Media Control 2010: Up and Out, Chelsea Girls, and The Social

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Media Control 2010: Up and Out, Chelsea Girls, and The
Social Network
6 Jan
Christian Marclay’s Up and Out is a complex media product of its time. The artist merges two
separate, preexisting films into one to create the 1998 video: a soundless version of Michelangelo
Antonioni’s Blowup (1966) plays in its entirety against the audio track of Brian De Palma’s 1981
Blow Out (a film partially inspired by Blowup). Each film’s narrative focuses on a crime scene;
Blowup‘s incident involving a photographer is seen and not heard, while Blow Out‘s conflict centered
around a sound effects technician is heard but not seen. Seeing the two together as Up and Out
produces fleeting moments of synergy: chase scenes come together and then dissipate, investigations
nearly overlap before going their separate ways, clues inexplicably translate across both storylines.
The mixing of the two scenarios controls the way the viewer perceives each, the product of this
experience being the new film, Up and Out.
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Excerpt from Up and Out, Christian Marclay (1998).
In order to maintain conscious awareness of both films, rather than following one narrative of the
preexisting films and ignoring the other, the viewer becomes keenly aware of his or her own media
consumption process and how the two films control the experience of one another. Screened in Seattle
in 2010 as part of the Henry Art Gallery’s exhibition Image Transfer: Pictures in a Remix Culture,
Marclay’s video resonated particularly well in light of another local screening this year: Andy
Warhol’s Chelsea Girls, shown at the Seattle Art Museum this past summer. Warhol’s 1966 epic film
presents two 16 mm reels projected side by side. Largely without a coherent narrative, the films focus
on short sequences of the artist’s cast of superstars engaged in extended dialogues and ordinary
activities. In contrast to the experience of Up and Out, during which there is an opportunity for the
viewer to focus selectively, Warhol exerts a particular control over the audience by only providing a
soundtrack for only one reel at any given time and changing the reel that has sound intermittently
throughout the screening. When Warhol removes the sound from one film and turns it on for the
other, the viewer’s attention naturally follows.
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Excerpt from Chelsea Girls, Andy Warhol (1966).
Chelsea Girls and Up and Out appear in comparable formats but were created over thirty years apart;
likewise, each is definitive of its respective time. Warhol’s control parallels media culture of the 1960s
in the sense that mainstream content at that time was under the control of small number of large
corporate entities (CBS, NBC ABC in television) and limited philosophies (Hollywood productions in
film); the content creator was in control while the audience consumed the content as it was presented.
In contrast, Marclay’s film represents a time of controlled media options; the audience can choose to
listen to Blow Out instead of watching Blowup in the same way an individual can choose to read the
scrolling news across the bottom of a CNN screen over listening to the newscaster.
In contrast, 2010 is a year well into the media culture of customized and user-generated content. Hulu
and iTunes offer extensive selections of media options; through YouTube, the viewer can be the
content creator and consumer. In this regard, The Social Network offers a relevant, albeit obvious,
glimpse into the present moment of media culture. The Mark Zuckerberg character performs the most
overt control exerted in the film: the network of his creation facilitates his control over both physical
and virtual relationships, as well as over the identity he constructs and projects as his Facebook
persona. The Social Network is relevant to its audience as a story they helped to create through
participation on Facebook, likewise demonstrating the audience’s own control over the film’s
outcome.
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Trailer for The Social Network (2010).
Although The Social Network is most representational of contemporary popular media culture, the
media consumption process exposed by Marclay’s film better maintains its original relevance. Film
and television may have changed hands in terms of content creation and composition but ultimately,
Marclay’s media-on-media control still rings true; seeing Up and Out still can influence how we
watch the dueling reels of Chelsea Girls while also bringing out the various relationships between
individuals and social media depicted in The Social Network. Up and Out demonstrates to its audience
members how they experience the entertainment and culture at their disposal. In short, similar to the
outcome of Blowup, Up and Out determines it not what we see but how we see what we see.
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Categories critique, film, interdisciplinary, local, popular culture, technology, video art, visual
culture
Author erin l.
