Medium and Form

One of the things that Nasrin asked us to think about last class was the pragmatics of form, and how a carefully chosen format can be a powerful experience. I felt that the most evident example is the sculpted interview with NourbeSe Philip and The Empire, as that piece is full of history, passion, accusation and thought. I found it more challenging to think through Steve’s Reich musical composition and Kamal Aljafari film. Their pieces are calming experiences, both are beautifully meditative. Reich’s piece is a collaboration with an entire orchestra and although there are playful divergent and tangents there is never a soloist – the ensemble is always active. Yet, it continues to evolve into different parts and phases – in class we described this evolution as cuts. Aljafari’s film is mostly still containing lengthy shots that bring the viewer into a habitual moment. He too experiments with cuts but in a meditative form where the viewer is brought into a reflective and serene space. I think that the emotional responses prominent in the film and the piece of music are fostered through these camouflaged cuts that are possible to conjure in both sound and image. In Reich’s piece, the rhythm is camouflaged to create a sonic oasis. In Aljafari’s film he too creates an oasis that is almost strictly still and visual, the only movement being natural, coming from the subjects of the shot. When thinking of form and medium I begin to think of artist as synonymous with editor, cutting things together to demonstrate, expose an underlying evolving truth that we often disregard in the rush of our lives. In this case, these two mediums work to slow us down.