Event 3: This is the end, Hammer Museu

The exhibit, “This is the End” by Ed Atkins, is a video series comprised of 3 videos made by different artists. I was a little taken back at first because when you walk into the exhibit, you are walking into a dark room that only included the video projected onto the wall. The video series was titled, “Even Pricks” and was hard to grasp that seemed to include no theme or storyline. Every video was very different and hard to understand but after reading the Museum’s handout it explained that they were all presenting with an underlying theme of, “trauma, melancholy, surrealism and the uncanny.” Ed Atkins used computer-generated images followed by special effects to create unsettling images in order to create the feelings he was going for.

There is no actual structure of images or scenes, but rather seemed to be playing bunch of quick segments that were supposed to convey the idea of physical and psychological depression. While watching I did not see the connection it had to depression and to me, lacked any literal sense of meaning to depression. It included repeated sounds and pictures such as hands clapping and yelling vulgar language, which was a rather uncomfortable environment. As stated before there did not seem to be any connection between the sounds and image as it would go from something like fingers snapping to a monkey and a thumb. Although I did not really see the connection these videos had to depression, perhaps the inconsistency and lack of real meaning symbolized that of the unpredictability of depression. This exhibit was art like I’ve never experienced it before but it was hard to follow and overall unsatisfying and slightly disturbing.