For my topic, I wanted to explore a different concept not blatantly obvious to the Doomsday idea; however, my topic ties together large aspects of it especially ongoing issues in the world through found footage/sound such as videos of North Korean propaganda, global warming, racism, political issues, violence, and more.
I am exploring the idea of savage vs civilization and representing humanity through two subjects, a man and a woman eating at a dinner table, which also shows stereotypical and “politically correct” gender roles. I thought it would be interesting to bring attention to and juxtapose the “normal” systems of life with this immense amount of turmoil and destruction in this world, such as war, hate, and nuclear warfare. This would also give me a way to incorporate this with the idea of Doomsday, yet touch upon other social issues such as gender norms as well as questioning the structured way of life. This idea of man and woman gender role came from my knowledge in Christianity–the story of Adam and Eve. I wanted to twist this idea in a way that challenges gender norms and the life is structured and bring micro aggression into the picture through this. I desired to represent this in a simple form/idea, which I then reflected upon dinner table mannerism. I want to question this idea of what is humanity? are we savage due to our inherent instincts dwelled upon us from the Stone Ages? This little bit of evidence is shown through violence, nuclear warfare, hate crime, racism, etc. Or, is humanity ultimately and evidently civilized where we have learned to grow from the past and are highly developed and advancing towards a greater society?
For the clips, I want to record a man and woman at a dinner table in formality. I am taking an audio from an old 1940s school education video on how to have proper table manners/social skills for teens and overlaying it onto clips of the two subjects. The audio tells instructions such as “you must grab your fork and knife in this way and cut it like this” or “you must ask your companion to pass things to you”. I would first show clips of normal proper etiquette of them eating and following the directions then jump cut to clips of violence such as riots. Then, I would also begin to incorporate clips of the two not following the directions of the audio and eating in a very uncivilized manner to portray savagery. I then would jump cut to another found footage video to North Korean propaganda or the kkk and other various issues. The speed of which I do this would be, initially, a constant steady speed of clips of the two then clips of found footage of war, hate, etc. Then as the video goes on, it seems to get more “savage” and the clips of the civilized couple would almost seem depleting. The juxtaposition of the found footage and the couple eating savagely would erratically speed up in a choppy chaotic manner to further push the idea of the world also becoming more savage and less civilized. I am not sure what to do for the ending yet, but I think I would show a dreamy garden scene and represent the story of Adam and Eve and ironically end it with the concept of Creation imagery as the ending to question maybe if there will be a rebirth of humanity.
Influences:
Lord of the Flies
Nicolas Holiber “Head of Goliath”
Proper Etiquette Teenagers: “As Others See Us” (1953) audio: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dStuUgCgBv8
