Cindy Sherman meets YouTube

I don’t know why I haven’t invested energy into researching Cindy Sherman yet, but it is about damn time. Aside from being a fellow Jerseyian, Cindy is an iconic artist who works with self-portrait photography, but as she implies, her art is hardly self-portraiture.

I mean, there it is—what I do. Read her bio on CindySherman.com to familiarize yourself with her. She turns the camera on herself and uses the image of her self as a tool to comment on society.

Her most popular work, The Untitled Film Stills, depicts Cindy posing in various film actresses’ roles. The photographic works come in and out of my life, but now they are here to stay.

Today, I took some time to figure out another series of photographs. My interest in popular culture brought me to YouTube and the cultural significance of sitting alone investing time on YouTube, or chillin’ with friends, watching popular videos. The instant accessibility of recorded videos provides a chance for people around the world to see anything at anytime. “Did you see that commercial?” “Did you hear about that guy who did this?” The shift towards society spending more time at a computer than in front of a television makes me believe that online videos have become a staple of our culture. (Maybe I’m a little late in my statement, but I always like to think that when something in culture grabs a hold of me, it means that it has earned its place in popular culture, or simply, the beginning of the end.) I personally don’t subscribe to television (do I look like I can afford it?) but I can still watch most things online, and if I feel like breaking the law, I could download last night’s episode of Weeds. Earlier this year, I finished watching the last season of 24 on 24’s MySpace page. When the Virginia Tech media frenzy started, the number one video clip was taken from a cell phone that the television news stations then looped nonstop. Jamal Albarghouti, the owner of that cell phone and a voice of a generation, stated that, “I knew it was something way more serious than that, so I started taking the video.” If he didn’t know how to contact CNN, there’s no doubt in my mind that that video would have been initially uploaded to YouTube.

This train of thought brings me back to Cindy’s Untitled Film Stills. She must have been aware of the cultural impact that a movie could cause. She chose to mimic a popular device that grabs people’s attention. Such is the case with my interest in YouTube’s popularity and impact. Therefore, I plan to execute a series of photographs that mimics popular (as well as personal favorites) YouTube videos. (I always feel good writing therefore, even if it doesn’t belong there.)

Now a huge question is, what videos do I mimic? What am I trying to say, aside from revealing the impact and significance of YouTube? Should I be saying something else?

Perhaps those answers (which you are totally invited to help me find!) will come as the project unfolds. One thing I know I want to include is the URL address of the video within in the title. I think that having a link within the title suggests that further inspection is required and that the viewer should run home and type the title into YouTube (unless the viewer has already seen the mimicked video). I am also keeping with my aesthetic of Web 2.0 trends, since this is clearly a series inspired by the Web—isolated people dropped into the middle of a color field with reflections on the ‘ground’. Anyway, it’s a new endeavor, lots of jumbled ideas—more to develop. Therefore, please enjoy the first of many to come (you can click the image to see a bigger version):

Zachary Allen, 1:17, (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C7YloXN8S44)

Links Cited:
CindySherman.com, biography.
IMDB.com listings, Weeds, 24.
MySpace.com, 24.
CNN.com article, Student shot video of campus shooting.