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Weekend Review: Freewaves New Media Arts Festival

FREEWAVES

By Paige Parker
DAILY BRUIN CONTRIBUTOR
pparker@media.ucla.edu

The lights are dim and the low hum coming from the hundreds of film projectors is jumbled and incoherent. To the left of the entrance doors is a large projection of a black dog meandering in the middle of a busy road, dangerously avoiding being hit by speeding cars. Lining the walls of the upstairs are numerous other projections, one of which is displaying flashing images of people and what appear to be nonsense words.

Upstairs a fairly large crowd has gathered around a particular projection of an expressionless Asian man being slapped on the cheek over and over again. A few viewers wince, but most just stare, wide-eyed and solemn, unable to avert their eyes from the stunningly calm victim of monotonous abuse. And it only gets weirder.

Freewaves, a media art organization, presented the open-ended question "Too Much Freedom?" to thousands of artists around the world, and chose 150 entries for the video and new media art exhibit. Documentaries, animated film and digital technology were among the featured works.

The artists responded to the word "freedom" in terms of political freedom, and most noticeably artistic freedom, as they created pieces to perplex and challenge the viewer's take on reality. Some pieces are so ridiculously illogical they go so far as to make you wonder: What in the world does that have to do with freedom?

Another wall displays a large naked man flapping his arms and jumping up and down in a green field (talk about freedom), a piece titled "Icarus – A Yearning to Fly" by Eva Drangsholt.

The confusion and bewilderment the artists succeed in evoking is predictable, seeing that the question "Too Much Freedom?" challenges the artist to go above and beyond what is considered conventional art. It is not only the baffling and nonsensical subject matter, but also the overwhelming context in which it is presented as an exhibit, that emphasizes the artists' attempts to express freedom as something unlimited.

With video installations lining the walls one after the other, laptops set on tables, and a few television sets scattered here and there, the exhibit is overwhelming to say the least – there are too many random images and sounds working to confuse the senses and mind. But it is clear that the chaotic jumble is no misstep on the curators' part (of which there are 10 from multiple countries around the world). The exhibit is meant to do just that: confuse.

It is a difficult task to explore such an exhibit; the videos are continuously running, making it unlikely for a viewer to see a piece from start to finish, and it is easy to walk past a projection that at first glance appears dull or repetitive. (How long can you watch a close-up of a woman chewing gum and blowing bubbles? The obnoxious smacking sound is enough to make one cringe.)

Although it may be a challenge to sit through an entire video, jumping quickly from one scene to the next only increases the feeling of confusion. In order to truly appreciate the art form, one has to accept that some of the pieces are literally nonsense and excruciatingly uneventful. And the endings are so frustratingly inconclusive it is difficult to decipher where one piece ends and another begins.

As would be expected from a video/media art exhibit titled "Too Much Freedom?" (a phrase that dares the artist to create something that challenges and defies society's view of artistry), it is bizarre and provocative, accomplishing what it set out to do: give artists the chance to express artistic freedom, and give viewers the chance to experience it.