Collaboration and Sincerity

After the discussion today in class, I have a greater understanding of what Althea Thauberger was trying to accomplish with her work, even if I don't agree with it. I suppose what I was supposed to get out of it was how collaboration can work to combine different types of art into one form. However, I don't agree with how these projects were carried out. For me it simply came down to the ideas for the films. I didn't feel like I could connect with any of them or begin to understand why it was some of the choices were made. For example, singing worked for "Songstress" because that is what the film was about; the women who were singing. The singing in "A Memory lasts Forever", while intended, came out a bit over the top at certain points and almost made the film laughable to me. The only film that I thought had any meaning to it was "Northern". While I did find meaning in this film, I was confused the whole time on what exactly it was supposed to mean. For the most part I thought it was a "What are you doing about this?" kind of public service announcement, but I also got the feeling that it may have been a documentary on the work that the planters were doing and it didn't really seem to connect the two. The thing that really threw me off was the stare at the end of the film. For the most part I thought that it was that documentary, then the stare is what confused me and turned me off to the film as a whole. Her website also doesn't make it any clearer on which was she was going with this piece. What these works have shown me is that an excess of powerful effects can sometimes lead away from what you are really trying to say.