Bifocal 9: The Recovery of Bruce and Breaking with
the Modern
12 Jun
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“No ‘theory’ of modernity makes sense today unless it comes to terms with the hypothesis of a
postmodern break with the modern.”
Excerpt from A Singular Modernity: Essay on the Ontology of the Present by Frederic Jameson, New
York, NY: Verso, 2002. Print.
Image: “Bruce,” still from Jaws (Steven Spielberg, 1975), image from chud.com
Categories art theory, authenticity, bifocal, destruction, film, popular culture, visual culture
Author erin l.
Visual Extras: Rachel Whiteread and SOIL in Residence
20 May
In “The 2010 Film Issue” of The Believer, Alex Rose writes on the bonus disc phenomenon and the
impact of its philosophy on contemporary culture. The bonus disc is the information excess and
readily available obscurity necessary to sell films to the mainstream in a digital age: the behindthe-scenes explanations, outtakes, extended interviews and director’s commentary. Rose argues that
many of the pleasures of experiencing these once unattainable features are lost in the present level of
media saturation:
“Call it the paradox of accessibility: as more and more shadowy items are brought to light, the allure
of their obscurity and uniqueness is compromised.” (Alex Rose, “Bonus Disc Fever,” The Believer
March/April 2010)
The bonus feature seems as though it should elicit a sense wonder because it represents something we
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have never seen; it has the potential to be the filmic equivalent of the stuffed dodo, the hidden crawl
space, the original, handwritten manuscript. Yet, as Rose concludes, typically DVD extras do not
equal any of these; rather, most are ancillary distractions from the original film.
There are both successful and unsuccessful “extras” in the visual arts as well. In light of Rose’s essay,
Rachel Whiteread Drawings at the Hammer Museum struck me as the behind-the-scenes category of
bonus materials, largely due to the exhibition text’s likening of the drawings to the artist’s diary. The
galleries were neatly separated by fixture or furniture element: one room for floors, one room for light
switches and door knobs, one room for the mattress. Within each space the featured element was
represented by one sculpture, the remainder of the room filled with drawings of the same form that
utilized graph paper, correction fluid and other materials referencing the drafting process. Yet, the
drawings appeared almost flawless, the perfection of the handwriting and preciseness of the painted
whiteout avoiding any question of whether they represented discarded versions of Whiteread’s
sculptural works; the drawings appeared to be independent works on paper, not the sketches or drafts
one would expect to find in a diary.
Rachel Whiteread. Correction fluid, ink and watercolor on graph paper. 17 7/8 x 12 in. (45.6 x 30.4
cm). Private Collection. Courtesy of the artist. Photo: Prudence Cuming Associates Ltd. Image from
hammer.ucla.edu
As the exhibition text noted, the drawings were, in fact, produced independently of the sculptures.
There is nothing wrong or unusual about an artist creating two related bodies of work simultaneously.
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However, the almost-perfect drawings on view at the Hammer offered limited insight into Whiteread’s
creative practice and conceptual frameworks, and I had hoped to find a revealing of process through
the prominent artist’s lesser known works. The drawings had their own beautiful qualities, but when
displayed beside the artist’s sculptures, they appeared insubstantial rather than supportive or in rich
dialogue with the better, three-dimensional works. Much like the lackluster DVD extra, the drawings
also did not provide the uniqueness or obscurity I was seeking.
It was easy enough to meander through room after room, admiring the drawings as beautiful objects,
but suddenly, at the end of the exhibition resided several vitrines of collaged postcards and curious
objects for which the preceding galleries provided little expectation. After the relative monotony of
drawings and sculptures formatted almost identically within the previous rooms, the messy magazine
cutouts and obscure remnants of ordinary life (shoe horns, dollhouse furniture, glass orbs and so much
more) were unexpected, feeling like extras among this exhibition of extras, except the vitrine contents
were what I had searched for the entire time. Here, among the manipulated photographs of houses and
various collections of glass bottles and plaster jaw molds, one could start to reconsider the concepts,
ideas and forms that came together to create the sculptures for which the artist is best known. The
obscure contents of the collages and vitrine objects do not add up cleanly to create the sampling of
works highlighted in the remainder of the galleries; this is precisely why these objects were
fascinating.
