Wednesday, March 26, 2008

spiral jetty observations

The connection in the film to prehistoric creatures like dinosaurs brings up the thought of technology and how, even though the spiral jetty was in some part built with bull dozer's and such, the end result feels like an early human structure, not unlike Stonehenge or the giant head sculptures of Easter Island. Some of the ending sound track eludes to this; dare I say primitive technology when the narrator spells out the ingredients of the structure; something to the effect of rock, salt, dirt and water . . .
This is at least for me pounded in my head with the images of the dinosaur bones and red filtered image, although I can not connect the red with anything I am talking about. The editing table was also striking and maybe this is just a stretch but in showing the construction of the jetty, I think smithson also was entitled to show the construction of the film. As told in lecture he thaught that the jetty lived in three places, the actual structure, the film, and ???. So when thinking that this art does live in the film than it's only right to connect the making of the filmic representation of that art, for film is an artful construct in itself. In this case it is done in a self-reflexive way in showing the tools, machines (technology) that filmic art is put together.

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