1m35s: CUT TO POINT-OF-VIEW SHOT FROM BEHIND A BLACK PIECE OF CARDBOARD WITH CIRCULAR CUTOUT REVEALING RICK ROSS WEARING LOUIS VUITTON MILLIONAIRE FRAMES, RED VELOUR SWEATSUIT, HANDS TOGETHER IN RESERVED CONTEMPLATIVE FASHION, SITUATED IN WHEELCHAIR EMBELLISHED WITH RUSTIC UNFINISHED-STEEL SPINNERS, POSSIBLY SPOONS. ROSS MOUTHS THE PHRASE, “I GOT A CHOPPER IN THE CAR,” PRODUCES A GRUNTING FACIAL EXPRESSION AND SLOWLY TURNS HIS HEAD AWAY FROM THE CAMERA WHILE A LARGE RAT SCAMPERS ACROSS THE FRAME.
The presence of the wheelchair in the video for "John" by Lil Wayne ft. Rick Ross – perhaps a nod to the late David Foster Wallace's 1996 masterpiece work of fiction Infinite Jest, which features a group of deadly Quebecois terrorists called "Les Assasins des Fauteuils Rollents" whose members lack functioning legs and are wheelchair-bound?
In this short work by Conan Lai, footage taken at the front of a bus becomes a tool for exploring the dreadful experience that is public transit. So dreadful that you might actually feel like you're riding in slow-motion or going backwards, two effects which are applied to the central frame’s video, which is superimposed over the same footage of an otherwise normal, forward moving bus ride (the outer frame). These two frames, the reality of the bus ride and the representation of what it feels like are separated by a thin border also generated from the same footage. The border, however, has been obscured by heavy amounts of magnification. Our experience of the bus ride then seems to be the result of some process of magnification or abstraction, which really is just any attention to detail or thinking which occurs on the bus.
It's interesting to look at this video from a geographical/historical perspective of the region. GRT not only serves Kitchener, but also the adjacent cities of Waterloo and Cambridge. This video was released at a time considered to be key in Waterloo's development: when the decision to implement LRT (Light-Rail Transit) was moved forward. Is this video nodding at Waterloo's booming growth in direct relation to Kitchener's economic and social plight? Consider the title of the work, "GRT South of Kitchener." In this video the bus is seen only travelling south (backwards), not North to prosperous Waterloo but towards the even more plightful Cambridge. Is the video's title an attempt at geographic accuracy? An intentional omission of 'Cambridge', a city name with too many negative associations in Southern Ontario to even spell out?
Cambridge-bashing aside, the individual elements "GRT", "South", and "Kitchener" bring to mind associations of a lower socio-economic class, those unable to afford a car and forced to ride the bus. When we consider this, we may realize: this is what it's like to ride the bus. A limited view of black pavement and grey sedans that doesn't seem to end. At around the 1:00 mark, the sequence from inside the forward-moving bus ends, reality is blacked out, and we are left with an extreme magnification on irrelevant details in the backwards direction which this train of thought propels us. In the last six seconds of the video, our handle on the real is completely unravelled and for a moment we are left with just our lens, our thoughts, and finally, only the magnified backwards movement of cars. Useless thoughts, errata, grey pixels.
"that painting has to be burned, it has not to be shown to others. It was good, it helped you unburden, but please, don't burden anybody else. Don't present it to your friends, they are not your enemies"
"If you knew it was, then why did you say it?"
"'Cause that's how I felt. What were my options? Wrack my mind for something else to say, pray that I can come up with better sounding words? Silence?"
"Silence is nice, sometimes."
"Would silence be nice now?"
"No."
"Are you sure?"
"Yes."
"..."
"Maybe it would have been nice, like, a few seconds ago, but it wouldn't be now, you know?"
"Yeah... yeah."
"I said stay off the crack, and I still think that's pretty good advice, unless you can manage it socially. If you can manage it socially, then go for it, but not a lot of people can, you know?"
-Carlos Irwin Estevez
"Try, for example, to recall your first day at university. What do you remember about that day? Now ask yourself how you are able to recall any of these memories (if in fact you can).
If you drew a total blank, why?"
- Cognitive Psychology : In and out of the Laboratory
The beats gone, its out the door, its gone and there's no beat just a swell that rides up and down and you're no longer moving to a beat you're performing calculus and there seems to be no minimum, but does that mean there's no maximum either?
