with jeff).
however, even the videos that i appropriated have a personal connection to past experiences (dawson’s creek, ninja turles, professional wrestling, george brett, oj simpson) but messages embedded within each individual episode sometimes give commands or aggressively address the viewer, or at least allude to an overall message from artist to audience. an obvious example is an early message saying, “you should not appropriate” while this video clearly appropriates nearly all the clips. two of my favorite clips feature an actor from beetlejuice proclaiming, “psychologically complex,” a religious leader announcing, “you must be crazy,” while later on animated character Freakazoid screams as if he can’t handle anymore of this madness.

i intend to break this piece down more and possibly revise it in places… but for now i will present the original version with a transcript of understandable speaking.
the state of design- transcribed
(eating)
joy of driving
go to the dollar store
we’re not ready to go yet
ooh!
fooyi
you should not appropriate
home, pay attention
(spanish)
(piano)
and this is what your
psychologically complex
he won one
he’s hungry
it’s gonna work
sneeze
love is my property
there’s only
cleaner solution than ordinary cooking
don’t know and you haven’t been able
you must be crazy
up and down the
(spanish)
oh no!
thank you so much, uh
gray areas in the first amendement
don’t even talk to him
(beep)
from heaven above
flip it as much as you want
call on me!
ahhhhhhh!!
now we’ve got the all time favorite
all right yeah!
we curl down the ice!
butter cream creamy spreads butter cream creamy