Please reply with your thoughts and responses to the movie Powaqqatsi.
Also use this week's forum to post your ideas about your group project.
I hope you all have a wonderful weekend.
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This blog has been created as a forum for students at the University of Michigan enrolled in a course titled "Technology and The Environment", designed by Professor Joe Trumpey within the school of art and design. This section is lead my graduate student instructor Ashley L. Lieber
19 comments:
In the film Powaqqatsi, a combination of video imagery and music is meant to move the audience to understand the meaning of the title-- which translates to a parasitic leader. The video imagery was immensely powerful and beautiful at the same time. A clip only a few minutes long captured an element of a lifestyle enough that I understood the conditions. Watching the video I had to remind myself that I was not watching footage from a bygone era but rather from recent history. I gained a much greater understanding of what these other cultures unknown to Americans look like. The music provided an interesting emotional element for me. The music had elements that were unfamiliar and thereby "cultural" in my view, but the overall tone of the music seemed and ineffective narrator. I certainly did gain a sense of pride that these cultures no doubt have, but what lacked was any real sense of suffering, which I suspect they all share in some sense. Overall I feel that the film was informative given the style in which it was presented.
Betsy Peters
Overall I found the film Powaqqatsi interesting and effective in what it was trying to convey, which I assume was the daily lives of this culture. The lack of dialogue was something I had never seen before; combined with the powerful imagery and creative music, I found myself captivated by tasks as simple as washing clothes. One thing I did not particularly enjoy was the slowed-down nature of the film footage. In some areas I felt it added an interesting dynamic to the footage, but at other times I felt it made the film drag. The most powerful moment for me was the way the children watched the camera film them, and the varying expressions on their faces. Some seemed curious and excited, others wary, and some seemed to posses a wisdom in their eyes I have never seen before.
Although we are still in the brainstorming stages, my group would like to do something related to food for our group research project. We thought of perhaps going to the farmer’s market or a restaurant in downtown Ann Arbor, and from there our ideas range from creating a “green” menu for a restaurant to making edible containers similar to bread bowls for different kinds of food. At this point, we’re still in the planning stages.
Powaqqatsi utilized an emotional response to powerful visuals as a gateway to assess the third world's response to Western industrialism. According to its director, the purpose was to discuss the studious manner in which people respond to their environments.
While the images were stunningly evocative, I felt they often obscured the director's purpose. The long, undulated series of slow motion images gave the film such beauty at parts that I found myself forgetting its finer points at times.
I'm at a loss to if the lack of narration helped or hindered the film. Certainly, the absence of a narrator allowed the viewer to focus on its imagery, but in certain moments a lack of direction made the message difficult to understand. The mind was left to wander to its own conclusions.
Overall, the film was interesting—although I think a bit dated. Despite the age, it did manage to touch upon many of the themes common to the 'race to the bottom' ideologies and globalization as a whole.
- Matt Hallock
Powaqqatsi was such an eye-opening film about life in Africa. Even without words, the music and footage alone was very moving and clearly depicted the harsh reality. It’s unbelievable the difference of lifestyles in Africa and America. And after watching this film, the fact that Americans are so wasteful and materialistic is even more discomforting. The living conditions and hardships Africans deal with each day does not even compare to our lifestyle in America. The music played during the footage set a cultural, African feel. No words were needed to evoke emotion from the audience; I was immediately drawn in the moment it started watching.
I cannot believe people in Africa are presently living that life, while we are so selfishly living in this materialistic country. We have clean water, air conditioning, and access to almost any type of food we want. Africans work outside every day, in sweltering heat, only to live with basic necessities for survival: muddy water, just enough food, little clothing, and poor shelter. I cannot complain about my life after seeing this film. Going to school in comfortable, air-conditioned buildings, or doing homework in a safe, clean home is nothing to whine about. Africans push their bodies through strenuous labor—carrying heavy loads on their heads and shoulders. They don’t get hot showers with clean water whenever they please either. Africans must bath in lakes and wash their clothes against rocks. How could any American complain when we have so much and people in Africa have so little? This film really made me stop and think about how lucky I am to live this lifestyle in America. It also makes me want to reach out and do more to help those in Africa. If everyone donated a little money, life-changing improvements could be given to Africans; and maybe more Americans would change their perspective on how materialistic and wasteful we are with resources so highly valued and needed in countries like Africa.
