I am writing a response to the video Tooba, made by Shirin Neshat we watched this thursday at the Seattle Asian Art Museum. The first time I watched the video, I watched it the way the artist wanted the viewer to watch it, I moved my head back and forth about every other moment to see what was happening in either video. It was very intense this way, and it made me fear for the woman in the tree. The second time I watched it, I watched the video of the woman, the sound effected me very much. Until I saw the people, I had no idea what was happening around her, the sound hinted that something bad was happening, and I was glad she vanished. The third time I watched it I watched the video of the people, it seemed very ritualistic, and sort of obsessive, the sound also worked very well with the video. Before reading the "about the artist" and learning more about what the piece meant, I got a vibe that the woman and the tree were a symbol for the earth, and the people were on the earth or her and the tree, just because the way the were effected by the earth was formed it seemed like they were struggling through it. And then when they came to the tree to sort of "honor" it... I don't know that was just my feeling.
The video was really the epitome of Object and Space, there are many examples, for starters, the video of the woman starts with just her eye, where the other video starts with the sky, as the eye moves out, the sky moves in. The video of the woman keeps the video within the space that is created by the bricks until the people dive in. And the different angles of both videos presented when the people on the outside of the bricks really sort of creates the space for the viewer all around them, which I really loved, because we sort of were the tree's view. I feel like the placement of the lens was purposeful, and as the viewer was seeing an image they were turning into either a character within the video, or an idea in the video, if that makes sense...
I really liked this video, and I think if I were to know more about the background of the video it would have been very easy to see where the artist was coming from.
It was beautifully made.