Locative Media & The City

Looking back on the film we watched by Vertov, Man With a Movie Camera has a lot to say when considering the context in which the film was viewed. After doing some research on what Vertov was up to with this experiment, I came to find out he attempting to abandon what he considered film clichés. He had actively criticized narrative style films supporting Communist ideas and as a result of this he lost his job.

The interesting thing about this movie is that it is not only very experimental for its time, but it was created under the politically oppressive rule of Lenin. This is interesting for artists like ourselves, because although we are free to express ourselves as we want, there is always someone watching. There is always someone who might not agree with what the artist is doing and will stop at no ends to either bring it to negative connotations or shut the operation down entirely. This can be seen with our dear friend Mr. Kurtz on the visual art side of the CFA. We have to be careful with what we are doing or be prepared to accept the consequences of our actions. In our day and age, this might be a bit harder than it used to be.

Vertov was doing something interesting by capturing "life as it is" or the image of "life unawares." Obviously some of the scenes are contrived. However, this still serves as an interesting record of what life was like back then. We can make many inferences of how the city operated. This same idea might be useful when applied to the dereive. Why not videotape the whole experience and then edit and relive it again for people to discover in the years to come? Although its not very entertaining (maybe it is) there still might be some value to the footage of a random walking throughout a city.