Preference in art is no different than preference in anything else. And preferences—whether in skating, fashion, cuisine, or music—are informed (always) by taste, experience, and the knowledge you bring with you into a situation.
What you prefer might change during the course of your life, or even minute by minute.
Or maybe your preferences will stay the same forever.
Any of those is pretty normal.
I’m bringing that up because something happened on Friday night that might pose a significant challenge to your preferences. And it’s relevant to cover it on this blog because of what it does rhetorically and culturally.
Late last Friday night, longtime Austin rollerblader Jay Geurink released a film called Teen Dreams on his website Bird Swim. It isn’t exactly a rollerblading video per se. I think it would be better described as an art film made for an audience of rollerbladers.
Geurink himself specifically says in the introduction that Teen Dreams is not a rollerblading video—even though most of what gets featured is rollerblading footage.
So, for the moment, we’ll call it an art film.
The thing is, I don’t know how much experience you’ve had with art films. And for some people I know, the mere thought of an art film is enough to send a chill into the area postrema—the part of your brain which controls whether or not you vomit.
That isn’t totally out of the question.
Most art films I’ve seen are frankly pretty damned strange and the people who make them are typically even stranger.
Team Dreams isn’t really all that bizarre, though, and Jay is a fairly normal dude.
But on the other hand, Teen Dreams defies almost everything we know about rollerblading videos.
And personally, I think that’s the point.
Teen Dreams isn’t divided into sections. It doesn’t include each skater’s name at the bottom of the screen. And the skating isn’t sharply in focus or particularly easy to see.
It’s over a decade’s worth of skating and footage projected onto a wall, re-filmed through a haze of light, and edited into an hour-long sequence.
It’s suggested that you take certain care to imbibe or inhale what you may prior to viewing.
Geurink also suggests that you watch it alone.
I took his advice and waited until late at night; after my wife had gone to sleep; after the dogs had gone to sleep; and after the city had gone to sleep.
Then I broke out an old bottle of Cutty Sark and set the video up on my laptop in the backyard.
I actually did Jay one better and lit citronella candles all around me because I live near a creek and the fucking flies and mosquitoes in my back yard are fucking terrible.
So there I was all by myself watching an art film in the middle of night, surrounded by candles like it was some kind of voodoo scene.
Maybe more like a one-man séance.
That gif ftw
Ooh good writing feels so gooooooood.
Thanks so much, Ben! I really appreciate that. It’s a thin line I’m trying to walk with this blog. Glad you like it!
@Alan–I know, right?! The internet makes me feel that way on a weekly basis!