Blog Entry#1

Keiran McCann
Videography
Spring 2010

Blog#1

Craig Baldwin is an experimental filmmaker and a pioneer of artistic expression. He uses found footage as well as his own footage and manipulates it with the use of editing and various sound adding/reduction. He uses photomontage to construct and assemble new art forms from old and previously accepted art forms. He takes something that already has a powerful or profound meaning and warps it beyond recognition to explain his own beliefs or idea. In a way, he is a folk artist.

His particular piece, Sonic Outlaws (1995) is mostly about the “band” Negativeland. Negativeland was an experimental music group who used stolen pre-existing sound and with it created new sounds of their own. Baldwin refers to this as “culture jamming” and he and Negativeland were not the only ones participating in this movement at the time. Baldwin knew exactly what he was doing but did it despite the fact that it is illegal. It is a political statement about advertising and propaganda, which he addresses in Sonic Outlaws multiple times. “The original act of taking it out of context and placing it in a new context…that is the act of the artwork.”

Baldwin is unique in his use of cutups. He utilizes various clips from his own films as well as, advertisements, TV shows, feature films, documentary films, education films etc. He gets his message across without actually visually portraying his message. It is all done through visual and auditory cutups. He merely makes the suggestions, but it is the audience who makes the connections themselves. He is someone who causes disorder or upheaval, but by way of filmmaking. In a way, he is a film anarchist.