Sean Thompson
Continuing with our discussion on the effects of the way the developed world eats, we must examine fishing practices as well. Fisheries all over are closing because there are simply less fish to be caught do to over fishing. Another contributor to the decline in the fishing industry is the fact that all of the larger fish have been removed from the gene pool over time meaning the fish that are caught today are much smaller on average.
One way in which the fish industry is changing is in the creation of fish farming in which fish are grown in large underwater cages. These fish are often of lower quality then those caught in the wild. While this increases the amount of fish available to the market it also has drastic effects on the surround ecosystem. The water quality around these fish farms can be very bad because of the concentration of fish waste created. Another issue to consider is that species that escape from the farm enter the ecosystem and compete with the locale species driving them towards extinction.
It really is amazing how drastically the growing human population is affecting the rest of the natural world at large. It also seems rather ridiculous that with all our brainpower we couldn’t look into the future and realize that our food practices would inevitable cause so much harm.
The movie Powaqqatsi is a great snapshot of what it is to be human. From the hardest working conditions to the most beautiful rituals and celebrations, mankind spans the spectrum of possibilities in this world. I believe this film really touches on the advancement of culture as well as its preservation and is a testament to the ambition and growth of humans across the globe.
The dramatic slow motion and long focal length used in many of the shots really brought an importance to every action that happened on the screen. The unique visual style of Powaqqatsi was perfect for showing that people everywhere are all part of the same intricate dance. We are just little cogs spinning in a massive and complex machine, too massive and too complex for any single cog to comprehend. Yet every person serves some purpose and has some effect either among the people around them or the natural world as a whole.
The film also showed peoples mastery of the world around them as well as matery of the hidden world of the human psyche. Be it mining, agriculture, building shelters and cities, or ceremonies, festivals, and religion. It should the power that people have the root of which I believe to be the imagination.
I think the film Powaqqatsi's subtitle, Life in Transformation, holds much meaning in our lives today. With unbelievable sights and sounds, this film is exotic and textually rich, especially for someone like me, a modern-day American with little notion of the reality of the world. I think that's why this film is so sensually pleasing; it gives us a sumptuous flavor of the foreign. But what do I actually know about contemporary society? Not a whole lot.
However, I realize this and understand that my sphere of knowledge only spans so far. It is still my duty, though, to find the ways in which my own life, cushioned and insulated it may be, can transform. It's funny that the change taking place in the movie is one that is converging toward industry, westernization, modernization. Yet in my life, I know that the transformation that is taking place is one of the opposite direction. I'm trying to move away from the digital, technological world, and find a place in the natural scheme of things. So in some ways, this film speaks to the direction certain lives have taken, and in some cases it is good, others, negative. But it doesn't show how there are those who travel that same path, only the other way. There's a beauty in both of the journeys, and it's hard not to just focus on the negative aspects that are footnoted in the fine print of the transformations. This is mesmerizing, compelling, and absolutely beautiful. And I think we have to be able to engage on a visual level, an aural level, but this goes deeper than that too, especially in those images that seem to reverberate, like the children, or the sunsets, or the huge hills and ripples and waves.
I found Powaqqatsi to be particularly captivating. The slow motion camera work was very dramatic, but over time it seemed to become monotonous. Coupled with the rich imagery, the music from the film added another level of drama and emotion. Much like the slow camera work however, there seemed to be unnecessary repetition of the same song. It lost its effect and became just plain annoying. The movie as a whole was very beautiful though and something unlike I had seen in a very long time. I can’t remember the last time I saw a film with no narration in it; it was defiantly a change of pace for me. Without narration, I was forced to let the images tell the story behind the movie, and honestly with all of the slow camera work, I just didn’t pick up on it.
My group is also still in the brainstorming stage with our project. Tomorrow when we get together, we will most likely come up with the best idea ever. Ever.
I felt as though the film “Powaqqatsi” had extremely strong visuals that gave the viewer a feeling of existence amongst the people shown, albeit slightly repetitive and unfitting music at times. However impactful, the same music seemed to play at drastically different points and moods of the film, yet, having only instrumental sound and no spoken words seemed to help me take in the visuals. The scenes throughout the film were beautiful, heart wrenching, and made me realize just how much I, and the rest of this country, take for granted. The areas in which the people lived and the work they did was in such stark contrast to the life we lead. We all are aware of the conditions that third world countries are in, but seeing film footage and staring into the eyes of the people and children who live there is much different than reading about them in the newspaper.
