Dropping 40 and half hours pt. I

Dropping 40 and a half hours

 

 

This is a remake of Ai Weiwei’s Dropping a Han dynasty urn. Ai Weiwei spent thousands of dollars on the Han dynasty urn that he recklessly broke to provoke and criticise the Chinese government.

We wanted to criticise Ai Weiwei on how he spent thousands of dollar by showing us dropping personal value and effort. We spend cumulatively 40 and half hours between research, class hours and creating our personal urn and then we dropped it and broke it.

 

We also filmed the process of creating the urn and showed it also in as a projection to give context about out remake.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0ecII7qFq6Y

 

 

initial sketch of the urn

 

 

 

We kept the same format as Ai Weiwei, with three pictures of the process of dropping the urn in black and white.

Père Lachaise – Seminar

 “THE CEMETERY”
Written by
Lara Bijlenga, Ilona Vileyn-Salah, Farah Mrad, and Kathryn Frey

THE CEMETERY


FADE IN:
EXT.  “LA PERÈ LACHAISE” CEMETERY - DAY
A hand reaches from the inside of a caveau. AMY, 22, a newly
buried body in the cemetery steps out. Her white shirt has blood
stains on it and her skin is tinted purple. She looks around,
and begins to walk. Birds chirp, leaves crunch, and the sun
shines brightly.
Her step is slow and heavy. She continues to look around, trying
to orient herself with where she is. She turns a corner.
PAN TO NICOLE, 23, standing up behind a tomb stones.


                             NICOLE
                    (yawns loudly)
            What a beautiful day to be alive! I mean
                    (beat)

dead.

TEASER
FADE IN:
EXT. CEMETERY - DAY
AMY continues walking through the cemetery, confused.

                               AMY
                  Wh- Why am I in a graveyard?
CUT TO SASCHA, 32, a Russian chemist killed in the Chernobyl
Disaster, of sitting down and smoking a cigarette.

                             SASCHA
            So there is new girl in uh - in graveyard.
PAN TO AMY, still wandering around, looking for any indicator of
why she is here.
                        SASHA (continued)
                      She buried yesterday.
                    (she looks over at Amy, then quickly
                    back to the camera so she doesn’t see
                    her.)

See? Idiots.

CUT TO WES, 19, playing air drums. His hair is swooped over his
face in a mop-head style, cap is on backwards, and his jeans are
sagging.
                               AMY
                         (walking up to Wes)
                     Hello? Hello? Excuse me?
WES does not see her.
                         AMY (continues)
                     Hello? Hello? Excuse me?
                      Hell-oooo? Hi! Hello!
WES finally stops air drumming and acknowledges AMY.
                               AMY
                 Do you know what’s this place?
                               WES
                        Are you new here?

AMY Yeah…?

                               WES
                           Hey, me too!
WES motions to give her a high five. She does not reciprocate.
                               WES
                   Come on! It’s a high five.
                    Come on, hit me down low.
She still does not reciprocate. He eventually just high fives
her.
                         WES (continued)
              Come on, you know? Like a high five?
                               AMY

No.

                               WES
                         (scoughs)
                      Where you come from?
                               AMY
                   I don’t know where I come—
                               WES
                         Ah me too, man.
He motions to high five her, but then realizes there is no
point.
                         WES (continued)
   You know, I have this theory that high fives are healthy. *
 You know what you need to do, you just need to chill out, take a
      breather, relax, because it’s all gonna be, okay, man.
                               AMY
  No it’s not. It is not okay. I do not know where I am, I don’t
               know who I am — what is happening?—
                               WES
                       Just take a rest —
                               AMY
                       What is happening?
                               WES
            Okay, okay. Do you know how you got here?

AMY No.

WES Me too.

AMY You do?

                               WES
                     Do you know who you are?

AMY

NO.

WES, Me too.

                         (beat)
                   Do you know where you live?

AMY No.

WES Me too.

