response 6: Nauman and Palestine

Before watching the Bruce Nauman videos, I read the interview and found it hard to conceptualize what exactly were his pieces and videos were like. I got a sense of the overall concept but the details were blurry to me. And after watching the videos, I saw what Nauman was describing. So to me, actually seeing something visual and concrete makes a much more impact to viewers, rather than just trying to visualize it inside the viewer's head. In the beginning of "Walking Around in an Exaggerated Manner Around the Perimeter of a Square," he played around and contorted his face and neck, which made me think more about his idea of body awareness. And I think that it was a good introduction to the video of him walking along the perimeter of square. He goes from the awareness of his skin on his face and neck to the awareness of the body as a whole relative to its surroundings: the mirror, the walls, the ground, the air, the camera. For some time the camera does not capture him walking at the bottom right corner, which he said was intentional and I think that it was a really good idea to do that to show the concept of body awareness. The viewer knew he was there, still walking slowly even though he was not in view of the camera. Another point I noticed was that I did not know what kind of "exaggerated manner" he was referring to at first, and after seeing the first step he took I saw that it was the way he swayed his hips each time he stepped. When he did it I laughed pretty much throughout the whole video even though he did it repeatedly, which also ties in to what he said about reactions in his interview. It was the mixture of him swaying his hips and him being a man swaying his hips.
In "Stamping in the Studio," I was not quite as amused but it was still interesting how it connected with "Vertical Roll" and "Boomerang" in the sense that it dealt with attacking the senses. The sound and video were not in sync which made me confused like those other videos. What also made me confused, but only for a second, was the way in which the video was presented. The fact that the camera was upside-down while he was stomping on the ground made it look as if he was stomping on the ceiling. It attacked my sense of sight as well, and I wanted to watch the video upside-down. Another attack was on my legs; I wanted to stomp with him each time I heard the sounds and watched him do it. It was like an impulse, as if it was a dance to the beat of a drum.

In "Island Song," Charlemagne Palestine also dealt with sound and video, except he did not deal with the body in the way Nauman did. Nauman showed his body but Palestine did not. The camera was taped to Palestine as he drove throughout the island on a motorcycle. This video was amusing as well because of the way his voice sort of imitated what a motor would sound like if it had a voice. The way he used the bumpy roads to vibrate his vocals reminded me of when I was little and did that on bumpy car rides and rollercoaster rides, which I'm sure other people can relate to as well. When he sings it feels like it's kind of free in a way, but it still feels contained. Maybe it is in how he just repeats what he sings and hums. Also, the video shows what tunnel-vision is like while driving because it only shows what's in front of him and not all around him. I think that this shows that all he was focused on was what was in front of him and how he would "get outta here." It also ends with a view of the horizon and the endless sea before him, which is in a way a metaphor as well for not being able to escape from the island.