The film left me in wonder, and slight disgust with Americans. How, when our economy is next to nonexistent, can we still pour our money into grocery and retail stores while people in third world countries go out and fend for themselves? And with less tools and technology! While most of our society may believe that third world countries needs to be like us (technologically advanced) maybe we should take a few tips from them…
As for the group project, my teammate and I are still debating on what issue to tackle. As of now we are thinking of testing Ph levels in various water supply areas throughout Michigan. A bit more thought needs to be put into it though.
I felt that the use of music was incredibly well done in the movie Powaqqatsi. It gave, what could have ended up like a National Geography feature of Africa, a feeling of truth, of raw emotion and life. Instead of giving us facts and information, it allowed us translate what we saw however we wanted, this allowed me to really place myself in there as if I were walking through this place instead of getting a tour of it. It made me very aware of how bored we get as Americans, we constantly have to buy things to take up our time and captivate our attention, instead of cleaning, cooking, digging, etc. with our own hands. Completely things on our own can be one of the most satisfying things, however we have navigated away from that satisfaction because we believe we do not have enough time, time that we instead fill up with useless objects.
As strong as the music was in transporting the viewer into the locale, I also believe that it was monotonous in some parts, along with the imagery. However these parts were short and did not ruin the film for me. One of my favorite parts was actually the beginning when the people were carrying bags of mud up the hill. It was stressful, each moment I thought someone would fall over or give up, and yet for the most part they just kept going. When someone wasn’t able to carry on, others carried them to the top, that strength of will is very intense and doesn’t occur much these days around me.
For the group project, my group is hoping to do something with the farmers’ market down in Kerrytown. We would like to showcase the farmers in some way. We are thinking s small community involved project would be good to show that the market is an important part of Ann Arbor, and that it is a great way to promote locally grown food. We originally wanted to have a fall festival type thing, however we have since decided that wasn’t quite what we want to do.
The movie Powaqqatsi was relaxing to watch. At first I did not know what to expect from this movie. When it began, I imagined the movie to be about struggle, workers building the pyramids or other ancient structures, but slowly the scene changed. It showed snapshots of exotic landscapes, how they have developed and how the people have shaped the land. Each one was as unique and different from the last. Over all it was a tranquil experience. The people that were shown portrayed their culture.
One part that stood out the most was when the children were being tapped. They did not know what the video camera was. Their faces showed curiosity, confusion, some were fearful, and some were excited to see the new foreign object. Each child showed a different expression. All were in amazement as to what was going on. I could see some of the children bring protective, holding back, fearful of the new object in their territory. While others were a bit more open-minded, willing to welcome in the new object, and the unfamiliar faces behind the cameras. I remember specifically one child laughing, and smiling. At first it seemed like a nervous, embarrassed laugh but turned into a curious and playful child-like laugh.
I was upset I could not watch the whole movie. I want to see how it ends. I would like to see more exotic and beautiful places. The movie made me want to travel and see the world. I want to learn and experience other cultures.
My group project is focusing around food, comparing processed foods to all natural and organic foods. We will be answering questions like what makes a food organic. We will research what chemicals go into making foods, and how processed foods are made. How some things taste processed compared to their natural state, such as peanut butter, or juice. One can go the store and buy all natural peanut butter made from just peanuts, or peanuts and salt, and right next to the organic peanut butter will be the processed one, with saturated fats and chemicals I cannot recognize let alone pronounce. The same thing goes with the juice, there can be a brand made from one hundred percent juice, or ones with high fructose corn syrup. We will research what the chemicals are doing to your body and what the food looks like if it was natural and not processed. For example, the natural color of carrots are either purple or white. A chemical is put into them to make them the color we know, orange. We will talk to farmers markets, larger corporations and go to factories and plants.
The film, Powaqqatsi, was not at all what I expected it to be. I thought it would be some sort of documentary obviously about the environment, and what we are doing to destroy it.
It first caught me off guard that there was no dialogue, because I was waiting for the talking to begin. But I was surprised to see it more as a movie-length music video. I thought that the visuals displayed in movie were absolutely gorgeous. Things like the sun setting shown in the reflection of the ocean, and a close-up of a girls dress looked so dramatic. I also really liked the sort of concept of the film, which was just showing the everyday things that people do around the world. I thought it would be hard to connect with movie since nobody ever talked in it, but the imagery was so nice, that I'm glad that there was no dialogue.