Rachel Whiteread. Vitrine Objects. Dimensions and Media variable. Private Collection. Courtesy of
the artist. Photo: Mike Bruce. Image from hammer.ucla.edu
Weeks after seeing Rachel Whiteread Drawings, my encounter with SOIL in Residence brought
Rose’s article to mind again, except this exhibition struck me more as the “extended scenes” bonus
feature. Expanding beyond the confines of the main SOIL space, SOIL in Residence is located in the
large, luxurious Suite 288 of the Seattle Design Center. The SOIL gallery in Pioneer Square is fairly
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standard for the neighborhood: a narrow, white cube with a small backspace, only slightly larger than
the size of a single apartment in Seattle. It typically features one or two individual artists or small
group shows. In contrast, SOIL in Residence includes the works of all twenty-four artists from the
collective. The exhibition occupies 11,000 square feet of a showcase space in the Design Center, the
“gallery” complete with commercial fixtures such as mirrors mounted to the walls, design sample
drawers, and assorted windows details scattered throughout the massive room.
SOIL in Residence installation view, Pacific Design Center; photo by Joey Veltkamp
There is something to be said for the limitations imposed by a small space, particularly in terms of
focus, presentation and selectivity; SOIL’s main space is effective in all of these regards. Yet, the
“extended version” on view at the Design Center provides a different understanding of SOIL itself.
DVD extras often have an arbitrary quality when viewed in light of the final film, hence their
omittance in the first place. However, knowing that a scene was ultimately cut from a feature does not
discourage our interest; the prospect of the unseen provokes curiosity and intrigue. The DVD extra
fails when it does not fulfill the promise of adding something new to our perspective of the film
without distracting from the completeness of the original cut.
SOIL in Residence does not merely succeed as an extra because it is a solid exhibition of its members’
works that compliments the original SOIL. The way these works of art are installed in the strange
showcase creates a synergy that could not be found in a gallery or any other conventional art setting.
Nicholas Nyland’s Mother admires its own vibrancy through a mirrored wall as its details and
complexities are highlighted through the inversion of its shape. The bed portion of Jennifer Zwick’s
Bed Dress speaks directly with the fixtures of its surroundings, the luminous fabric accented by the
home-friendly lighting levels designed to push furniture sales through this space.
The Design Center as a contemporary art space is obscure and unique, but the installation of SOIL in
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Residence would make one think otherwise; it is tempting to believe the exhibition was someone’s
genius idea years in the making, rather than the product of available space during a moment of
economic free fall. It is, in this sense, the elusive ideal extra: an offshoot of an original, yet perfectly
satisfying as an independent experience.
Categories art theory, authenticity, commodity, contemporary art, critique, exhibition, film,
interdisciplinary, local, museums, visual culture
Author erin l.
Bifocal 7: Back to the Future and Modernist Space
3 Mar
“Empty space becomes both fertile and intimidating in modernist special effects, like an extension of
Wagner’s blackened gulf between audience and the lit stage at Bayreuth. The blank and unobstructed
suggest absence as presence. This exposure was an invitation to add more special effects. After World
War II, these modernist spaces were filled very quickly. They were scripted to meet the consumer side
of entertainment that continued to grow. Finally they became very busy scripts indeed, particularly
after 1955.”
Excerpt from From the Vatican to Vegas: A History of Special Effects by Norman Klein, New York:
The New Press, 2004. Print.
Video: Back to the Future Part II (Robert Zemeckis, 1989).
Categories art theory, bifocal, commodity, excess, film, interdisciplinary, popular culture, visual
culture
Author erin l.
Bifocal 4: Fisher Body and WALL-E
6 Jan
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“At once avant and pop, horrendously bleak and cheerfully cute, WALL-E is the quintessential twentyfirst-century motion picture. Celebrating (or embalming) an obsolete technology, it’s the 2001 of
2008–a postphotographic film set in a posthuman universe.”
Excerpt from “21st Century Cinema: Death and Resurrection in the Desert of the (New) Real” by J.
Hoberman, Artforum International Dec. 2009: 210-29. Print.
Image: Scott Hocking, Ziggurat—East, Summer, Fisher Body Plant #21, 2008, Archival digital print.
