Burden/Fox - Response 1

I began by reading the titles of each artist’s work and deciphering what they may hint about each film. Chris Burden’s title “Documentation of Selected Works 1971-74” is rather dull and uncreative, and gives me no sense as to the topic of the film other than a portfolio of his work. Terry Fox’s title “Children’s Tapes” seems to have a more specific topic relating to children, but as to what they may be doing is ambiguous. Both film titles left me in suspense.

Before reading Chris Burden’s film “Documentation of Selected Work 1971-74”, I read the description and knew I was in for a grueling thirty minutes. When I read that his work primarily dealt with “the psychological experience of danger, pain, and physical risk, the aggressive abuse of the body as an art object”, I wondered how he could think of pain as art. Each clip shows Burden’s fascination on making pain to both himself and the audience, both mentally and physically. I feel like he was creating nightmares into reality as he willingly toyed with the idea of being shot, burned, drowned, and electrocuted. Why would he ever pursue these insane acts of pain? In particular, I had the most interest in how he could stay in bed for 22 days. It is hard enough sleeping in an extra hour or two, what was his reaction after getting out for a day? I also wondered what the effects of breathing in water may have on the body and how he recovered from so many of the painful experiences he went through.

Terry Fox’s “Children Tapes” was very different from that of Chris Burden’s work. The lack of descriptions and titles for each clip made me wonder what would happen next. I was always on the end of my seat trying to guess what was happening. Terry used suspense and very clever angles to film these fascinating science fair tricks. It was definitely far from what I had first thought the title of this film would be about; rather than watching children, I was watching a film that would be perfect for a third grade science class.

Both films took steps of suspense to reach the final result that felt so rewarding. Each film kept me asking why and how this ever would happen. While I felt that Terry’s filming was much more interesting and tolerable and Burden’s work was disturbing and predictable, both films were very powerful.