Bruce Nauman and Charlemagne Palestine

Bruce Naumen's pieces are very interesting and everything he did from his walk to stomping is exaggerated. In Walking in an Exaggerated Manner Around the Perimeter of a Square Naumen walks around a large square that was either taped or drawn to the floor. He walked swaying his hips from right to left in a straight line until he hits the edge of the square in which he then turns and walks following the lines. He does a series of going backward and forward over and over again. This reminded me of a catwalk that models do because he kept a very emotionless face while walking in a very haughty fashion. When he hit the corner he would look straight ahead, keep his head there while his body turned then finally turned his head which is a very important characteristic to catwalking...looking at the "audience" even though you're body is turning. The way he walked reminded me of beginner gymnasts on a balance beam trying not to fall off the apparatus, or in his case a line. Naumen looks down once and awhile to check and make sure he's on the line and at times seem wobbly. The way the camera was situated really bothered me because there was that one corner on the left that I could not see...and even though I knew what he was doing (walking like a model) because I couldn't see him made me curious...did he change his walk in that corner and am I ever going to find out what he was doing there if he was doing anything at all?
Naumen's second piece Stamping in the Studio was a very interesting piece because he used technology, in this case the camera and flipped the image upside down. It gave the illusion that he was walking on the ceiling in a very haphazard yet calm way. There didn't seem to be any specific route that he was following but he didn't make very sharp turns...things were flowy and he made circular patterns. As he stomped he had a very fast foot work and only his right foot actually made the stomping noise, his left foot did more of a scuff across the floor. There was a rhythm to his footwork, it almost had a beat to it. As he walked it was the opposite of the exaggerated walk in the previous video...his hips didn't move and his arms stayed still...this time he isolated his exaggeration to his feet (the stomping) whereas before the isolation of exaggeration was in the hips. Naumen does exaggerates what people do in daily life, in this case walk, but his exaggerations were very small in the sense that he isolated the exaggerations to a specific body section.

Charlemagne Palestine's Island Song made me kind of sick to watch because I get motion sickness from this type of filming style, very much like the video games people play these days (halo, counterstrike etc). It was a very interesting video in the sense tha it was attached to the body and we are put in the position of being that body...we see what the artist see's taking the footage to a personal level. It would be equivalent to a virtual reality game where you are running through virtual situations that aren't real, but because you have become the "eyes" it becomes more real. It reminds me of when I'm on my scooter driving around Berkeley, because motorcycles are so small there are so many more places and boundaries a person can cross on that type of vehicle. As for what Palestine was saying, his voice reminded me of Bert on Sesame Street and it sounded a little bit disturbing. It made me worry because the artist didn't seem to be in the right state of mind while riding a motorvehicle. How Palestine said "okay yeah haha" repeadedly reminds me of a nintendo game called mario cart where characters race through different obstacle courses and randomly there would be a voice of encouragement. Finishing with the sound of the ocean was a sign of relief for us as viewers because Palestine didn't crash...it was the finishing point.