Blogs Round 3: A trip to the Haggerty

When Glenn Bach came into talk to our Film 202 class he expressed how the manipulation of just sound itself is an art all its own. Glenn Bach discussed how field recording is a deeply gratifying form of interactivity with nature and is extremely giving in terms of its possibilities for composition. I was in Glenn’s class last year and must say that when mixing video with the recordings we collected from the outside was quite rewarding. The resulting project that I conceived left me feeling very proud and the process of collecting the sounds and images made for an organic experience that I will value and always remember. Similarly to those videos we made in Glenn’s class, at the Haggerty Museum of Art’s stop.look.listen. exhibit; an impressive array of video installations explore the wide range of creative possibilities when combining visuals with sound. One of these videos that I distinctly remember and cherished the experience given went by the title of Magical World. It wasn’t until the end of my outing at the museum located on Marquette’s campus that I came across the installation, but none captured my attention as quickly as this piece. Before I knew it, the piece had started where I began and when watching it the full way through, I couldn’t even determine where the loop of the video began. This only begins to explain how mesmerized I was by this piece. First and foremost the music was quite remarkable and it was children singing! In Magical World Johanna Billing creates a work that resembles a documentary by feeding off its simple, reality driven plot of children organized to sing a song in a music class. However, when reading about the work I’ve come to understand it as staged. Regardless it works all around and her creation was quite beautiful. In the work as the children go about singing the song, the main focus is centered on a boy who leads. His voice is distinctly foreign, but quite gorgeous as he pronounces the English versus right on queue. We hear accompanying rattles and shakes as well as pianos and other instruments as we view the video and almost always Billing’s simultaneously focuses the camera on each of these instruments. This manipulation gave me the feel of being at a concert by displaying greatly all the efforts that were going into the song individually. In juxtaposition with the music colors are everywhere in this piece and deservingly so in order help define such a beautiful song. “I live in a Magical World, in a magical world, in a magical world,” I believe were the lyrics and the video plays no games in depicting this. From the beautifully colored clothes the children wear to the teachers involved with leading the song; the video just “straight-up” made me happy as I watched the children sing. Then suddenly Billing’s added a twist of sorts that added even more enrichment to the experience. She suddenly took the camera outside and let the music grow fainter. Soon enough I heard the chirping of birds and the passing of cars as people roamed the city streets outside. This movement of sounds and images from the outside world and next back into the session gave me a great appreciation for what I was able to see going on with the children inside the school and what everyone on the outside was missing out on. The video concludes with the children packing up and talking as they leave, yet at no point in the loop did I ever truly recognize silence as a device used by Billing’s. Without this silence I believe the video kept up with its reality like landscape even more, as rarely when one isn’t controlling the atmosphere is there total, utter lack of sound. This piece was remarkable to me and Billing’s style and sound artistry made the experience possible.
In Telephones, also at the Haggerty, Christian Marclay offers the viewer quite a contrasting form of video installation than that of the work of Billing’s in Magical World. Whereas Billing’s created the piece on spot by filming the actors performing the song and doing field recordings of the outside world, Marclay used other people’s films to create his. Although many if not all of the films subjected in Marclay’s piece were mainstream, he still manages to create quite a unique, original piece with a rhythm that was created by his manipulation of sound. The installation subjects the viewer to a string of clips from other films where the actors are somewhat involved with a telephone. When watching it through completion, the combination of clips results in that of one long phone call. It is not a stereotypical conversation however. It isn’t back and forth, “Hello,” “Hi,” “When’s dinner?” “At four,” type dialogue. Instead Marclay opts for a more musical tone, by cutting the scenes into a composition with a beat like flow. He starts with a man entering a phone booth with dreary music playing, signifying the fact this won’t be your normal phone conversation. From here a theme of repetition is put into play as we hear and see several people in several clips dial a number on their telephones. Marclay starts with older films where the phones are spin dials and progresses to newer colored films where the buttons are pushed instead. Through this action I found it intriguing how the artist played up on the advancement of technology through sound. Marclay continues with the repetition throughout the film as soon enough we hear and see replies on the other end that are always awkward in each of the selected clips. His style is displayed from here on out, as the repetition in each segment of clips from picking up the phone to compilation of hang-ups at the end express the tone of the conversation. It is awkward, weird, and sometimes sad; yet at the same time Telephones always remains fun and completely playful. As said previously, at no time in the film does the conversation have any real meaning through dialogue, but the clips compiled together offer a montage of sounds that make a musical piece with a wide range of emotions. Most notably this is displayed at the end of the work where Marclay concludes with the hang-ups of the telephones. He begins by ending the conversation with clips involved with actors hanging up slowly and quietly adding to that dreary feeling radiated by the opening sequence. Each of the actors hangs-up and looks forward away from the camera as if they’d just heard terrible news. Slowly transitioning and then upping the speed, Marclay goes into a segment of hang-ups that are loud and fast giving the vibrant tone of anger. The actor’s say things like “fine” and “bye” as they pounce the phones back on the mantles rapidly. This continues on until the very end and ironically emphasizes an even more playful tone through its sarcasm. Like Wonderful World, Telephones surprisingly has a ton to offer musically, yet it comes from a place that one would never expect by utilizing telephone conversations from movie clips. Whereas Wonderful World acts like that of a music video with a deeper message, Telephones actually acts more like that of just music. Even with one’s eyes closed the sound could stand alone as a fine work of music in both pieces. Yet, Billing’s piece is enhanced greatly by the visuals and Marclay’s could work either way.