Today we watched a film called Koyaanisqatsi, The title is a Hopi Indian word meaning 'crazy life, life in turmoil, life out of balance, life disintegrating, a state of life that calls for another way of living.' Created between 1975 and 1982, the film is based on a collision of two different worlds, urban life and technology versus the environment, the music was composed by Philip Glass. The film isnt so much about something, nor does it have a specific meaning or value, it stimulates the viewer to insert their own meaning. The film consists primarily of slow motion and time-lapse photography of cities and natural landscapes across the United States. The film starts with an ariel shot of the choppy sea and rows of flowers followed by interperating mans involvement in the enviroment, with shots of a mining truck causing tonnes of toxic smoke into the air, power plants and mining.
The film contains several sequences with recurring musical themes, the chapters on each sequal are seperated and named by the titles of the musical sections:
- Organic
- Resource
- Vessels
- Cloudscape
- Pruit-Igoe
- Slow people
- The Grid
- Microchips
- Prophecies
- Ending
This film made me think about the ways in which i am going to present the words from the four groups of words we were given. I am thinking about using different videos and stitching them together like the koyaanisqatsi film, and also adding text and sound. x
