Burden/Fox Response

My first impression of the Chris Burden piece is that it was rather macabre. He's seemed to be fascinated with death and pain. He subjects to his body to dramatic extremes, and his dedication and strong self-perception as a performance artist is clearly captured in this video. As the video goes on, he seems downright masochistic. Burning himself, electrocuting himself, drowning himself, pretending to be run over; all of these pieces seem to try to evoke a visceral response. I felt shock and horror that this man would subject himself to such painful processes. some of them could have been tortures, but Burden willingly went through them. The impression I got about Chris Burden was that he was possibly insane. But then again, compared to some of the things the Jackass movies show, this video isn't that bad.

The elevator piece was also very interesting, because he described himself as an "aggressive artist" who was "threatening audiences" before the video. The power relationship was emphasized in this video. It seems to be in the hands of the volunteer, who stands in the dominant position over the prone Burden, and is sticking pins in Burden. But then again, the volunteer is merely following the directions on the sign, so who is really in power?

Also interesting is the documentary style presentation. His narration gives a more comprehensive view of the pieces, lets us into his thoughts, and also gives him a chance for reflection. It's almost like a video diary. In this early stage, it seems the video was not so much as the medium of expression as it was an unfocused-upon bystander. All of the pieces documented in this video were performed for a group of audience members, meant to be seen live. And while the medium of video allows the pieces to be seen by a wider audience, this medium still fails to be as intense as watching these pieces in real life, as Burden himself states. Still, this medium allows access to such performances that would otherwise have been lost.

Terry Fox uses close-up shots of very simple items to create a sense of anticipation. It seems very experimental, like the other videos we've watched, as he does seemingly random things and really uses the medium to explore our curiosity and patience. It's interesting that he calls it the children's tapes, and they do seem to be the types of things that children might do as simple science experiments, but the elegance of the underlying science involved is really emphasized through the simple presentation. Fox was clearly no child, and perhaps was trying to express that there is a inner child that likes to play in all of us. This video was not as emotionally involving as Chris Burden's, yet nonetheless was very cool.