Interview with Bonita Ng
- In one of the first readings we had, Krauss used centering to evoke the feeling of importance by blurring out the environment around it. Although your chicken wasn’t one that did not have a high position in the hierarchy, I see you using the POV technique which helped portray your chicken as if he/she had more importance . Why and how does that function in your work?
The class said my initial videos focusing on more than one chicken seemed a little scattered, and I agreed. I didn’t really know what to focus on. David suggested that I focus on one of the chickens in a lower status, to portray how hard she has it sometimes. I tried doing that and it was quite successful, although the theme was no longer about low status. It became a video about personality, and although it portrayed how low status can affect personality, it ultimately was about the characteristics of Attack Chicken, the main chicken in the video. I wanted to empower Attack Chicken by giving her the spotlight. I can also relate to her since I was bullied before by most of the class, too. I hope she enjoyed me filming her.
- We are all making work in the context of a long and varied history of video art and media culture. I see a connection between your work and the William Kentridge exhibit at the Marian Goodman gallery because your video showed the beauty of a chicken by simply following it around just as his art work showed the beauty of the people of that nation with how he represented their culture. Tell me more about how you see this connection or another connection to video art history/media culture?
Video art is different from most older forms of fine art because it does not try to make its subject ideal. Video art can’t really “capture” the authenticity of a subject, however, although it seems like it can. When you see a recording of a chicken, you sometimes think that it’s just a chicken, but it is actually an edited image of a chicken. I think my video relates to this because my first videos of the chickens seemed like a regular, “home-made” video of “how chickens really are”. You and James said my final video captured the beauty of chickens, and this fits into what I was saying about how no video captures the authenticity and reality of its subject. The camera is always influenced by whoever is holding it.
- What inspires you to take photos of nature and animals compared to other things that we’ve seen in class such as a vacuum, or an onion, or even a balloon?
To be honest, I just wanted to have an excuse to keep volunteering at the chicken coop. My mom didn’t like that I was spending time volunteering instead of focusing on homework (and I did neglect homework sometimes), but the video project helped me find an excuse to be around the chickens. Also, I couldn’t think of anything else to film.