what was that man talking about? -khat

David McKenzie bored me to tears. I watched his video installation from start to finish, so to speak. What I mean is I watched it for a whole loop. I saw the doll of Andy Warhol playing the part of Don Knotts playing the part of some one else. I watched this insane character tell us we all came from fish. I don't think he was going for humor and if he was he missed his mark with me. This particular idea of the human race starting with fish and the characters chosen to present this were a theme throughout the piece. One of the characters was, I'm assuming, McKenzie himself. He seemed to be very contemplative. He listened to what the Warhol-Knotts man had to say and it made me want to care. It made me want to glean some sort of answer too. I couldn't get anything out of it.
I did enjoy the artists use of a bunch of different techniques, materials, and scenes. He used real people and dolls. He used dream sequences and real time scenery. I liked the falling dream of a doll modeled after the artist. He seemed to have taken a considerable amount of care in making the doll look like him. The doll had on the same clothing even down to the sneakers. To me the idea that he used a representation of himself as much as he used himself in the flesh was really honest. I think we all feel like representations of ourselves at one time or another.
I got the impression in class that this artist worked a lot with the concept of race relations and racism. I wish I had seen it in this piece. I am interested in the problem we face in this country when it comes to the divide in races. I am also interested on peoples views both on that problem and what they see as a possible solution. I didn't see a whole lot of deconstruction as far as that was concerned. The only thing that i saw that could relate to that was a time lapse scene in which McKenzie cuts open a basketball and expends a significant amount of effort on turning it inside out. He then glues it back together with a hot glue gun. You never see his face, just his hands and chest. There is no music playing in the background, just the sound of the basketball squeaking as he turns it in on itself. When he's done he has a basketball that's completely black. Who knew? Is that a comment on the options black people have in this country? Is it a comment on what black people have brought to the sport that white people still own and control? Has it got anything to do with race at all? Or am I just reaching?
When it came to matters of race I didn't see anything else that I thought pertained. I found the piece, or montage of pieces, wholly inaccessible. I found myself turned off by how little of it I was able to relate to and understand. I wanted more than he gave. I think he wanted to communicate more than he was able. In one scene the artist feeds a bird on his window sill. My favorite part. A real man feeds a real bird. That at least is a motivation i can understand.