For the group assignment, we are going to find out the carbon footprint of the Hillel building, and then making an installation piece for the building to display.
After watching “Powaqqatsi”, I was a little disappointed. I had hoped for more dialogue, and I was confused on what the actual message of it was. I thought that it was beautifully done, but I didn’t feel that I got a better grasp of the various cultures that were portrayed. After reflecting on it for a while, I realized that it showed me how much more connected these cultures were to their surroundings than we are. They had much better awareness of how things were made because they were directly involved in the process. For example, they had to grow their own fruits and vegetables to make a meal. They washed their clothes in their nearest water source. I have absolutely no idea where my water comes from when I use the washing machine, and I feel stupid for not knowing so. I have no idea where the fruit I eat is grown, or what goes into the bread I eat, or even if a package of beef comes from the same cow. There really is something wrong with this situation. I think we all feel really well off compared to less developed cultures because of all of our advancements in technology. But are we really better off? We have no connection to nature, and therefore don’t realize how much damage we are doing to our environment.
The opening sequence in Powaqqatsi led me to believe the movie had some sort of theme about slave labor in third world countries. I suppose it is a little embarrassing on my part that I would associate strenuous work with the land while walking up a mountain with a torturous, forced task. Regardless, the dialogue-free movie focused not on slave labor, but rather the fantastic interaction of a culture with its natural surroundings. It was refreshing to see people truly interacting and working with the environment around them. I especially loved the woman with the giant smile laughing as she helped toss the grain. It was quite a shock to see mixing with bare feet, grass that extended for miles upon miles, small natural shacks instead of metallic buildings, and so much more. You didn’t see waste or garbage lying around. There was a sense of life instead of consumption and destruction. When the people danced or play-fought in front of crowds, their costumes and tools were clearly made from natural elements instead of fabricated by man made materials in some factory. I loved the innovative “ground architecture” if you will, where the people had molded the land into blocks and designs that best suited their living style while preserving the land. Everything seemed so natural, so rich, so vivid. The scenes of sunsets and the land were absolutely breathtaking. The market also struck me with its rainbow of saturated color. You can’t obtain that kind of color from processed food purchased in a supermarket. While life is never without its problems, the people seemed genuinely happy. They worked hard, had a vivid culture, cared for the land and reaped its benefits in return. They do not seem to live in a consumer type culture of excess, but rather a more simplistic way. I am unsure of the time period of this movie, but as mcdonald’s and other western institutions frequently pop up in foreign countries, it’s refreshing to see that there are still places living a way of life so natural and untouched by elements of western culture.
My group will be attempting to set up a recycling bin for art scraps in the art school. We believe that CFC and TMP go through tons of materials and many good materials get thrown out. We also recognize that occasionally students may only need a little bit more of a material and may not want to go out and buy, say a whole sheet of foamcore when they only need a tiny square. So, it would seem beneficial to us all to have a communal recycling bin of scraps. We could also use this to try to salvage bits of disassembled projects once they are no longer needed. We will need to find a good location, gain approval, and find a way to monitor this scrap-recycling bin so it doesn’t become a place for people to just dump their trash. We are very excited to try to get this in place!
Karin Alpert
ADP III
Weekly Response #3
What exactly does it mean for something to be marked organic in the supermarkets, and how much do we truly know about what we eat and where it comes from? Professor Trumpey began to explain in lecture about the relationship between humans and meat. He spoke of the CAFO, the Confined Animal Feeding Operation. I never knew something like this existed and was extremely curious to learn more.
Trumpey explained what a CAFO was through the examples of Fish farms. I learned for the first time that an animal doesn’t have to live on land in order for it to be caged and farmed. This is a completely new concept to me, and very striking. It seems as though people as a whole have decided that we deserve to have whatever we want whenever we want as long as we have the means of doing so. In my opinion this seems very wrong and is ultimately just hurting us in the end.
Since fish were shrinking in size, we decided we needed more of them, ultimately hurting the sea, the fish, and ourselves. The fish being farmed in these sheltered coves, are causes natural fish to become extinct in their natives lands, and must be dyed to appear as the natural fish do in order to be sold in the markets. All of this is just so we as people can get what we want, more food and cheaper food. But, what about our environment? Is it really worth screwing with the natural order of things just so we can eat what we want whenever we want to?
