I know I have a tendency towards sweeping generalizations, but I do believe a book in hand is better than a high speed connection. A vinyl record is better than an mp3, and a film in a movie theater is better than a movie on your computer.
The more I study contemporary video art, the more I like feature films, cinema and the art of movies rather than the dry, cerebral, theoretical, conceptual stuff I see in the art world version of the moving image.
Yes, I know I haven't seen much of it in the gallery setting, just on youtube, in books, and rented videos or DVDs. But their concepts don't seem to relate to me much in the way that the best of cinema does. Though I've never been a street hood, I saw myself and my friends in Mean Streets. Though I've never been a traveling circus performer, I empathized with both Zampano and Gelsomina from La Strada. I just don't see myself in Mathew Barney's cremaster cycle or Bruce Nauman walking around a square.
I probably need to see more contemporary stuff.
I'm following a thread that I picked up when I read an article on Rear Window in the latest Aperture. I've been having fun going to the library and looking through the card catalogue to find books, search and rescue. You look for one book, maybe find it, maybe not, maybe find something else just as good. There is something old fashioned and satisfying in doing actual hands on research after looking at so much crap on the web for so long.
When the damn program uploads my pictures I'll delete this sentence and call it an entry.
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