Before summer completely escapes, I want to get down some thoughts about > sixth map” href=”http://www.pouringdown.tv/sevenmaps/”>Daniel Liss’ Seven Maps. The week of August 6th-12th saw another project funded by the vlogging community via Have Money Will Vlog – itself an incredible project that has funded Chris Weagel’s ongoing American King and more to come.
Liss’ proposal for Seven Maps came as an invitaition for funders to contribute their own ideas, via a wiki, for seven distinct video posts. There was some excitement in the idea of sending Liss out with camera to various parts of the world, but Liss made it clear he wasn’t looking for journalism assignments. He was looking for external restrictions that got him out of his “comfort zone.” A group of “filters” extracted from the mix of ideas a plan and a set of rules for each day’s post that was only made known to Liss and viewers 24 hours before.
Even with a dying camera, Liss was able to take on each set of rules with the usual finesse and ingenuity that subscribers to pouringdown.tv have come to expect. There were some real gems. The sixth map stands out for me because it points to an emerging form – the fictional vlogger. But, the project as a whole fell short of my own expectations. Why? Was it too easy for Liss? If vlogging is about framing the everyday, why would we expect the everyday be any different in Montreal? Is vlogging about the extraordinary or the banal? If it is about the banal, why should Liss or any vlogger leave his or her “comfort zone” in the first place? The zone that we know best is our own lives. For me, Liss’ videos are exceptional because they apply great cinematic ideas to his own microcosm. His metaphors are not taken from the common stock, but are improvised out of the material of living. The “problem” I had with seven maps (a very interesting and instructive problem!) is that the rules for each post were too abstract – they didn’t get Liss deeper into his own life, they took him out of it.
I would be interested in another round next summer. This time, instead of leaving home with a set of rules, Liss should be OUR high priest. A week of ritual observations that comingle multiple microcosms. Not sure even that would “work.” But after all, these communally funded vlog projects are not about working or not working, entertaining or not entertaining. This is about ritual – the spectator, the creator and the object are one.
-Lynda Sexson, Ordinarily Sacred
