Hybrid Project
My project became a hybrid of critical and visual component in true WordArt spirit. Prezi offers an interactive platform to explore the relationship between word and image in the music video “Video Killed the Radio Star” by the Buggles. The platform offers a preset order to view the presentation, but allows the user to create their own path by clicking around the prezi.
http://prezi.com/ynklesfcx97n/?utm_campaign=share&utm_medium=copy
Enjoy.
Matt,
You effectively untangle and present Mitchell’s theories in a clear, informative and I thought I’d never say this, but also in an engaging way. Your introduction and definition of Mitchell’s paragone was helpful as I navigated my way through your presentation (even though you do present his chart of word/image binaries without any sort of context or explanation–how might a reader who did not take our class approach this chart?).
There were some generalizing claims in the beginning, such as your claim that 1980s electro pop and video technology would “forever change how music is marketed, shown, and received by the consumer.” Any evidence to support this? Ending the presentation with the recently released Beyonce album does help to reinforce this claim, however.
I also noticed quite a few spelling and grammar mistakes that became even more apparent on a platform like this. Since selected passages, which are usually brief, are enlarged and brought to the immediate center directly in front the reader’s eyes, so too does the spelling and grammar errors.
While going through your presentation, I couldn’t help but ask why Prezi? Couldn’t a more traditional paper achieve the same claims (and ultimately effects) that Prezi did? Certainly the more temporal nature of Prezi makes for a more engaging, dynamic experience (and also mimics any music videos in a way), but couldn’t a more traditional paper provide more information and depth than this platform ever could? I do think it would be helpful (and cool) if you addressed why you chose to present in Prezi in your presentation too.
Nicely done.
Ryan
Hi Matthew,
Thank you for looking at music videos in your final project. I think this is one of the elements that we really neglected to look at closely this semester, and it definitely plays a significant role in the relationship between words and images. I have never had an opportunity to closely study music videos before, so I found it really interesting to apply our word/image theory to such a unique video.
I thought you integrated our study of Mitchell into the project really well. You successfully illuminated the power dynamics between words and images in the music video. I really liked how you broke the video down into some of the elements shown in the Word/Image chart in your presentation. I think this connection could have been made a little more strongly because I only noticed it on my second read through your project, but I think it successfully reveals how Mitchell is closely related to this video. Plus, the music video you chose for this was perfect; I had never seen this video before, and I wish we had watched it while we studied Mitchell earlier in the semester. It would have added a really interesting element to our discussion.
When you played the full music video in your Prezi, you said that, “lyrical music is similar to written poetry, but one difference is the present meter set by the artist and not by the listener/viewer. This present meter allows the artist to give emphasis to certain words or phrases.” I think this is true in some cases, but there are many poets who carefully control the rhythm of their pieces to emphasize elements. Poetry has along tradition of formulated meters and line schemes that have been preset by the literary community and are restricted by poetic form. When a poet chooses to use one of these preset forms with very regulated meter, they do this to control how the poem is read and perceived by the reader. While this control may not be as strong as in a music video, it is still definitely present in both poetry and music videos. There are some free verse poets who do not focus on rhythm in their poetry, which gives the reader more control over the rhythm. However, even among free verse poets, there are many who carefully control their rhythm to influence how the reader interacts with the poetry.
For me personally, I connected to your project the most when you talked about Sven Carlsson’s statement that music videos are only created after the music is written, “therefore it is not a contest on which came first, the words, and therefore which gets priority.” This reminded me a lot of my own hybrid project (“Which Came First? The Word or the Image?”) for obvious reasons, but you came to a very different conclusion. I would challenge the notion that music videos are only created after the music. I can imagine a video being created, and then a piece of original music being composed to accompany it. This is commonly done when writing scores for major motion pictures, and in that case, I would definitely say that the image gets priority over the words/music. While watching the music video, I personally gave more attention to the video than the lyrics of the music because I found the moving images more engaging. I found it hard to justify Carlsson’s statement about priority given both of these inconsistencies, but I can see where the argument is coming from.
Overall, this was a great project Matthew! I really liked the fact that you chose to tackle an aspect of word/image relations that we did not touch on heavily in class. Thanks for exposing me to such an interesting music video! I’m not sure if I would have encountered it anywhere else at Davidson. By the way, that song is now stuck in my head, so maybe you’re right, the words do get priority over the image since they persist so long after watching the video.
– Andrew
Your exciting, ambitious project does a great job taking Mitchell’s theories and applying them to the mixed media form of the music video. “Video Killed the Radio Star” is the perfect example of a 20th century skirmish in the paragone, and as you point out, uses both words and images to convey the triumph of the visual over the verbal. The Prezi format animates your argument and allows you to convey your own modernity via its contemporary, colorful aesthetics and rapid movements and nonlinear juxtapositions, though in some ways it still feels like it needs you there, filling in the blanks, especially for users who haven’t taken Word-Art, and providing an active link to the video, which is “missing.” As Ryan points out, Prezi is a medium that seems to generate typos, so it would be a good idea to write all your text in a Word doc and proof read out loud before making the Prezi.
I like the way you “close read” the video in terms of stills and then turn to the lyrics to show how the paragone plays out in both realms. Both the words and images insist that the visual realm triumphs, but is that your experience of watching and listening to the video? When I see it, all I remember is the catchy words and melody; the images are a silly blur. On the other hand, I was of the generation that witnessed the rise of music videos, and I remember disliking them because of the way the overruled my own imaginative experience of the song. And they don’t seem to have stuck around as centrally in popular culture, though I agree with you that Beyonce may be reviving and revolutionizing the genre.
I think you got in a little over your head in thinking you had to develop a new theory—you can consult experts for that. I would like to see you probing more in your close readings, trusting your prodigious intelligence and drawing upon your own sensory responses. You’ve really got tremendous insight as a media & cultural critic!