Week Six (Monday 3-3-08)

Follow the link to see the video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AJWIONTiiYA

I think that this video, titled "The Identity Monologue", echoes Alex Bag's work in more than one way. Regarding Bag's portrayal of the student telling her story through her four years in art school is similar to this video in the sense than it has a narrative of sorts. In "The Identity Monologue" the performer tells his story of struggling with identity in a very loose narrative, but still a narrative regardless. The performer in this video using the form of eight different characters with different accents and ethnicities to get his point across. This is also similar to Bag in the sense that we don't know exactly which character is the real artist, if any at all. In Bag's work as the student, it was very well acted to the point that I couldn't really know for sure if she was purely acting or if she was reliving her own experiences at school. Also, Bag's character struggles with figuring out who she is and how she fits into her world. In "The Identity Monologue" the perfomer is also telling how he stuggled with identity for a period of his life. So the concept of knowing and accepting oneself is a major theme in both pieces. Bag uses costumes and wigs to disguise herself throughout her performance while the performer in "The Identity Monologue" uses different voices and characters to do the same thing. Also, a very obvious comparison and similarity is that both videos are set up in the form of a personal confession. Both performers are addressing the audience directly.