Courtesy of the artist and Susanne Hilberry Gallery, Ferndale, MI.
Categories Artists, bifocal, commodity, decay, destruction, excess, film, popular culture, visual
culture
Author erin l.
Bifocal 2: Avatar and Superlatives
28 Dec
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“You go to Las Vegas precisely because you want to be overwhelmed by an excessive visual ordeal.
We define and describe spectacle by the use of superlatives, and Wynn tells you on his taped message
that his paintings are the ‘most expensive’ and ‘the best.’ The Guggenheim’s advertising offers the
viewer no less.”
Excerpt from In the Desert of Desire: Las Vegas and the Culture of Spectacle by William L. Fox,
Reno/Las Vegas: University of Las Vegas Press, 2005. Print.
Image: Still from Avatar. Photo courtesy of 20th Century Fox. Image from silive.com
Categories authenticity, bifocal, critique, excess, film, museology, museums, popular culture,
visual culture
Author erin l.
Entering the Pod: Ann Lislegaard and 2001
12 May
It is easy to forget the elevator at the Henry Art Gallery if it is not typically essential to your visit.
The elevator’s history may not be as rich as the wall dissected by Jen Graves, but this structure has
encased its own share of memorable, often subtler works. Currently, Ann Lislegaard’s sound
installation Science Fiction_3112 (after 2001: A Space Odyssey by Stanley Kubrick) inhabits the
space, serving as a portal between the outside world and Lislegaard’s three large scale video
installations below, in the Stroum Gallery.
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Image from Crystal World (after JG Ballard). Ann Lislegaard. 2005. 2-channel, 3-D animation with sound, two leaning screens. Image from
Ballardian.
Although I always appreciated the effect of finding art in the elevator during the time I spent
working/interning at the Henry (And Deer and Trees and Things by Cat Clifford was one of my
favorites), this use of the space strikes me as the most effective, ultimately enhancing my experience
of the exhibition overall. Particularly as someone with a limited history with science fiction (both in
terms of film and literature), the elevator became my point of entry for Ann Lislegaard: 2062.
The year 2001 has played an intermittent role throughout my life. The first time I was really aware of
its images was when the opening sequences were projected across the doors of my high school before
a senior party. I graduated in 2001, so the group of faculty members and parents planning the event
found 2001: A Space Odyssey’s prophetic insight appropriate for such an occasion even though many
among the graduating class had never seen it, myself included.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I2qNR6XHbs8
Trailer for 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968)
This year, 2001 finally made its way back to me, when it was the most appealing movie available “On
Demand.” The film’s level of impact on visual culture and its anticipation of our current dependence
on images almost goes without saying by this point, and that became obvious after seeing it once. A
few weeks later, I returned to 2001 again inside the pod-like environment of Henry’s elevator. This
time, it was in the form of Ann Lislegaard’s Science Fiction_3112, without any images; instead, the
two and a half hours of Kubrick’s carefully selected sounds and silences are distilled into less than
nine minutes of concentrated reverberations, instrumentation, and utterances, all contained within the
elevator as it moves (or remains closed and motionless) between the museum’s three floors.
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The theme of circularity permeates 2001: A Space Odyssey, and those were the images I clung to
while in the elevator. The view of the flight attendant walking along the wall and ceiling in a spiral as
she delivers a tray of liquid dinner to Dr. Floyd and the rotation of the Discovery 1 as an astronaut
exercises inside the perimeter were two moments that readily came to mind. Likewise, at the back of
Ann Lislegaard: 2062, a leaning black monolith, installed among the sounds of another film
influenced by 2001 (Close Encounters of the Third Kind), brings us back to the references inside the
elevator at the front of the exhibition. The focus of Ann Lislegaard: 2062 resides between these two
2001-related points of entry; yet the frame of Kubrick’s film reworked facilitates a deeper engagement
with the main video works for myself, the non-sci-fi inclined, ultimately demonstrating the
relationship science fiction maintains with universality through manipulations of time, sound and
image.
Comments 5 Comments
Categories peripheral vision, exhibition, local, contemporary art, interdisciplinary, video art,
film, visual culture, popular culture
Author erin l.
