[-empyre-] Artwork #2: Bill Santen - Dark Green

[Daniel Lichtman]

Response to Bill Santen - Dark Green

-camera on tripod. lights on stands casting shadows—amateur home TV studio
setup
-woman on camera talking to.. camera person? viewer?
-lyrical but clipped mode of speech. unclear (at early point in the film)
if directed or improvised
-discussion of survival clothing, survival equipment. cut to same scene
with tent set up.
-woman says ‘cut’—who is in control? artist/director? woman character?
which one profits from this video? if woman is telling ‘her own story’
rather than performing a role devised by the artist, whose story is it (the
video itself) in the end? Appearance of negotiation between artist and
character.
-Music at 3mins creates feeling of TV show. woman’s role subsumed into
artist’s vision, executed through editing and framing.
-Woman’s voice-over while watching her walk on the street, she discusses
her interactions with people in public. relates it to 9/11, George W. Bush,
terrorism. Distant shot of woman walking across horizon. For me tension
grows in negotiation between woman as character representing herself, and
character framed and presented by artist. I’m drawn to the character, and
even more drawn to this tension.
-Melancholy. character arriving in park to camp out as the world ends.
-scripted “good night moon. you know what back-packer magazine says—pity
people that stay in places with only five stars. cut.”
-woman: “from now on I will get off your case. from now on you can record
or shoot anything you want” woman: “I want to apologize if you feel that I
am exploiting you to make my point” tension between woman character owning
‘the story’ and artist editor owning ‘the story’ peaks and dissolves at
same time.
-relation between end of world narrative and negotiation of ownership,
question of authenticity of a message, poetics and vernacular of personal
struggle (and idiosyncrasy) with struggle on level of civilization and
planet

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