Project Brief 1
In this brief, we’ve been asked to identify 3 groups of people to potentially base our documentary around. After surfing a stream of consciousness, this is what I came up with…
1) Emerging conceptual artists
Conceptual artists must always push the boundaries of social, political and internal conventions to help make sense of the world. With the exponential growth of the digital universe comes an increasing challenge to decipher abstract concepts that flow through our day to day lives. It is for this reason that, as humans, we must be ready and willing to embrace ‘the abstract’. By extension, the tumultuous political climate seen throughout most of the world, requires new modes of thinking as we become more fearful and dismayed with the world. It is an artist’s freedom of expression that will get us through (McLuhan).
It is my hope that any emerging artists involved in a documentary project, such as what our class is proposing, will gain further exposure to their work and may enlighten non-artists to see the world in new and unique ways.
They may or may not want to participate but if they do, I’ll make sure that I’ll do my utmost to engage but not interfere with their process.
2) Free surfers
I am a surfer and I am drawn to waves with a particular erotic magnetism that only a surfer could relate to. Aside from the fitness and the thrill of ‘the ride’, there is something more about surfing that has people worldwide clambering to the shores like hungry zombies looking for flesh! When a person meets another person, one might ask the other, “how was your day?” or, “how about this rain?”, but when a surfer meets another surfer, it’s always the same… “Get any waves?”
It would be interesting to explore how people feel about their wave addiction, where it comes from and why it sustains when that thrill in so many other sports, like snowboarding for example, can seem finite.
Two perks a surfer gains from participating in this production; is, again, exposure to a wider community (should they want to move into professional surfing arena), and a ‘third umpire’ like second opinion of their skills.
3) Actors
They reside at a junction between megalomaniacal fulfilment and utter self-loathing and contempt. These two mental states inevitably spill into the other creating, either; a beautiful choreographed representations of reality or, tragic soups of tangential inner diatribe.
I recently ran into an old friend on his way home. He looked sharp and confident, unlike anyone onboard that evening commute, he was calm, cool and could inadvertently take down a low flying aircraft with his good looks and charm that, no doubt, contributed to him taking best actor at the Logies some years before. When I ask him where home was nowadays, he replied, “In my office, I’m homeless. I shower at the public Baths”… all without batting an eyelid!
Did he consider his life’s trajectory as a shameful fall-from-grace, or new living arrangements — new beginnings? I don’t know, but it certainly said a lot about that cliche of chasing a dream no matter what.
Dawn of the Dead (1978) – George A. Romero