Final project for French Cinema class- an adaptation of Marcel Duchamp’s Anemic Cinema.

This project is part of my ongoing work with the character Betty that I’ve invented. In this video, she sneaks into the Louvre and vandalizes several famous works—the Mona Lisa, the Venus de Milo, and the Grand Odalisque—by painting onto their faces her characteristic black eye mask. I chose these works because they are all famous portrayals of anonymous women which form part of the art historical canon. I thought of this act as a recruitment effort on her part, and also as an attempt to empower the women in these images by turning their anonymity into a personal choice and possibly a source of power. The form of the video, which is a combination of found documentary footage, my own filmed image, and images of myself animated within a set I painted, is intended to create an illusion while at the same time emphasizing that this is a fantasy. The music that I chose for the bulk of the project invokes mystery or crime cinema, while the intro and outtro music is pulled from Betty Boop cartoons from the 30s. These songs are intended to communicate something of Betty’s emotions and motives to her actions, while at the same time placing her within the mythology of Betty Boop and adding to the confused historical time which I hoped to create with this video.

Final photo project. These photographs are based on and use the same set as the video I’m currently working on. They therefore serve as kind of supplementary material to the video.

photo project? i dont know.

This is my soundscape. The audio comes from the Betty Boop cartoon “Snow White”. The video is footage I took of myself, which relates to an character I’m also developing in other works. I guess I think of this character as some kind of criminal or trickster or something. It’s still being worked out. Probably she is named Betty.