                               AMY
                        I can’t remember!
                               WES
                       Me too. See? Just —
                    (makes exhale sound).
                               AMY
  How can you be so calm about it? We’re lost? We don’t know who
  we are, what we’re doing here, in a graveyard, because there’s
                       graves everywhere.
                               WES
                      Me too, man. Wicked.
AMY, frustrated, walks away.
CUT TO NICOLE, facing camera.
                             NICOLE
  So Wes died around thirty-five years ago. I can’t remember the
  exact date, but it was June 20th, 1975 around 6am. Wait, no. I
 dont’ know that. Basically, he died on a surfing accident in the
 south of France and hit his head pretty hard. That’s why he has
             memory loss, and he can’t remember me.
Her expression says, “I wish he would just notice me already!”
CUT TO WES, sitting wide legged in front of camera.

WES

  How I got here? I don’t know. How long I’ve been here? I don’t
  know. But you know? I just take it easy. I hang loose, I walk
           around, I hang with my buddies, the Ghosts.
                         (to THE GHOSTS)
THE GHOSTS sit down beside WES.
 Hey man, how’s it going? Hey, how’s it going? So, what have you
       guys been up to today? You chillin’ out? Yeah? Good.

FADE OUT.

FADE IN.
EXT. CEMETERY - DAY
SASCHA, standing against a tomb again, smoking a cigarette,
again. AMY walks past and doesn’t notice her, again.
                             SASCHA
                         (whistles to AMY)
AMY walks back to where SASCHA is standing.
                               AMY
                           Who are you?
                             SASCHA
                       [speaks in Russian]
           You don’t speak Russian. Are you my friend?
                               AMY
                        No. Who are you?
                             SASCHA
 Well if you decide to be my friend, I might tell you why you’re
                              here.
                               AMY
            I’ll be your friend. What am I doing here?
                             SASCHA
  There is no easy way to say. I will try to be nice. But you’re
                 dead. I could have been nicer.

AMY

                        Is this a joke?
                             SASCHA
             Do I look like joke? Do I look funny?
                              AMY
  This is a joke. This is not funny at all. What am I doing in
                        this graveyard?
                             SASCHA
                      Dead and brainless.
                              AMY
                       I’m not brainless!
                             SASCHA
                         Yes, you are.

AMY No —

                             SASCHA
 Okay, your body is rotting inside ground. You got out of body.
You are not body anymore. You’ve got blood all over you! Get the
wash do you? You filthy person. And you don’t speak Russian. You
                      dead and brainless.
                              AMY
                   This is not funny at all.
                             SASCHA
          Okay, go. Go, go. You upset Sascha, you go.
                              AMY
                  I’ll go. You have problems.
                             SASCHA
            I would kill her if she wasn’t dead yet.
[DELEATED SCENE]
CUT TO AMY, sitting alone.

AMY

 I’m not dead. I am not dead at all. She has problems. There’s no
  way I am dead. I’m alive — look at me! I got hands, I got my
                skin, I’m alive and my head and —
THE GHOSTS crouch down to hug AMY. They seem to be trying to
comfort her.
                         AMY (continued)
               What am I doing? What is happening?
                    (sees camera for the first time)
       Wait, and there’s a camera too. Are you dead also?

FADE IN.

EXT. CEMETERY - DAY
AMY sitting alone, playing with a leaf. Her expression shows she
is sad, defeated, and trying to come to terms with the fact that
she has died.
TEXT: NEXT WEEK ON “THE CEMETERY”
From the corner, GODEFROY, THE COUNT OF MONTMIRAIL steps out of
a grave.
GODEFROY appears to be riding an air horse, swirling a stick
around as if a sword. He holds a Gucci shopping bag as a shield
and a cardboard box as a helmet — probably garbage he found left
in the cemetery.
                            GODEFROY
                 Bourgeois! Bourgeois! Bourgeois!
                         (speaking French)
                             NICOLE
                        Shut up Godefroy.
                            GODEFROY
                   (continues to speak French)
                             NICOLE
  Ignore him. He’s just like this really old guy. And he forgets
    that he’s here? And that he died like ten centuries ago?

FADE OUT.

AMY
          This is insane.
              NICOLE
Yeah, welcome to Pere Lachaise.

FADE OUT.