Boring

I know it's a bit shallow to look at a piece of media and think, 'that's what I want my art to emulate', but I'm sure that the best of us do it. In my short time as a filmmaker (if I can even call myself that), there's one series that I just keep coming back to as a source of inspiration, which is Jenny Slate and Dean Fleischer-Camp's webseries called Catherine (2013).

This weird, nonsensical (and yet very sensical) story is essentially about nothing. It's mundane and yet it manages to be this funny, post-modern piece that I come back to time and time again. What attracts me to it so much is the purposeful boringness. The entire time, there is a sense that something strange is about to happen, and that something is slightly off. In the end- spoilers- nothing out of the ordinary happens.

We discussed the mundane in our Experimental Media class this week as well in light of David Claerbout, who's Jungle Book installation interested me greatly. I like the subject of the mundane and the boring, and I feel like I'll come back to the subject over the course of this year.

This is especially relevant in relation to comedy. From sketches on Saturday Night Live to stand-up specials on Netflix, the political situation of the world is almost unavoidable. Of course, this is not a recent trend- from Dick Gregory in the 60's to Hannah Gadsby this year, politics and current events will always be an intricate part of the genre.

However, I am interested in how comedy as the mundane functions. Neo-dadaist, postmodern subjects such as Catherine- and other examples from the past few years such as Neo Yokio (2017-) and Comedy Bang! Bang! (2012-2016)- become interesting because they are about weird and often mundane subjects.

I hope to explore this more- let's see how boring I can become this year.