Gender Performances
7 Dec
WACK! Art and the Feminist Revolution is a monumental exhibition. Many excellent and thoughtful
reviews have articulated the impact, the astute curation, and the excitement. The aspect of the
exhibition I found particularly striking was the simultaneous meaning and accessibility of the thematic
organization. What could have so easily been dominated by jargon and an excess of theory was
resonant and readable, while actively refusing to oversimplify the works.
Although I had the inclination to ruminate over each theme, I was intrigued by “Gender
Performance”, which is articulated on MoCA’s WACK! website: “Gender Performance groups
works of film, photography, video, and performance in which artists deconstruct the cultural
construction of gender as a category of identity”. Works within this theme include pieces by Sanja
Iveković, Suzy Lake, Cindy Sherman, Dara Birnbaum and Adrian Piper, among others. This category
was one of the more intriguing in the exhibition when considered in terms of how the images the
artists were manipulating and transforming relate to present constructions of the female identity in
mainstream artistic media such as film and photography.
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Installation view of WACK! Art and the Feminist Revolution at The Geffen Contemporary at MOCA,
2007, photo by Brian Forrest. ARTISTS (L–R): Katharina Sieverding, Niki de Saint Phalle, Jean
Tinguely, and Per Olof Ultvedt, ORLAN; image from MOCA.
In 1974, Molly Haskell examined the previous five decades of how women had been portrayed in film
through her book From Reverence to Rape: The Treatment of Women in the Movies. Haskell
concludes that films made prior to the strict enforcement of the Production Code in 1934 were more
experimental in many ways than the films created in subsequent decades, and her exploration of “The
Woman’s Film” creates an interesting dialogue with the concepts explored in WACK!’s Gender
Performance.
Haskell defines the Woman’s Film as a genre from the 1930s and 40s in which the woman is at the
movie’s forefront:
“If a woman hogs this universe unrelentingly, it is perhaps her compensation for all the
male-dominated universes from which she has been excluded: the gangster film, the Western, the war
film, the policier, the rodeo film, the adventure film…The well of self-pity in both [the Woman's Film
and the male-dominated genres], though only hinted at, is bottomless, and in their sublimation or
evasion of adult reality, they reveal, almost by accident, real attitudes toward marriage–
disillusionment, frustration, and contempt– beneath the sunny-side-up philosophy congealed in the
happy ending” (155-56).
Many of the films Haskell describes as falling under the Woman’s Film genre would not necessarily
be described as feminist when viewed in terms of their narratives and frequently conventional
construction of the female characters. Their significance resides in their presentation of female
priorities and fantasies during the 1930s and 40s, when this perspective was missing from mainstream
media:
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“Because the woman’s film was designed for and tailored to a certain market, its recurrent themes
represent the closest thing to an expression of the collective drives, conscious and unconscious, of
American women, of their avowed obligations and their unconscious resistance.” (168)
The Woman’s Film ceased to exist in the 1950s, with the availability of television for the housewives
who comprised much of the market for the genre. As Dara Birnbaum’s Technology/Transformation:
Wonder Woman (included in WACK!’s Gender Performances) suggests, unlike the Woman’s Film,
television and other areas of visual culture may have included a presence of female characters but the
programs were created in such a way that the image they constructed of women and femininity was
often destructive and regressive.
Dara Birnbaum, Technology / Transformation: Wonder Woman, 1976
Despite the passage of almost thirty years since From Reverence to Rape was written, women are still
considered to be a “niche audience” by the movie industry, as evidenced by the unexpected success of
Sex and the City, which bears some relation to the Woman’s Film of the 30s and 40s. Described as an
“unconventional hit” by The New York Times, Sex and the City was certainly noteworthy for the age of
its characters; the portrayal of middle aged women as a strong, intelligent, sexy people was all but
entirely absent from film thirty years ago. Yet the ending of Sex and the City still returns to the
“sunny-side-up” happy, conventional marriage.
