To start off, I wanted to comment on her video. Right when I began watching the video, I received this sense of eeriness. Only seeing lips and listening to this chanting/humming really made that video a spooky one. I suppose the spooky aura in her video was necessary for the point she was trying to convey. The way I see it, Lorna Simpson was illustrating the oppression African Americans had to suffer. The video showed lips of various people; however, none of them were talking. It was all humming and chanting: something that requires little effort. African Americans were stripped of their rights and were treated lesser than humans. The humming and chanting in the video represents what little freedom they had. Speaking up was out of the question because they would either be ignored or penalized. Therefore, all they could really do was hum and create soft sounds. Through this video, Simpson demonstrated the times when African Americans were ridiculed and insulted.
I decided to post this picture of a mouse in a maze because I think it links with the way African Americans were treated. The mouse is set loose to go anywhere it wants within the maze. Although, that is all it can do: it cannot go anywhere else. I find this similar to the way African Americans were treated. Even though they were allowed to go about and do their own thing, there was a constant string pulling them back. African Americans were restricted in many ways compared to others. This relates the mouse in the maze because the person that let them in is in constant control of the mouse. The person would be the string pulling the rat back in this case.
I think it's great that you mentioned chanting in the video. It definitely made me thing about African tribes and possibly her wanting to make a connection with that past. I agree, the lips are very eerie to watch.
ReplyDeleteIt also makes me think about the connection to slavery. Like you said, they couldn't speak out against their masters and all they could do was sing songs about their lives and toils.
I didn't think about the lips in connection to slavery, I thought of it like Paulina, a connection to her past. I didn't see it as a negative art piece, even though it was "eerie" and almost hard to look at for the whole time. I saw it kind of nostalgically, as if she wants to portray to her audience that we should keep traditions going to keep the people alive and remembered.
ReplyDelete