Event # 3: This Is The End

Designed by Pedro Reyes,"This Is The End" showcases the “Unconventional Narrative Strategies” by the individual artworks of Ed Atkins, Loretta Fahrenholz, Tommy Hartung, in which they address various themes such as trauma, melancholy, surrealism and the uncanny, was a surreal experience. The complexity of the video ultimately looks at the physical and emotional tole that depression has on individuals. Whether it may be mental or external, the interpretations of the narratives of human emotions are at an elaborate point of view. 

One video that really caught my attention was at a repetition of the “thumbs up” motion. A lot of what we learned in this class relates to this narrative of Ed Atkins that helps us look at the “thumbs up” narrative in a new prospective with film and technology. A lot of the times we find that the mixture of art and technology broadening even the simplest of objects and motions into an entirely new form. Ed Atkins uses this very relationship in a way that we all are critically aware of, a relationship that takes the present state of something and transforms it into a message about ethnics, perspectives and values. Just how this class takes a variety a fields and molds it in connection with art, Ed Atkins uses the “thumbs up” narrative and combines it with other mini-narratives about heartbreak, nature, even life. What I got out of the event as a whole was that human emotion is purely a subjective state of mind. Some may think “this is the end”, where as others see or feel a certain emotion as only the beginning. We can only hope that artists such as Ed Atkins, and the rest of the talented individuals in “This is the end” can further showcase the beauty of human emotion through art and technology.