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Sex and the City, image from New York Magazine
In contrast, Twilight is a very flawed film, and the book series is regressive through its highly
problematic suppression of female sexuality (The Atlantic presents an interesting but romanticized
view on this aspect of the series; Skepchick offers a more critical examination. Also worth
considering is Roger Ebert’s striaghtforward reading). Nevertheless, the movie has found massive
success in appealing to the fantasies of many teenage females through the actions of Bella Swan, a
fairly unconventional mainstream female character (during the poorly written inner monologues of
the book, she is at least presented as introspective and intelligent with less conventional interests than
shopping and gossiping with the other female characters) who also has a strong affinity for masochism
(she is infatuated with a vampire who simultaneously wants to have her as a lover and kill her).
Both Sex and the City and Twilight include facets of the original Woman’s Film: one presents a more
complete and meaningful image of the middle aged women, the other features a less conventional
female character who exhibits internal and external levels of self. The popularity of these films offer
the possibility that the female audience may more significantly affect mainstream media in the future.
However each film’s problems also suggest how popular culture has not learned as much from
Haskell’s and Birnbaum’s critiques as we would have hoped.
Categories contemporary art, critique, exhibition, film, interdisciplinary, peripheral vision,
video art, visual culture
Author erin l.
Images in Search of a Narrative
12 Oct
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Jeremy Shaw’s 7 Minutes is an arresting work of video art. Currently in the loop of 25 videos that
comprise Thermostat: Video and the Pacific Northwest in SAM’s Ketcham Forum Gallery, I pass the
installation daily when moving between my cube and the museum galleries. I also passed it daily for
a period of time while working at the Henry, where it was installed on the screen near the door for the
Mouth Open, Teeth Showing exhibition last year (see a write up by Adriana Grant of the Seattle
Weekly for a plot synopsis). Both installation spaces are transitional, with Shaw’s blurred figures
entering their hazy fistfights among intermittent foot traffic. Of the 25 videos cycling through
Thermostat, 7 Minutes is the only one I cannot pass without stopping, drawn into the simple sequence
immediately: push, punch, fall, recover.
Jeremy Shaw. 7 Minutes. 1995/2002. Video installation. Image from Courisane.be
Inevitably, 7 Minutes has more narrative structure than other videos in Thermostat, such as the
pigeons eating rhythms on electric guitars in Ron Tran’s The Peckers. Beyond its filmic structure, 7
Minutes establishes a direct relationship with the spectator in a way that contributes to its draw. In the
video, a group of spectators surround the action, including Shaw and his camera. The viewers of the
video become part of that group, either by intentionally seeking out the installation or happening upon
it the same way passersby are naturally stopped by an actual fight.
In his essay “Imaginary Signifier”, Christian Metz explores the role of the spectator in cinema:
“…the spectator is absent from the screen as perceived, but also (the two things inevitably go
together) present there and even “all-present” as perceiver. At every moment I am in the film by my
look’s caress. The presence often remains diffuse, geographically undifferentiated, evenly distributed
over the whole surface of the screen; or more precisely hovering, like the psychoanalyst’s listening,
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ready to catch on preferentially to some motif in the film…” (Film: Psychology, Society, and Ideology
732)
In 7 Minutes, we as spectators become part of the conflict through the camera’s presence during the
actual altercation; in the camera’s absence, it is difficult to anticipate how the violence would have
proceeded (would things have been more violent in the absence of a permanent record of the event or
less violent without the heightened drama of the camera added to the situation?).
In contrast, Suzanne Opton’s Soldier’s Face series creates the presence of the camera in places where
it is absent- areas of American military presence. In Iraq in particular, American citizens are not
Metz’s perceivers, due to the lack of media imagery available. Films and documentaries such as Iraq
in Fragments create an opportunity to experience Iraq visually, but not in an immediate way. Opton’s
photographs are similar to Shaw’s video in that they are equally arresting, inviting perceivers into a
very present, violent narrative.
Suzanne Opton. Soldier Morris, Fort Drum, NY: 100 Days in Iraq. 2005. Lambda Print. Image from
Stephen Cohen Gallery.