Trumpey gave the example of fish farms, but it definitely doesn’t end there. It extends to many different animals including chickens and cows. Shoving these animals into unnatural settings with unnatural grazing only seems to be causing damage to everything, so what’s the purpose? I read an article on the internet, that CAFO causes many damages to the environment. Among these are pollution, harmful drinking water, poor air to breathe and destroys the land we live on. What more proof must we need in order to stop harming the earth? And why when there is so much proof showing how harmful all our actions are to the earth, do we continue?
It is time for change in the way we think, and treat our land and the animals around us.
http://www.epa.gov/Region7/water/cafo/cafo_impact_environment.htm
From Powaqqatsi I observed the idea of a deliberate use of land and an overall deliberate movement; people spend their time and labor to move their food and their homes. Throughout this physical process of survival, this group does not appear to be angry or saddened or expect pity, but rather they’ve accepted their jobs, as it is what they must do in their culture to survive.
In our Western culture we do far less for the basic survival aspects of our lives. We’re far more hands off in the cultivation of our food and the building of our homes. We work to make money, which pays for these necessities, but most of us choose to go to the grocery to pick out processed foods of which we rarely know where they came from or how they are being produced and have builders that create our “dream homes.” In this aspect, we are far more removed from our basic needs of survival and possibly take for granted the ways in which we gain access to these crucial aspects of our lives.
From what I have compared between the movie and everyday life in America, and from our readings Collapse, Culture Jam, and A Sand County Almanac, I have begun to consider which society is more in danger of “collapse.” Is it more helpful for us as a functioning society to be technologically advanced and to be removed from the land we live on, our water source, and the food that keeps us alive? Are we so far removed that we forget what’s important to understand, practice and protect, that we may be the ones more likely to collapse? Or, do the less developed countries, that are aware of directly what they are working for, the affects on their health and the outcome of their survival stand more of a chance at facing a collapse of their society?
Obviously the developed countries around the globe deserve credit for the outstanding advances of knowledge, medicine and technology, that offer us many amazing opportunities in which we are able to reach well beyond survival. But in the process of our clearly changing world, where we are running out of the resources that power or current lifestyles, will we find ourselves forced to become reacquainted with our land and the process of physical survival in order to sustain our communities in light of a collapse? If any area of the globe does face this need for survival will it be external or internal? In what ways do both types of communities, developed and undeveloped, rely on each other without even realizing it? If we face collapse will it be environmental or social? And, will we be overpowered by useless knowledge, as we read about in Culture Jam, or will we be empowered by all that we know and saved by our technology?
Powaqqatsi was odd, it was long, it left me searching for a point after an hour of film. The music was repetitive; I groaned when yet another similar, haunting, parochial sound track would come on. Just more emotionally pulling aires to evoke a "feeling" that is not delineated. Of course, the filmmaker's idea is that, sans narration, the viewer creates their own story. Which I did, following the imagery thread of civilizations utilizing primitive tools through societies with complex economies and trade. The imagery is definitely beautiful. And despite my reservations (couldn't help but think "all this music, ironically, is recorded in a state-of-the-art auditorium by modern musicians of Western culture), despite the reservations, the imagery definitely was moving and provocative. Still not quite sure what the point of the film was, though.
The film Powaqqatsi can only be fully described as thought evoking. The title, which is far from everyday vocabulary, ignites curiosity to anyone who tries to read and pronounce it. Powaqqatsi is a Hopi term for parasitic way of life. The film, which is the second installment of the Quatis trilogy, seeks to educate its audience on the vast disparity between the first world and the third. The film opens with a long clip of a gold mine in Brazil. I found the clip to be a visual feast. The use of focus, color and pace make the inhuman labor look poetic. In the duration of the clip the viewer sees an enormous volume of workers who are filthy and barely clothed ascend and descend a mountain while carrying a bundle of earth. Their group ascension seems chaotic and unorganized, yet their individual movements seem fluid and planned. The rest of the clips, are tide together using visual transitions as well as the soundtrack. The lack of dialogue or narration is intended to focus the attention of the viewer of the visual images, intentionally leaving the viewer with unanswered questions. Although made 20 years ago, the film Powaqatsi is still able to wake up the view and have them question the drones of the their everyday life.
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