CSAD Degree show

At the degree show that is ending today there have been two exceptional video pieces that really stood out, both from fine art students. The first was a video of an unknown person, dancing between some plastic sheets that were hanging from the ceiling. At points it became very abstract when the person was out of the shot and the only thing I could see were the sheets moved by wind (probably a fan). The video was projected in a dark room, and at the entrance there were some bells hanged down from the ceiling on thick thread. The medium of the video was obvious, as the hanging bells created shadows on the screen. The viewer was emerged into the video as the setting of the seating area was very much like the setting of the video. This made the space and time of the video and the present being of the person watching merge, and seem as one. The other video piece that stood out was a video installation of an old cartoon, that was very racist to black people. Of course at the time it didn't appear to be so, because then people didn't have the knowledge of racism that we do today. This doesn't mean that the piece didn't have impact back then, on the contrary, that animation is part of what started building up racist ideologies. The center piece of the installation was the fact that the film was projected on a sheet of paper at the back of the room, and the artist has cut a square in the middle of the sheet, so at the front of the room there was an abstract small and square film. The decision to do has two meanings for me. One where by only watching the abstract film, completely detached from the original, it seems to be aesthetic and interesting to watch visually. But when put in context with the original, you realize that the back story and bigger picture raise important ethical issues. So the artist seems to be making a comment on people not thinking about the background and issues surrounding a piece/film they are watching. In a way suggesting that we need to be meta and generally more mindful about the things we watch. The second meaning I got from this is that the artist might be making a comment on the idea of abstract film, implying that abstract film can be problematic if we don't consider the implications of the issues they raise; here one could watch the abstract piece that was cut out from the original and not think anything about it, other than it is visually interesting.