Visiting Artist: Isaac Julien

I think it would have been a much different experience viewing this piece the way it was supposed to be shown, on nine hanging screens. With the singular screen it seemed like I was missing out on the experience that I was supposed to be receiving from this piece of art. I thought the story line of this piece was kind of boring and I had trouble paying attention however I found the cinematography beautiful. One thing I agreed with was when a girl at the end asked why he chose to show clips of the production process within the film, because for me it made the piece not flow together. I would have liked to see this only as the film and not with the weird beginning and end with the man writing on the glass and then the cleaners wiping it off. It just seemed like too much was going on. With more background on the ancient Chinese culture I feel like I may have understood what was going on a little bit better. Or if there had been some subtitles in english at the bottom at the beginning to help us going on. I know Mr. Julien tried to explain it at the beginning but I still found myself lost for most of the film. All I could focus on was how beautiful the scenery was which did help keep my attention. After discussing this show with Trevor from class we both agreed that it was strange no credit was given to anyone else who made the film.

I really like the concept of having the film on all of the different screens, and while I watched the various screens within the singular screen I tried to imagine what it would be like to see it the way it was supposed to me. This was a revolutionary idea and I wonder if other artists will follow in Julien's footsteps. The idea of movement between cultures old and new goes along nicely with the movement of the various clips on the various screens. I also thought it was interesting how Julien showed us before the movie how he used the green screen to create the illusion of people flying. I would have liked to learn more about this and then maybe watched clips of the film rather than the entire thing.