A couple films by Yoko Ono

Yoko Ono's film "Fly" provided an incredible amount of food for thought. We spoke of the element of eroticism within the film, and while my own reading of the film differs slightly, the human body plays an integral part in my own trajectory of thought in reference the piece. I feel that the body was presented as a landscape. The incredibly close footage of the fly exploring/invading body establishes the body as its own space with its own unique topography. Every curve and crevice becomes new and unfamiliar territory, and Ono's sound design seems to separate the viewer from his own understanding of the body and places his experience within the perceptional limits of the fly. Then, near the end of the film, as the camera moves further from the human body, the body is presented as an object within a space, revealing life and objects in space on an almost fractal level. When the camera is incredibly close to the human body, it is apparently inhabited/invaded/saturated with life,and when the camera moves away revealing the bleak architecture of the L.E.S., Ono seems to acknowledge that the human body, too, is an inhabitant, an invader, a tiny cross section of a greater living organism.

Fly



"Rape" really was one of the most uncomfortable films I've ever seen. Beyond the fact that the filmmakers aggressively stalked this woman, broke into her home, and incarcerated her within her own room, effectively traumatizing her, playing on her perception of the situation, and exploiting her apparent ability to communicate with them (due in part to her inability to speak English as well as their refusal to even speak to her), I was forced to question how I would react to such a situation and evaluate my own perception of surveillance and the role of media in my own life. I wonder if maybe the ideas behind the film are a little dated. When the piece was shot, there were a number of anxieties expressed through the arts, anxieties that stem from postmodern paranoia and disillusionment, from fear of technology and its potential power for destruction and absolute law. Now, in the digital age, we can expect to be observed, followed, even. Digital media has also broadened cultural understanding to the point where I have to question whether or not the woman's inability to communicate would be as profound a problem today. Granted, the filmmakers went beyond the point where her inability to communicate is the biggest problem, and their actions were an incredible breach of territory and privacy. However, in a time when 24 hour surveillance and streaming user-based media, I wonder whether the anxieties that John Lennon and Yoko Ono wished to convey are as strong as they were half a century ago or if they have proven to be prophetic visions of a hyper-real present.

Rape



Streaming media available at ubu.com