Back Down the Spiral

By Sam Watermeier 

"Art should comfort the disturbed and disturb the comfortable."  — Banksy

This week at Media Matters, we are celebrating an album which does exactly that. March 8 marks the 20th anniversary of Nine Inch Nails' The Downward Spiral, a piece of music steeped in sorrow yet charged with cathartic energy.

Fusing elements of industrial rock, techno, and heavy metal, this album is darkly exhilarating and richly atmospheric.

Garnering both acclaim and controversy (especially when references to it were found in the Columbine killers' journals), this record's rich history is certainly worth remembering. 

A Dazzling Descent Into Madness

"I wanted to make beautiful surfaces that revealed the visceral rawness of open wounds beneath." Russell Mills' intention behind the cover art for The Downward Spiral perfectly mirrors what frontman Trent Reznor accomplished through its songs — harrowing yet inspiringly honest accounts that remind us of the beauty in revealing one's scars. Outpourings about addiction, alienation, and depression, these songs hit you like private confessions. 

The best musicians make stadiums feel like living rooms, and Reznor's confessional songs certainly have that kind of intimate power. 

The late writer David Foster Wallace said art provides "one of the few experiences where loneliness can be both confronted and relieved." A YouTube user confirmed that notion with this comment regarding one of Reznor's most popular songs, "Hurt," a poignant portrait of drug addiction and alienation. 

"I sit solitary and I replay this; I sing along quietly and I drown in my thoughts. But the reason I love it so much is the fact that it gives me so much comfort. I think it's because knowing that someone else wrote it, it makes me feel as if I am not alone."

20 years later, this album maintains that power, and keeps showing new shades of relevance. For example, when I listen to it now, the lyric, "The me that you know is now made up of wires" seems evocative of this digital age in which we're all perpetually plugged-in — power cords to our various electronic devices spreading across our floors like vines in a forest.

I encourage you to unplug, go out, buy this album, and experience it as you would have in 1994 — as a powerful personal journey that connects the particular to the universal, making one man's catharsis your own. 

Soul Sights and Still Lifes

By Wendy Faunce

Wendy is a junior at Ball State, studying creative writing and telecommunications: video production. Here on The Public Screen, she aims to inform readers about recent and impacting projects of filmmakers, photographers, and other visual artists. 

Photographer Laura Letinsky is best known for her still life-photographs, some of which were recently displayed at the Photographer’s Gallery in London. The photographs, all of which were included in her series titled ““Ill Form and Void Full,” use fruit, dishes, paints, candy, and pastel-colored stains to compile an image that Letinsky describes as highly personal with strong “affiliations with domesticity and intimacy.”

Letinsky focused on portrait photography at the beginning of her career, specifically portraits of couples. While she was able to convey the affection that photography can evoke, she was not settled in the genre. “While I was taking photographs of couples in the 1990s, I began thinking about love, and about how photography relates to love, how it can function within a kind of circuitry of production and consumption… I also wanted to switch from an omnipotent point of view to something that felt more immediate, more first-person.”

Though one would be tempted to think that photographs of candy and fruit would be aloof and reserved when compared to portraits, the photographs simply show the same love of people in a more hidden and almost intimate way. Each item in the picture has been stretched, cut, arranged, or destroyed by someone, giving each item a distinctly human quality. In a sense, these inanimate object photos externalize the inner turmoil we can’t always see clearly below the surface of human interactions. In the same way people changed these objects, they can stretch, cut, and arrange each other’s souls as well. 

48 Hours to Film

By Wendy Faunce 

Wendy is a junior at Ball State, studying creative writing and telecommunications: video production. Here on The Public Screen, she aims to inform readers about recent and impacting projects of filmmakers, photographers, and other visual artists. 

"It took every virtue I had in my personality from patience to courage to sorority to leadership ability. Of course I will do it again!"
 

"We are sooo tired." 

