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Development At Boarding High With Wicket And JeromeThe analysis of Boarding High work is limited first by the fact that students did only one project, which was done over a short span of time. Any development would be minimal, but the quality of work serves both to compare the project to others and to suggest where students were developmentally during production. Little analysis is necessary to determine that Wicket and Jerome were the most accomplished videographers in their course: Two groups did not finish, and the one group that edited a piece produced the project previously described as a stream of largely disconnected images and a dog's bark played with an image of the art teacher laughing. A comparison with projects from the next course, however, requires more effort. The third course resulted in three comparatively polished projects. A cursory examination leads to the conclusion that they represent a greater facility with digital art. This initial subjective experience is largely due to the fact that Wicket and Jerome's piece lacks a sound track. The power of music to give a “finished” appearance to a video is dramatic, but the absence of a music track on Wicket and Jerome’s project was not for lack of trying. The music they worked hard to match to images could not be captured by the computer for some unknown reason, so this powerful absence does not reflect their intentions. It is in terms of a message that these students’ potential is most evident. The students selected only four clips to work with, and together they carried a vague critique of authority. This “critique” was made clear in Wicket's interview: It was intentional. With the students in the other courses, interviews and class discussion failed to elicit such confirmation, which does not necessarily mean that the messages were not intended, but at the least, the students chose not to talk about them. Only one had a clear message, but it was not evident throughout the piece, having a number of unrelated images. Wicket and Jerome’s message was also an indication of self-expression. Jerome's self-expression may have been subverted to some degree by Wicket's, but it was not clear. Another strength of this project is seen in the student's exercise of agency. It was rarely a shared agency during camera work, however. Each boy initiated most of the events contained in the unedited video, occasionally competing for a turn with the camera or to influence the other’s work. In editing, they shared the capturing process, though perhaps this too was a form of competition with one student operating the computer and the other running the camera. It is suspected—based on interviews—that Wicket was responsible for most of the editing choices, though this was not evident in observations. More importantly, the editing contributed to the camera work in shaping events. Beyond these measures, the students also displayed initiative in taking a second day to record when other students did not and in finishing a meaningful project. The aesthetics of the project were not as apparent. Shots were rarely enhanced by the way they were recorded, and there was nothing noticeably striking or unique except for Wicket's continual use of the zoom feature, which he also encouraged Jerome to use. Wicket routinely zoomed quickly in and out, creating a distinct if dizzying look to scenes. He also rotated the camera (a technique used only at Boarding High) and did so while walking. In general, the image was constantly in motion. This tendency existed among all the students at Boarding High, which may have been influenced by both context and possible cultural tendencies as noted by Worth and Adair (1972) among the Navajo, 21 but Wicket's constant movement—exemplified in his use of the zoom—can only be considered a style and one that was unique to him. Technical proficiency was more of a problem. They had only a digital camcorder and an iBook computer. The features they used were used well, though most settings were automatic. They did not know to turn off the date stamp, so that some of their footage displays the date when it would have been better not to have it. (Valic at Suburban High made the same mistake, believing that he could edit it out later.) Their inexperience with the technology was most apparent, however, in how shaky the camera work was—particularly when it was zoomed in. There was no noticeable effort to steady the camera, but some of this problem could be attributed to style rather than a lack of proficiency. Coherence is a difficult quality to assess in an art video. What stands out in comparing this project with the ones from the following course is the scarcity of clips. As mentioned, there were only four clips, repeated and showing repeated zooming such that the repeats were more difficult to detect. By contrast, the other projects tended to use each video clip only once but used clips with greater similarity and created considerably longer projects: about five minutes as compared to one. It is the repetition—either in clip or locations or pattern—that creates a sense of coherence in these videos. Therefore, Wicket and Jerome's project indicates that these students—particularly Wicket—had sufficiently adopted the medium to create a meaningful project. Whether this appropriation was related to some transformation of experiences with other media or as a consumer of video is unknown, but these students accomplished more with their project than the others in their course and a similar amount when compared to the students in the following course, who—it should be noted—worked in more favorable circumstances. |
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21
Wicket
referred to himself as Zuni, and it is not known how similar the
cultures of Zuni and Navajo are; this is purely speculative. |
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