Thursday, December 10, 2009

nonsense / there is no other

i made this video as i was graduating from high school. i was such an artist back then! what we have here could be a typical film school image and symbol collage. we have hitler and billy graham and industrial japan and al gore. but what makes this special to me is the subtitled narrative.



i recorded the soundtrack myself. the first half is an audio collage full of all sorts of sounds i collected while in high school. the second half is a piece i composed in a midi sequencer. i captured the billy graham speech off the radio. all of the images are taken from movies i rented from the library.

i made this video prior to both 9/11 and global warming so i am not trying to make a statement about those topics. i am making a statement about national identity and point of view. and of course the image of al gore receiving the fascist salute is pretty funny now, considering his cult leader status.

when i show this video to people, they walk away with one of two messages. the first, is that i am contrasting man's world view with god's truth. man creates chaos and god is here to guide us through it. the second, is that i am only looking at man's image of perfection. for billy graham, jesus was the ideal to aspire towards. to hitler, science (bad superstitious science, but science none the less) was the ideal to aspire towards.

i prefer the latter because it lends meaning to the final question. is it best not to dream at all? in other words, is it best not to imagine an ideal? because in many ways, these ideals lead to genocide and prejudice.

i would like to challenge billy graham's statement that 'when we do what is right in our own eyes, there is chaos' because i disagree. i believe our country was founded on the principal that it is best if we are all free to do what is right in our own eyes. the problem lies within people who want to coerce their beliefs onto others, either through physical violence or social chastising.

so dream on. your world view is quite possibly your most valuable asset.

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