"It was awesome working with and meeting new people and coming together to create something. We all enjoyed ourselves immensely!"

These sound like statements the Media Matters members would make about our work here on the Public Screen, but they are actually statements from participants in the 48 Hour Film Project, which is currently in the midst of a tour and set to reach Indianapolis in August.

Filmmakers from across the globe were involved in last year’s 48 Hour Film Project. This project started as a Washington DC filmmaker’s crazy idea: to make a film in 48 hours with the aid of only a small team of people. That idea grew in an unbelievable way over the last 12 years. As of last year, artists from 6 continents were involved with crews numbering anywhere from one person to a 116 member team (and 30 horses).

Each crew’s film has only four common criteria: a character, a genre, a prop, and one line of dialogue. These criteria are revealed to the crew on a specified Friday, providing them only the weekend to finish the film. “All writing, shooting, editing and scoring must be completed in just 48 hours.” After the weekend, one film from each city is selected by a panel of judges and submitted to the 48 Hour film festival, Filmapalooza. The top films are then shown at other festivals like the Cannes Film Festival and many more.

“The 48 Hour Film Project's mission is to advance filmmaking and promote filmmakers.” Because of the limited amount of time, the project focuses on many aspects of film that can be lost in lengthy productions. The filmmaking process is torn down to the bare-bones minimum, focusing on the process and creativity rather than effects or complicated plots. The chance to meet filmmakers from around the world also draws many artists and audiences.

Acting Out Against Hate

By Rick Belbutoski
 
Two months after Ball State’s College of Communication, Information, and Media (CCIM) had its Super Party, the controversial image discovered there has practically been forgotten.

According to WCRD news reporter Cameron Ridle, a crude drawing of a black person being lynched was discovered on the digital board of the Ball Communication Building’s second floor at approximately 9:50 p.m. following the January 17^th event. 

The WCRD story received some feedback. There were many comments on the WCRD website, including one from the President of The Black Student Association (BSA). The Muncie Star wrote an article about it, and even the Ball State’s Vice President of Communication and Marketing released a statement. Within two weeks, however, another act of hate was committed in the CCIM complex.

Two weeks after the image was found on the digital board, a “Safe Zone” sign was torn from a professor’s office door in the Letterman Building and crumpled up while a message of hate was scribbled on an Indiana Public Radio bumper sticker which was on the same professor’s bulletin board. “Safe Zone” signs signify where members of the LGBTQ community can find a person trained to support members of the community with struggles they may be experiencing.  Sadly, this act of hate was met with an even less substantial response than the digital board drawing. 

Anyone who cares about encouraging diversity must question why these two acts of hate drew such different responses from Ball State University, who didn’t comment on the second incident, but chose words artfully to minimize the uproar about the image found on the digital board.  What could have been the positives and negatives of having a conversation about hate on campus?

The good news is that these thoughts are going to be given some attention this week. On Thursday, February 27^th, CCIM is sponsoring a Dialoguing Diversity Symposium from 1-4 p.m. in The Letterman Building. A group of five students have put together a project specifically for the symposium. The project, titled #stophate365, is a multimedia campaign that aims to raise awareness about acts of hate on Ball State’s campus, educating and encouraging students to stand up to these prejudicial messages. You can join the campaign by tweeting at #stophate365 and attending the symposium Thursday afternoon. Those who can or cannot attend can come by the project group’s table to sign a banner that will be placed in the Letterman Lobby to express how they stand up against messages of hate.

 

Happy Birthday, Kurt Cobain

 

By Sam Watermeier

Given our emphasis on the importance of media and those who make it, we would be remiss not to mention the late, great Kurt Cobain, who would have turned 47 today.

As the frontman for Nirvana, Cobain produced thunderous yet intimate music. He made stadiums feel like living rooms. When you watch him perform, he exudes pure, raw emotion, as if he is confessing to the audience. 