However, Opton’s narrative begins through an emotional view of the soldiers that creates a different
sense of immediacy, in the absence of dialogue or being shot “on-location”. The movie still-like
images instead suggest the larger narrative by provoking some of the same questions as 7 Minutes
(who is this person, what has happened to him/her, why has it happened). These photographs
ultimately make viewers aware of what they are not seeing on the news at this very moment. Not
surprisingly, as The Guardian reported, it was CBS Outdoor, owned by CBS news, who refused to
post the images as billboards during the Republican National Convention this year, preferring to keep
the narrative continuously out of sight.
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Opton’s work is on view at Stephen Cohen Gallery in Los Angeles through October 25.
Categories art theory, contemporary art, critique, exhibition, film, interdisciplinary, peripheral
vision
Author erin l.
Identity Queue
15 Sep
As I sit in my living room, directly opposite a pile of three unwatched Netflix discs, I can’t help but
think of John Swansburg’s recent analysis of this topic in Slate (via Paul Constant on Slog). The
desire for relaxation is undoubtedly a reasonable understanding of why genocide, trauma, subtitles,
and experimental structure are unappealing enough to avoid a film for weeks. However, also
interesting to consider is the role of the Netflix Queue in the neglect of films.
Swansburg separates the desire of seeing a film from the reality of actually watching one. He suggests
the importance of time and emotional state to actually experiencing a movie:
“If you don’t get to it, maybe it’s because you’re a bad person who turns a blind eye to unspeakable
tragedy. But maybe it’s just because you’re not quite in the mood for it right now. Perhaps in a few
months the disc will again reach the top of your queue and you’ll tear it out of the envelope and throw
it into the Toshiba the day it arrives in the mail. In the meantime, you can get started on a good
Paleolithic kick.” (“A Very Long Engagement” 2)
The question of the Queue arises when one considers the appeal of appearing a balanced film
aficionado over appearing as an ordinary person with bad or limited taste. The Queue provides a
straightforward compilation of one’s preferences, and to some extent, personality. Similar to the
mixed tape, it can be understood as an opportunity to create an external projection of the self that
reflects opinions, emotional range, aspirations, and intentions.
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Netflix Queue image from DUKES on Flickr
Example of the meaning of the mixed tape and its relationship to narcissism in High Fidelity
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There are many manifestations of the use of art to project one’s online personality onto a global
screen; the Facebook offers a plethora of art “applications” to add to one’s profile imagery, such the
“Art” art gallery application, “ArtShare”, and “Send Art”. All of these profile additions achieve a
similar use of preferences in the artistic realm to communicate the self to all surrounding Facebook
friends through images that have become popular cultural icons somehow representing an aspect of
one’s personality. Yet the visual depictions that actually appear on one’s profile (with the exception of
ArtShare) are typically so small and of such low resolution that they become distant representations of
the works they depict, leaving one to wonder the value of posting images only recognizable by the
printed text beneath them.
The queue is more interesting in certain respects, because of film’s relationship with the perceived
identity/reality dichotomy. In “Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema”, Laura Mulvey writes,
“The cinema satisfies a primordial wish for pleasurable looking, but it also goes further, developing
scopophilia in its narcissistic aspect. The conventions of mainstream film focus attention on the
human form. Scale, space, stories are all anthropomorphic. Here, curiosity and the wish to look
intermingle with a fascination with likeness and recognition: the human face, the human body, the
relationship between human form and its surroundings, the visible presence of the person in the
world.” (Film: Psychology, Society, and Ideology 749)
The film projects human likeness onto the screen; the Netflix Queue offers a catalogue of the human
condition to select from and compose into a flawless persona shared with the online community , as
well as though opportunities to point out in real conversation “Oh, that’s in my queue.” In contrast to
the Facebook art applications (as well as to film itself), the Netflix Queue produces something
tangible that arrives regularly in one’s mailbox, with the potential of becoming actual experience.
This is unusual for virtual personality projections. However, when one’s self-created film identity on
Netflix faces off with reality, as Swansburg’s article argues, the Netflix identity loses as we rush to the
video store in search of something we actually want to watch. Or perhaps to YouTube, where one can
find something entertainingly identifiable occuping a shorter period of time.
Categories critique, film, interdisciplinary, peripheral vision
Author erin l.
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Media Control 2010: Up and Out, Chelsea Girls, and The Social

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