File puptcrit/puptcrit.1001, message 69


From: Vladimir Vasyagin <vasyagin-AT-hotmail.com>
To: <puptcrit-AT-puptcrit.org>
Date: Thu, 7 Jan 2010 09:47:23 -0500
Subject: Re: [Puptcrit] Subverting sense?



Thank you, Rolande.



Vladimir



 

> To: puptcrit-AT-puptcrit.org
> Date: Thu, 7 Jan 2010 08:55:39 -0500
> From: puppetpro-AT-aol.com
> Subject: Re: [Puptcrit] Subverting sense?
> 
> Splitting subversive hairs, I think. 
> Each person is affected by their surroundings in different ways (having different "learning styles", etc.). So it may be that is movie is a drop in an ocean of sense data while a live show is life changing. Or vice versa. Depends upon the person.
> I was recently introduced as a visual artist, and I really wanted to protest. I do not do art for the pure visual message, but for the" message" within the performance of that visual piece. The visual work I accomplish does not have the same intention as that of the performance. A set designer may paint well, but is not a "painter". 
> In many ways, the painter's work is very "subversive", giving us a new point of view. Set design serves a greater collaboration. Is that piece of theatre it serves "subversive?" It might be. 
> It follows that a very commercially produced puppet character may be "subversive" in performance, though not as a sculpture. 
> A lot of this is about our perception. For me, "Brazil" was VERY shocking, "subversive". I believe that it was more about the story than anything else. That the violent terrorist bombings in that film were treated as commonplace was in itself disturbing. And that has to do with STORY, and the way in which it was TOLD -- not the performances alone.
> All these different elements come together in a piece of theatre - story, visuals, sounds, and performance. If the audience's perception is somehow changed because of this - and the actions they subsequently make are dictated by it, then we could say it is "subversive". 
> Care needs to be taken! 
> If the audience is not affected, then the piece essentially confirms the established ways. We are comfortable.
> Which is why the Monty Python's Spanish Inquisition used the comfy chair as a tool of torture. 
> 
> 
> Rolande
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Alexander Winfield <sheepwpunks-AT-gmail.com>
> To: puptcrit-AT-puptcrit.org
> Sent: Thu, Jan 7, 2010 12:11 am
> Subject: Re: [Puptcrit] "Avatar" is a puppet show?
> 
> 
> To all,
> 
> Hobey's comments made me think upon the nature of subversive. What does
> it mean when a film criticizes the exploitation and over-consumption of
> resources and yet itself cost over $300 million dollars to make? Is this
> true subversion? If it is true that a single google search can use as much
> energy as it takes to boil a kettle (mostly to power the air conditioners
> that cool the servers), then how much energy/oil went in to keeping the
> film's millions of terrabytes of memory running? The film will reach
> millions, yes. What sort of change will it effect? There is, it is true, the
> obvious message of 'over-consumption is bad' but there is also an implied
> message, even an implied ideology of 'Don't you love watching this? Don't
> you want more?'
> 'Message' films, which Avatar definitely is, are tricky things. Very
> often I feel they act more as catharsis for lingering anxieties in the
> audiences then as catalysts for change. As such it may not be unfair to
> consider them part of the problem. I admit, however, to have seen very few
> films which I felt really pushed its audiences for change. Battleship
> Potemkin, perhaps (though I feel that was more a rallying cry to a mob),
> Gilliam's Brazil (by purposefully pissing off its audience and making the
> audience-surrogate character partially culpable of some of the onscreen
> crimes)...
> Again, though, what is subversion? I draw dangerously close to
> politicizing the argument, and I feel that is not what I really want. It is
> possible to be subversive outside of politics, to be a Thoreau (although his
> example, it seems, was not enough to save his forests, at least not in the
> long run). Be an independent thinker! Be yourself! But if we are merely
> ourselves, and that is suficient for us, could we then be less disposed to
> confronting the wrongs in society, for we, being free thinkers, are outside
> it? There has always been this danger in idealising individuality and
> independence...in regards to its effects as an idealogy, I sometimes am
> reminded of how the chinese introduced Buddhism to the Mongols after the
> Empire of the Khan's collapsed. It was an effort to pacify them.
> So, as entertainers, how can we be subversive? There are three methods
> that I can see...one, subvert overtly (activist entertainment, 'Bread and
> Puppets'), sublte subversion, subersion over time by changing minds and
> paradigms (necessary during times of mono-cultural dominance...I think of
> the words of Beckett, of Roald Dahl, of Bulgakov...all of whom knew and
> hated fascism - to know their works is to encounter the human, and to
> encounter the human is make fascism stillborn in your heart)...and then
> there is the playwright/philosopher Sartre's solution, which was to take up
> arms against the Vichy and join the resistance.
> All of these methods are perfectly valid. As a young an emerging artist,
> however, I must wrestle both with the looming possibility that there is not
> much time, and with the now much-stated scientific prediction that our
> civilization, as we know it, has a shelf life of less than a human lifetime.
> What to do with these weights on the heart? I have no answers but, to tie
> this in with the spirit of the board, I feel that we must never cease to ask
> such questions, particulalry of ourselves, lest we find ourselves impotent
> puppets.
> 
> sincerely,
> 
> Alexander
> 
> 
> On Wed, Jan 6, 2010 at 10:41 PM, Hobey Ford <hobeyone-AT-gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> > I loved the plot in Avatar and found it wonderfully subversive. The
> > story as one commentator put it is a retelling of the theft of America
> > by Europeans and of those who went "Native". I found the story a very
> > timely critism of our destruction of nature for the wealth to be had
> > by the rape of the earth. It is weird to me that this type of
> > storyline might come across as simplistic. We are eating up our
> > planet at an alarming rate while many write off environmentalism and
> > the debate on global warming as a "Hoax" or fantasy by left wing
> > loonytunes. It was only the night before wondering how far I would
> > have to throw a stone with my eyes closed at Walmart to hit a Palin
> > supporter. Then I realized that these many of these folks would see
> > Avatar and somehow internalize the message. Well now that was a
> > partisan rant, Sorry. I feel better already. I found the movie
> > profoundly beautiful. (but not a puppet show)
> >
> > On Wed, Jan 6, 2010 at 9:18 PM, Vladimir Vasyagin <vasyagin-AT-hotmail.com>
> > wrote:
> > >
> > > All Classic stories are - Bad guys vs Good guys: Macbeth, Romeo & ... and
> > so long...
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > > Vladimir
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >> From: skactw-AT-tiac.net
> > >> To: puptcrit-AT-puptcrit.org
> > >> Date: Wed, 6 Jan 2010 19:12:22 -0500
> > >> Subject: Re: [Puptcrit] "Avatar" is a puppet show?
> > >>
> > >>
> > >> > Also thought it somewhat too long and the story was basic cowboys and
> > >> > Indians.
> > >> > Bad guys vs good guys.
> > >>
> > >>
> > >> "Dances With Dragons?"
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