Response 3: Boomerang/Television Delivers People

Boomerang was quite boring for me because it was so repetitive. Although the lady does say different things, the subject is focused on her experience with the echo-producing device. She just keeps talking about how surreal everything seems and how the echo seems to slow down and interrupt her thought processes. In a way, the echoes and her broken speech seem to have slowed down my thought processes as well. The echoing drags her words down, making it seem like she’s stuttering or speaking in slow motion. But at the same time, the words are bouncing off of the walls, making everything chaotic and difficult to understand. Since I am so used to the flow of natural speech, the echoing effect really distracts from what the woman is saying. It sounds similar to the broken speech of someone attempting to say something in a new language.

Although it had much less motion, Television Delivers People was much more dynamic for me. I got excited right at the beginning because the words began to scroll like the introductions in Star Wars. Though I was a bit disappointed at the lack of light sabers and spaceships, my attention was quickly caught by the intriguing words that were scrolling across my screen. “The Product of Television, Commercial Television, is the Audience.” What? With these words, I was enraptured by the words that followed as I tried to understand what Richard Serra meant with this cryptic phrase.

Somehow, this video reminded me of an essay. It begins with a thesis, “The Product of Television, Commercial Television, is the Audience,” and then proceeds to reinforce its thesis by stating a string of information about how television serves as a medium to serve the “consumers” to the advertisers. Although the statements may or may not be true, the whole piece is very effective. It’s like a propaganda piece, complete with a happy tune, designed to tell people not watch commercial television.