A Man And His Dog Out For Air
Robert Breer
1957
My studies in child development and elementary art education came into play very quickly. During the symbol making stage of artistic development, children start making symbols that people know to represent real things (such as the typical "V" shaped flying bird as seen in this video). Also, from start to finish, I saw this video through the stages of development. Children start by scribbling, and then closing their scribbles to create forms. They then take those forms and realize shape, and begin to create compositions. Once they have an eye for composition, they begin to create symbols and narratives. It seemed to me that this video followed these stages quit closely, which then made me think of the entire field of child development as one, very long animation.
But back to the video itself. Do we get a better sense of narrative because of the sound? Or because of the transition from scribbles to shapes, symbols to narrative objects? Or is there no narrative at all? Does the sound help or hurt the piece? Can it be considered minimalist, or is it just simplistic?
I didn't get a better sense of narrative with the sound...it actually confused me. I was looking for a bird but then I was seeing the title for a man and his dog. I then thought that maybe the bird chirp was what they were hearing on the walk. It was a quite pronounced loud chirp however...which was why it was confusing to me. Which such a loud chirp, I began trying to make associations of birds until I got to the end and I saw "the man and the dog". If it were me, I would have made the chirp for of a background noise or edited in some sort of shuffle noise from the walk for it to make more sense. I rewinded the film, and saw more of what the film was getting at after I saw the end. The lines were slowly making up the man and his dog- a narrative. I wouldn't consider this simplistic...it does have a sort of complex twist to it in the way the shapes and scribbles churn into something that makes sense to our senses. I would call it minimalist because there were intentions of the film to be look a certain way aesthetically for the shapes and symbols to come to together to build meaning and narrative.
ReplyDeleteI don't think that there was a narrative. The bird noises did make me look for a bird to appear as well. The morphing of shapes was seamless but the shapes that the morphed into were very abstract. There wasn't much substance to the video.
ReplyDeletefor me the bird chirps were rather annoying as for they never furthered the peace and were obnoxiously loud. however the rough unclean sound of the white noise (seemed like a record) was what helped keep my interest. it gave the peace a far more distinct feeling than if it had been absent form that noise. sort of a nostalgic vibe as thats a degradation type that we no longer run in to.
ReplyDeleteI watched it first without sound - which was interesting like a puzzle where I tried to make out what might be hidden imagery. The sound was a real surprise (completely unexpected that -- and therefore funny), I like that it was an abstract audio - well, as compared to composed music - because of its incompleteness it did not take away from the video, an interesting side note.
ReplyDeleteSo it made me think of an outdoor setting (the man and his dog are out for air after all)- birds are what you hear, visually I think it did enhance the abstract shapes, if only slightly. The simplicity and the combination of organic and structured lines coupled with the morphing made me think of landscape and perspective - clouds and telephone poles etc.
Your studies in child development and elementary art education is so interesting and how you found it relevant in this piece. It does have a child like hand to the drawings themselves. And I really like what you had said "children start making symbols that people know to represent real things" we use those symbols in everyday advertising and those early, well known and simple symbols make for the best and clear symbols for the public.
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