CC+Bennett's+Page

= Welcome to my page! =

About me:
My name is CC Bennett and I am a Senior from St. Michaels, Maryland. I am studying Psychology with a minor in Public Health. My experience with computers and software stems mostly from my academic work with Microsoft and Google suites, as well as some recreational knowledge of HTML coding and some other platforms. I oversee social media efforts for a large student organization on campus, so I am very well versed in those platforms and use of them for media. My experience with art is somewhat limited--I took a very basic painting course in high school, but have had extensive interface with the performing arts through my involvement with Choir and Theater in Middle and High School. Something interesting about me is that I have been sailing since I was 2 years old, and I have also moved cross-country 3 times! I am looking forward to expanding my horizons to art in this course this semester.

This is a piece of art that I have always loved:



Week 1 Homework: Comic Reading Response
Before reading this comic, my knowledge of copyright laws as they relate to intellectual property was limited at best. Not an area seriously affiliated with my professional pursuits thus far, it was valuable to learn about these rules and regulations before going further in this course. Having never truly created “new” media or publications, the nuances of how these laws operate and overlap with one another was interesting to hear about. I thought that the comic did a great job of forcing the reader to get inside of the heads of anyone in the “creator” role when intellectual property issues become challenging. The discussion of budgets, time, and the ongoing nature of rights to certain works made the reader feel for the individuals who handle these kinds of limitations on work every day. I found the case of a song playing in the background of a scene and the filmmakers having to not only replace the song, but re-film the back stage humming, particularly harsh. In my opinion, that song was a non-central part of the scene and should not be considered on the same level as a borrowed quote from another piece of film. Another extreme example was that of the Simpsons clip being played on a television within a filmed frame for a documentary, and the creator of that documentary having to pay $10,000 to obtain the rights to the show. Again, this seems to me like a non-essential part of a film that audiences would likely not be focusing their attention on, and thus feels like a wide and borderline abusive interpretation of these laws.

The different levels of property use laws based on the year of publication and the lifespan of the creator were also fascinating to read about. I never realized that these things were relevant or made a difference in permissions to use certain materials. It was a bit unclear in the comic if there was overlap between these two things—e.g. if something published before 1923 but within 70 years of the authors passing, needed to be asked permission for use, or not. The intersection of lengthy protection timeframes with the typically short lengths of protection licenses was fascinating to me, and frankly seemed a bit abusive of creators. The idea that upkeep for licensing of a song playing in the background of a movie scene could outlive the budget and production time of the film itself (not to mention outlive its creator), seems backwards. This is very clearly illustrated as bizarre on page 26 of the comic. Additionally, the rules surrounding fair use were wildly ambiguous. This was not the fault of the comic or its authors, but rather of the laws themselves and their lack of definition. Fair use is outlined on page 12 us use for “criticisms, commentary and other purposes” – extremely vague language for a complicated rule. The aforementioned example of the song in the background of a film scene seems to me like a “fair” usage of that material, and could be interpreted as an “other purpose” for fair use, but it was not. To me, moving forward there must be more clarity with this law and its applications for it to be truly applied fairly and effectively.

Exercise 1: Presence/ Absence

1. Remove something leaving a white space 2. Replace something with a portion of another image

3. Remove objects and put them in a blank area next to the original 4. Remove objects and leave a little trace

5. Choice (a variation on Red Izze)

Composite Final Draft:


title: She didn't start the fire Here, we see a seemingly happy young lady having just driven away from the beach, leaving a blazing fire behind her on a desert mountain. Despite the catastrophe in her background, the lady seems unphased and innocent, happy to be posing by her car. She is, however, stopped in her tracks. This to me captures the moment of decision between intervening in crisis and keeping to oneself--a struggle that is essential to the human experience on a daily basis with personal and physical fires.

Conceptual Strategy artist + pieces
For this project, my artist will be Louise Bourgeois. She is a French sculptor and painter, and I was fascinated by the story of her family growing up--an unfaithful and highly critical father paired with a seemingly passive yet intelligent mother. For years, Louise was encouraged (by others and by herself) to pursue more "dependable" professions than art, but ultimately matriculated to some of the finest arts schools in the world and has a wild arsenal of work in varied mediums today. The following pieces are all sculptures of hers.

This piece, titled "Father and Son" was created and installed in 2005. I love the fountain aspect of it, and think that moving water could be a central piece of my final product for this project. The variation in levels of the father and son figures is also compelling, and I would want to mimic something like that with my piece. This piece is titled Cumul I and was installed in 1969. The repetition of the bulb-like shapes here is interesting and could make for something fun for this project. This almost reminds me of the example that we saw in class of the man moving backwards into repetitions of his own dancing body--I would love to use this or something like it in a similar capacity.

Lastly, this piece is titled Mamelles, was created in 1991. I like the slender shape of it and could see it being repeated and used as a border for certain shots in my project. I could also envision building off of it with found images in nature, such as flowers and shrubbery.

Reading Response for 4/10/2018
This article was challenging to work through, but presented fascinating arguments about the self and the body in relation to film-related equipment and practices. I was particularly intrigued by the authors point of view about personal history as it is or is not captured in film. Of course, in this article, history is for the most part recent and for context of the given performance. I found the author’s points about the collapsed present interesting, and to me, the “cutoff from history” that is described is in some ways present in most art. In fact, I think that film cuts us off from history the least, as it is dynamic and not static and occurs over a span of time, rather than being fixed in time and space like a painting or another visual art form. I also really enjoyed the discussion of the message of a film and its interaction with a human receiver and sender of communications. This seemed extremely logical to me compared to some of the other art theory pieces in this article, and it was helpful to root some the other arguments in this kind of strong theoretical framework. Overall, the author presents a convincing argument for the presence of narcissism in filmed art works, and backs up that argument with good evidence. However, one question I had was how much that narcissism actually hinges on the subject of the video, and what the role of the viewer may be in the landscape of narcissism in film. As a viewer of film, I often find myself attempting to fit its meaning into schemas around my life and my being in time and space. This, though anecdotal, makes me wonder how much narcissism in film is really, in fact, related to the subject, or if it is more contingent on the viewer.

As it pertains to our current project, this article confirmed my goal of wanting to integrate history (that of the subject, that is) into my project as much as possible. I would love to find a way to make it clear where the subject(s) of my final project have come from, and why that is pertinent to the situation they are in currently. Additionally, given the many critiques in this article of the “centering of the body” in filmed works, I would like to try and explore ways to circumvent centering the main focus point of my project.

=AR Video =

media type="file" key="ARCBennett.mov"