[Frameworks] Film and video

[David Tetzlaff]

Well, I intended no sarcasm, but that doesn't mean much, since it's very
hard to pick up tone from email, and I do tend to shift in and out of
sarcasm, which works OK in speech where there are ques, but not so much in
text. So my bad for not being clear. That's the thing about email though: we
all tend to write these things off rather quickly, without revision or
second thought, and that's just dangerous in text, where the reader will
make all kinds of assumptions filling in the blanks, reading between the
lines.

I did intend to be admonishing, but not at all in a way connected to gender,
and not in an overly serious way, which is why I used the slang 'chill.' I
am absolutely in favor of all people expressing an opinion, especially
people who bear identities that have led to marginalization. That said, I
have no intention of giving anyone a necessary pass on the expression of
opinions that strike me as questionable. So I did not tell people to chill
out because they had expressed an intemperate half-baked opinion.

I was a teacher in the 'creative arts' for well over 30 years, and one of
the frames of reference i had to adopt was a separation between an
individuals identity and their work output. Something you write or a work
you make is not _you_, it's just what you did yesterday, and if it has
'issues' it doesn't mean YOU are bad or stupid or hopeless. On the contrary,
YOU are full of potential that can grow when we talk about your work in a
context of constructive critique. If you don't adopt this kind of
perspective as a teacher, you go insane, getting wrapped up in student's ego
involvement in their stuff - which even they will look back on in a year or
so and wonder "Why was I so sensitive about THAT piece of mush," at which
point you flip and go 'hey, it wasn't that bad, and you really learned
something..." The thing is, I now kind of look at everything this way, which
most people are NOT used to, and consider any critique of whatever they say
or make as a critique of them as a person (or in this case as a whole
demographic) which is not at all what I'm thinking. I'm only focused on that
one thing, making no judgement about its typicality or larger significance
or whatever.

I completey agree that both men and women have a role to play in changing
the environment of a scene, a listserv or whatever else. We might disagree
about how best to do that, which might reflect other political divisions,
having to do with class, region, culture, subculture, etc. or just personal
taste. But I'd like to do what I can to open some new dialogs on the list.

Just to be clear, in saying I didn't much care for the Reeves piece on
video, I meant only to question the choice of that particular video
technology for that particular piece. Overall I have a high opinion of
Reeves work, and I used to show 'Chronic' in class.

>
> Solution: you could have said, in a bit less of a sarcastic way, I'm not
> sure I think Jud intended to create an exhaustive list.. he was just bashing
> out some names. Or something to that effect.
>

That sounds like advice I'd give to someone else, though hypocritically I
guess, since that's a little too country-club polite for me. But, point
taken nevertheless.
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