Response 3 - Richard Serra

In Richard Serra’s Boomerang, a woman is being placed as the object of an experiment in which she gives first hand observations. The unrehearsed nature of the video allows for a realistic look at the effects that echoing one’s words has on the speaker. The continuous echoing of every word tests the woman’s ability to focus on her thoughts and articulate her speech. At first, the woman has a challenging time with the repetition that is “slowing her down and makes thinking tougher,” which is visible by her frequent pauses. But by the end of the film, the lady became accustomed to the bothersome repetitions and unexpected sounds. This video used a type of feedback, where the words were being repeated back and the lady would change what subject matter she talked about and the way she went about talking. When I stopped the film at the end and began to talk with people, I felt like I was put in the place of the woman on screen. I even delayed my speech as I waited for the words of our conversation to be repeated. I related with the observations that she felt during the test as I felt an “outer body experience.”

The second video of Richard Serra, Television Delivers People has a clearly articulated message that is portrayed rather by text instead of sound. The topic of this video focuses on the political and economic tendencies of television. Instead of appealing to the audience with action and talking, which many advertisements use to get the attention of their consumers, Serra takes a different approach by making the words the main focus. Rather than being in control of what one buys, Serra hints at how television is just the device by which the viewer’s choice is manipulated and placed in the control of corporations. I found it interesting how Serra kept addressing different ways in which people are delivered and then would continuously show the line “You are the product of television” in a way to connect the whole message of the video to one phrase that persuades the viewer to believe the line. The video is very convincing and makes one think twice before getting hooked on the propaganda that television delivers.