Homage to the Hall of Mirrors

Eve Cogan’s iterative experimentation with media arts, exploring modern news media.


Homage to Hugo Ball’s Dada Manifesto (and his daughter Rosa Menkman)

This video experimentation draws from Dadaist Hugo Ball and the glitch artist Rosa Menkman, who works in his legacy. I have “hacked” renowned online news organisations to change their authors and intersperse the news with Ball’s Dada Manifesto extracts. Additionally, I’ve paid a visual and auditory tribute to Menkaman’s Dada Radio


Homage to Rosa Menkman

This iteration employs four glitch experiments from Homage to Hugo Ball’s Dada Manifesto (and his daughter Rosa Menkman), created by corrupting the files in Sublime Text. Another visual and auditory layer has been generated by glitching archival footage of a printing press in Sublime Text.


Homage to Nam June Paik’s TV Buddha

This video experimentation employs motion tracking to create a pastiche of Nam June Paik’s TV Buddha, questioning enlightenment in a modern age of technology and media echo chambers. 

Initially, I attempted to motion track in AfterEffects with moving footage from the following scene. While it proved challenging, I believe this short scene remains interesting. 


Triptych Homage to Omer Fast’s 5000 Feet Is the Best

This three-part iterative experimentation draws from Omer Fast’s 5000 Feet Is the Best. Just as he has used voice over with a strangely different visual story, I have compiled three news story voiceovers and overlaid them against scenes of highly contrasting content but fitting narrative structure. 

Stopping the Spread is Best

A Balanced Discussion is Best

Defence is Best


Homage to Omer Fast’s CNN Concatenated

In this video experimentation drawn from Omer Fast’s CNN Concatenated, I have compiled and spliced news media to highlight its malleability. I have drawn from 


Homage to Bill Viola’s The Raft

This storyboard experimentation stylistically draws Bill Viola’s The Raft to explore the spread of news media through society. Like Viola’s short film, the plans detail a scene, set in an empty room, captured in slow motion with unintelligible dialogue and featuring 20 actors, the demographics of whom will be representative of society. Below, please see the storyboard captions, the storyboard itself and a video of its creation. 

  1. Dip from black. A group of 18 cast members posed in the centre of the frame.
  2. Man and woman walk into the frame talking.
  3. The man begins to talk to the centre-left side of the group. The woman starts to speak to the centre-right side of the group.
  4. People on both become progressively more interested in their respective storytellers. Whispering begins amongst both the left and the right sides. People from both sides start talking over the top of each other.
  5. Information spreads in two distinct directions.
  6. The groups begin to separate physically.
  7. People on the edges of each group start to talk to each other.
  8. Anger flourishes on the periphery
  9. Involvement from both sides grows, while some in the centre don’t notice
  10. Physical violence between the sides begins.
  11. Some people are ignoring each other.
  12. Others are convincing each other and switching sides.
  13. Others agree to disagree.
  14. Some people are hurt.
  15. People from their side are coming to help. Dip to black.

Further Experimentation Ideas 

Homage to Angelica Mesiti Rapture (Silent Anthem)

This experimentation would have drawn from Angelica Mesiti’s Rapture (Silent Anthem), exploring false gods and their meaninglessness. Like Mesiti’s work, this video would have been captured in slow motion, tightly cropped, soundless shots. These would included:

  1. Individual tapping and entering into an app.
  2. Their eyes from below, captured as they scroll.
  3. Scrolling.
  4. Another set of eyes captured from below as they scroll. 
  5. The first individual’s mouth moving in the anger of an argument.
  6. A phone thrust forward, then turned off and ripped away.

Homage to the Movement

This iterative photography experiment would have featured long exposure shots with only one dynamic element, blurred from the movement. For example 

  • The scrolling of a screen 
  • A newspaper being flipped
  • A mouth moving

Homage to The Johnny Cash Project

Another experimentation could have been drawn from the Johnny Cash Project, a collaborative rotoscoping exercise. I could have selected some simple frames of an individual paging through a newspaper and asked members of the public (e.g. family and friends) to fill in / illustrate over a frame each with their understanding of news media. The result would give a fascinating stop motion portraying a diversity of perspectives on the media.

1 Comment

  1. Dada News | Eve Cogan's Blog on 13/11/2021 at 8:37 pm

    […] was happy with the peer feedback I received regarding Homage to the Hall of Mirrors – my development through iterative experimentation. The ideas I will continue with […]

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