For this web-event, I want to exercise my hand at trying some new genres/forms of visual imagery, particularly in experimenting with the presentation of “nature” through video. I want to combine the meditative and contemplative—being caught up in silences, in beauty, in ugliness, in “feeling ‘wren’” as Gary Snyder puts it *—as well as attempting break the dichotomy between words as a form of “culture” “versus” the non-human language of “nature”. To do this, I’m thinking of using sound (in the language of the trees and of humans, in the ) as the primary vehicle for the film’s narrative, which images then accompany (or feel disjointed from).

I was really drawn to Joseph Meeker's Comedy of Survival. I found it really interesting that Meeker described comedy as a way of demonstrating that "man is durable even though he may be weak, stupid, and undignified." I started to think about why I have had this weird feeling about comedy. It's gotten harder as I've gotten older to view typical "comedy" films and tv shows as "funny," I don't laugh as much as I used to. But, I found it interesting how in the excerpt of Meeker's book, I don't see him actually suggest that comedy has to be "funny."  In his description of comedy as "muddling through" to achieve temporary success and as a way to "affirm man's capacity for survival," I couldn't help but relate these feelings to what I have many times throughout my education.

I'm having a very hard time pinning down a single idea that I want to do so I'm going to mention several and see which will fit best within our groups.

I'm not exactly sure how I want to go about this project, but I do know for sure that I want to stay away from writing. I think it'd be interesting to see how sketching/drawing can constitute a class paper. I want to explore the notion of interpretation. I want to see how a piece of art can lead to different interpretations of the meaning intended by the artist.  This reminds me of our class discussion on The Lives of Animals. We talked about different purposes that the book served. There were a variety of characters in the book that offered different perspectives the centered on the lives of animals and animal rights.

On one of our visits to the prison, things got a little tense.  It started out with the discussion moving towards raising children.  One woman was talking about how it can be hard for single mothers to raise kids and be there for everything.  Another chimed in saying that her mother worked two jobs but was still there in the morning to check her and her siblings' homework.  The conversation escalated to the point where the second woman asked the first woman (in what I thought to be an accusatory tone) "and how did your kids turn out?"  

Abby and I are both in a show this semester called "Equivocation," and throughout this course we keep dancing around topics that seem central to this play, such as truth, language, double meanings, and genre. So the two of us have talked about doing our next project together on something with this play, because it ties into all the things we've talked about so well. We're not really sure yet what we want to do, other than we know we want to try and use multimedia as oppose to paper writing for the project, so I'm just going to use this post to throw around some ideas.

I’m not entirely sure where I want to go with this idea, but I’d like to recreate some form of photography gallery/exhibition. It would probably entail me taking photographs and writing something connected to each photograph. I want the photographs to demonstrate how humans are ecologically intertwined with different aspects of the world. The writing wouldn’t necessarily be describing what is seen in the photograph (because that can be up for interpretation), but I haven’t yet decided on the exact form of writing I will use (which genre, I mean). I was considering allowing each photograph to be followed by a paragraph (or something of equivalent length) that is different from the other.