I'm a blogging whore.

I'm aware that I've been neglecting this bloggywog of late, and instead favouring myself and Leigh's blog at www.peoplewillreadanything.blogspot.com. But there's a very good reason for that. I'm VERY excited about the project we're planning. We've been scouring the Internet and have come up with a lot of research, much of which can be found on the group blog. We've questioned every new thing that we've learnt so far in this module, and as a result, come up with what we thing are some really original and interesting ideas. The only problem we're having now is narrowing it down to just one idea that we want to focus on. While "People Will Watch Anything" is still at the forefront of the project, that statement raises a lot of other questions and sub-topics, which we're having difficulty narrowing down.

Our main idea at the moment is to create a series of sketches which parody such popular television programme formats as Big Brother. Obviously these would be exaggurated somewhat, in order to illustrate our point (i.e. just how pointless/ridiculous they are). Humour is an excellent way of getting people to pay attention, so the funnier and more dramatic we can make them, the better. Anyway, we know what we think, and if we can sit through a double bill of Laguna Beach and come out the other side, by God, we can get through this.

Remediation, remediation, remediation...

is a tricky concept. Which is why I let Leigh do the explaining. Check the group blog for more deets.

John Cage

John Cage's ideas about life itself as the highest form of art interest us deeply. I've just posted a world of information on him on the group blog, along with an mp3 of his performance piece, "4:33". Slooshy. It will blow your mind. I apologise deeply if anyone is offended by my comparing him to the producers of Big Brother. I know that's probably not why they did it, but hey, I can dream...

Extreme Big Celebrity In The Jungle Swap Island UK

Just posted some thoughts about reality TV on the group blog. An increasingly common and popular television programme format, this will certainly feature in our final project. Now, generally speaking, day-to-day reality can be fairly mundane. Which is why producers go for exotic, expensive-looking settings, will engineer scenes and situations for dramatic effect. But then, of course, it is no longer "reality" in the true sense of the word. And we know this. We're not stupid, and many programmes now put a disclaimer up before or after the show to inform people that what they're seeing may be a somewhat dramatised version of events. Yet we continue to watch. Why? Escapism from our own lives perhaps? Or just sheer boredom. Who knows?

It would be easy for me to completely write off all reality TV shows as a pointless, waste of time. However, it's never quite that simple. I've posted an article on the group blog about "De Grote Donorshow" (or The Big Donor Show to those who don't speak Dutch). I urge you to have a look. In the article I posted here about David Blaine a while back, I criticised him for having a worldwide platform and not using that to make any real statement. But De Grote Donorshow used the controversey surrounding it to raise two very important issues. One: a show about a dying woman selecting (from three other dying people) who will recieve her kidneys when she dies will, despite some attempts to ban it, gain an audience. And two: thousands of people die every year waiting for organ transplants because not enough people sign up as donors. Both of these things are, how can I put this...fucked up. But it seems that the show did make a difference, at least to the second point, so give it a read.

Does anyone remember...

...a TV advert which featured a polystyrene cup lying on a pavement, blowing about in the wind, which concluded with the slogan "People will watch anything?" I think it might have been for digital TV or something. I'm pretty sure I didn't make it up, but no one seems to remember it and I can't find any reference to it on the net. If no one remembers it I'll assume I'm a bloody genius did make it up, and it may well become our final project.

In the meantime, here's a similar clip from American Beauty,which I definitely didn't make up. It's incredible what a difference the musical score and Ricky's monologue make to the scene. Watched on mute it's just a bag flapping in the wind, but Sam Mendes has managed to transform that one shot into a powerful and moving symbol of hope and beauty. Epic stuff.

People Will Read Anything

is the name of the group blog myself and Leigh started today. You can find it in my linky winks. Much of our research towards the project, as well as general musings on our findings, will be posted there. Expect much witty banter to follow.

Drowned Alive

Just added "Drowned Alive: Performance Art or Performance Stunt?" to my links. It's an article on the nature of performance art, in response to David Blaine's 2006 attempt to break the world record for holding breath underwater. I recently wrote an essay on the man for Experimental Performance, and in researching, discovered some very interesting insights. The majority of people (particularly here in the UK, not so much in his native America) think of him as nothing more than an attention-seeking weirdo. Yet his 2003 performance "Above The Below" attracted an audience of thousands over 44 days. And yes, I myself was among those thousands. Curiosity got the better of me and, living only a half-hour train journey away from London, I decided to go and see what all fuss was about. For those who are unaware of what the piece entailed, Blaine spent 44 days in a Plexiglas box, suspended 30 feet in the air above the south bank of the River Thames. During this time he didn't eat and only drank 4.5 litres of water per day. So what does a man in a box who is weak from not eating for weeks do all day? Answer: not so much. Mainly, he just sat. Sometimes, he lay down. Every once in a while, he stood up. If you were really lucky you might get to see him do a wee into a tube. And people were going, "This is brilliant. He's an inspiration to us all." Now, during my research for the essay I discovered that, as uneventful as it may have been to watch, Blaine's did in fact have deep personal meaning. It was more about what he would go through physically and emotionally than aesthetic value. But no one watching would have known that, unless they researched as extensively as I did, which I doubt. He did not, before or since the performance,
offer much in the way of a public explanation of the reasons behind this, or indeed any of his performance pieces. Which is a shame in a way, because when David Blaine does something, we are interested. We watch. Every time he performs he has a platform to make a statement about something, yet seemingly chooses not to. "Above The Below" mirrored some of the major problems in the world today: starvation, lack of drinking water, incarceration. But he never mentioned this in relation to the performance. And it seems no one was particularly bothered. Who needs meaning when you could be watching a man in a box?