007_ Podcast

Here is our class podcast:

Audio For Spaces

Audio works made to experience in specific spaces and places by the Spring 2008 Time Arts class at UIUC.

006_ Reaction to Martha Rosler's "In, Around and Afterthoughts"

Rosler begins by describing documentary work as a form of moralism, in that, the rhetoric and presentation, be it video or photograph, describes not only a situation but a social, political or personal structure taken place within a given space. I enjoyed when Rosler describes documentary as something with a higher purpose and usually involves many dualities (ie oppressor/victum, equality/disaster) to pose a possible solution to an ambiguous problem. Therefore, "documentary is a little like horror movies, putting a face on fear and transforming threat into fantasy, into imagery" (179). This relationship between the viewer and the actuality is obscured through a series of transitional techniques by the producer and what information is actually hidden within this content. Furthermore, the "social institutions serve one class by legitimating and enforcing its domination while hiding behind the false mantle of even-handed universality necessitates an attack on the monolithic cultural myth of objectivity (transparency, unmediatedness)" (188). Although a bit wordy, Rosler describes the power structures within "what you see and what you get" out of documentary work, in that the it speaks and claims ownership of all truth within a given story. Therefore, perhaps we need to be more critical of how a cut is supposed to make us feel as an audience and the decisions of the "making of" documentary work.