You know one of the things I always liked about the AMV community is that, for the most part, it isn't full of self absorbed twits who will analyze a video to fucking death. This site is by and large full of people who's sole comment on Odorikuruu would be 'It has a good beat and you can dance to it. I give it a 10, Dick!' I mean come on, it doesn't take a fucking art degree to go 'The AMV Hell type videos are getting kinda old'. We don't need a psychological profile of the creator's history and motives to say 'BTB was made by an effects whore'. An in depth 20 page analysis of the theme and meaning behind Phenomenon or Worlds Unbroken isn't required to realize the creators have just been recycling the exact same ideas and editing for their last 20 or more videos. It is entirely possible to say what you do and don't like about AMVs without once considering how IWIWAL compares to Salvador Dali. Just tell us if you liked a video and why, preferably without using huge words and bullshit to make your simple ass thought sound impressive and groundbreaking. AMVs are fair new. Many AMVs are experimental and the 'art form' is still changing. There, that wasn't so damned hard was it?
In the interest of those staring at the original post with a deer in the headlights type glaze, allow me to translate the post into common english:
So, there I was in my art class, when my teacher brings out a painting from the early '80's. Feminist artist describing how woman no longer needs man, etcetera, etcetera; very postmodern because the artist used two images juxtaposed from of all things, '50's B-movies: a woman writing a letter and a human male skull she was looking at to describe a narrative.
Translation: God my teacher is full of crap.
That's when it hit me: anime music video editing is a postmodern art movement.
Translation: Hey, did ya ever realize AMVs are pretty new?
It'll take me a bit to lead up to WHY I came to this conclusion, so bear with me. ^_^
Translation: Excuse me why I write a fucking thesis on the topic of AMVs not being around years ago.
There are, of course, dozens of different definitions available for what postmodern art is, and all of them read like they were written just to scare off the casual person. Take this example from Wikipedia:
Translation: I like big words but they can be kinda confusing
Quote:
In a nutshell, the pro-postmodernism argument runs that economic and technological conditions of our age have given rise to a decentralized, media-dominated society in which ideas are simulacra and only inter-referential representations and copies of each other, with no real original, stable or objective source for communication and meaning.
Yuck. Why couldn't they have just said, "Postmodernism argues that art and ideas have no value in and of themselves; the only value they have is that which WE assign to them?"
Translation: Some art is different than what came before. It isn't better than old art though, unless you think it is. Let me rephrase those big words used to say this a little without actually making clear what they actually mean.
One significant movement in postmodernism is the use of images from media and popular sources to make a new art piece - to tell a story that was NOT in the original source.
Translation: You can rip someone off and still make something different than what you ripped off.
Take this iconic painting by Warhol: <b>(picture of painting removed because it sucks)</b>
What's the first thing you think when you see this? "Wow... she looks... creepy. That's not natural." And yet, Marilyn Manroe was generally regarded as one of the most beautiful women who ever lived - what story was Warhol trying to tell by doing this, by taking her image and painting it over... and over... and over... and over... in different, frightening ways, so that you can't even SEE the one image that is painted just as she appeared in life?
Translation: You can rip someone off and still make something different than what you ripped off.
I don't like Warhol, he's too obvious. <_< But it's a good example to describe what I'm talking about.
Translation: In case you missed it earlier, you can rip someone off and still make something different than what you ripped off.
And you know what? WE do it.
Wow, a sentance that doesn't need translation. You need to work on this, you'll never be a true artist if you can't make every single sentance an obscure pretentious mess.
We take other people's work (animation and music) and combine them to tell narratives that the original creators never would have concieved of. Oh, there are some videos which are so obvious that the original creator would have done it, if they'd've had the time; and there are some artists who make their own animation and either combine it with existing animation or simply go off on their own; but both are variations in the postmodernistic movement.
Translation: We rip anime off and still make something different than the source.
Even ancillary things about postmodernism apply to us. They often run on the other side of copyright laws by using other people's works in their own, they aren't often regarded as 'real' artists by critics but the people like them, etcetera...
Translation: Ripping people off usually isn't legal and some people don't like people who rip off shit.
We are a step ahead of the mainstream postmodern artists, because we're creating art for the sake of the art. We've avoided the masturbatory tendancies of postmodernism because we ARE creating for an audience, while avoiding the pitfalls of art-whoredom because there is no profit involved; we can walk the fine line between self-love and other-love that true art requires.
Translation: We make AMVs because we want to. None of us is getting rich off this.
We're avant-garde, folks. Ain't it creepy?
Translation: AMVs are fair new and experimental.
...Has this been talked about before on the forum? I couldn't find a searchy function, so I wasn't sure....
Translation: I was too busy looking up big words to use to notice there's a link labeled 'search' at the top of every page.