Here at Media Matters, we like to celebrate media that is cathartic, media that reaches out and touches its consumers. The best media connects with people. It jumps off the page, ignites the screen, or radiates from your headphones and warms your heart. And that is precisely what Cobain's music did and continues to do. 

Like any great piece of media, Cobain's music communicates in a raw, honest, artful way. Nirvana bassist Krist Novoselic once said Cobain was like a particular piece of art he made — a picture of grocery store meat with an orchid pasted on it, a testament to raw beauty. 

It's a true shame that Cobain is gone, but like any great art, his music will live on forever.

In his honor, you should give it a listen tonight. Here's my personal favorite tune...

True Drama

By Sam Watermeier

Last week, I wrote about the intimate power of television, specifically how a talk show host can make you feel like he is sitting right next to you in your living room.

While "The Tonight Show" exhibited intimate power with its static shot of retiring host Jay Leno bidding farewell to his audience of 22 years, HBO's new series, "True Detective" has demonstrated another major power of television — its ability to make you feel like you are on a roller-coaster ride in your living room.

The crime drama did that quite literally last Sunday night with a six-minute, unbroken tracking shot following detective Rust Cohle (Matthew McConaughey) amid a robbery gone awry. Acting undercover as a member of the Iron Crusaders biker gang, Cohle participates in the robbery in order to gain access to a meth cooker who may be involved in the murder he's investigating.



Tensions rise and bullets fly as the gang raids the stash house and Cohle runs all over the housing project with its leader as a hostage. This unbroken scene is an exhilarating fly-on-the-wall moment that pulsates with you-are-there immediacy. As the show's director, Cary Joji Fukunaga said, this kind of unbroken shot is “the most first-person experience you can get in a film.”

The shot is a visual embodiment of the show — a sustained surge into a world of crime.

Just as Jay Leno's farewell speech was poignant regardless of whether you watch "The Tonight Show," this sequence in "True Detective" works as a stand-alone adrenaline rush. Of course, it is all the more powerful when you are immersed in the show's history and world. 

Whether sitting you in front of a talk show host as he bids farewell to his audience or thrusting you into a crime world, television is immersive. You may watch it in your living room, but it takes you to another world.

Photos and Fairy Tales

 

By Wendy Faunce

Wendy is a junior at Ball State, studying creative writing and telecommunications: video production. Here on The Public Screen, she aims to inform readers about recent and impacting projects of filmmakers, photographers, and other visual artists.

Portrait photographer Annie Leibovitz has had an astounding career that began when she was a very young woman. In 1970, after graduating from the San Francisco Art Institute, Leibovitz was hired as a staff photographer with Rolling Stone. At the tender age of 23, she was promoted to head photographer. Over the next 10 years, she photographed countless musicians including John Lennon and the members of the Rolling Stones. Vanity Fair then hired Leibovitz. She photographed countless celebrities, musicians, and artists for the magazine. As with Rolling Stone, her photos became icons of artistic freedom and unrestrained boldness. In 1996, she was appointed official photographer of the Olympics in Atlanta.

People from around the globe recognize and admire Leibovitz’s distinct style. Her photos are well known for their bold base colors and “awkward” positioning of subjects. For example, one of her most famous photographs is a cover of Rolling Stone in which a completely naked John Lennon wrapped himself around Yoko, who was almost smiling for the photo. For Vanity Fair, she submerged Whoopi Goldberg in a bathtub filled with milk. Her arms and legs raised high in the air and comical expression stretching her face into a mocking smile.

Some of Leibovitz’s most recent work has circulated around Facebook, Twitter, and other social media sites for several months. She has put together a collection of “realistic” portraits of Disney characters. For this “Disney Dream” series, Leibovitz uses A-list celebrities such as Jennifer Lopez, Will Ferrell, and Jeff Bridges to impersonate Disney cartoon characters’ against the backdrop of scenes similar to those in their movies. The photos are yet another staple in Annie Leibovitz’s already stunning career. “We’ve brought a classic to life!” she says.