Let the Bodies Hit the Floor

This reading was rather banal.  There isn't much analysis or creative insight going on here; just a catalog of artists and their contribution to the medium of film and the moving image.  I found it frustrating that still frames coupled with text attempt to reveal the impact of a visual artwork based in time.  As the readers of this insufficient informational format, we are expected to understand the artworks discussed by filling in the blanks, knowing fully that an experience of the artwork as a moving image would satisfy our curiosity so much more so.  This is an interesting observation, considering we are so at ease with the idea of single images and text for learning about static art mediums like painting or sculpture.  And still, the impact of viewing a painting or sculpture in person compared to its photo reproduction is so much more rewarding and complex an experience.  One could argue that sculpture isn't static at all, but requires the element of time imposed by the viewer's interaction of movement and viewing in the round.  It must be due to our age of the internet that we are so unsettled by reading a history text on video, because it has become so easy for us to view moving images.  It is strange to think that this wasn't the case even fifteen years ago.  In this context, it is amazing to think of artists investing so much energy into a medium that was difficult to disseminate to a large audience during their time.  It seems ever more necessary during their time considering TV and movies were being devoured by the masses and being controlled by corporations.  It makes sense why many artists used the medium of film/video as a sociopolitical activist/reactionary platform.