The Institute and Obey Giant

 
The Institute (2013) – Over the course of three years, an alternate reality game enrolled over 10,000 to pursue an intriguing experience in San Francisco. This documentary examines all the results, both planned and unplanned.

Director: Spencer McCall

Why I Liked It: A fascinating look at an unusual project and its unexpected results.

Where to even begin? Imagine a game that is part live-action role-playing, part Dharma Institute from the television show “Lost”, part “Twilight Zone” and part conspiracy theory. If you’re familiar with the podcast serial “Welcome to Night Vale”, imagine being living in the middle of the story.

It began with strange posters stuck all over the city of San Francisco. If you called the number on them, they invited you to come to the “Jejune Institute”. There you watched a video introducing a secret organization that is trying to improve humanity. If you chose  “induction” you received a series of instructions to explore the city.

All of it was the creation of Oakland, CA-based artist Jeff Hull. The goal was to shake people up a little, to make them engage with the world in a different way. It presented the players with a range of questions. Who is Eva? What is the algorithm? Is Octavio Coleman, Esquire a metaphysical genius or a CIA backed provocateur? And what is the role of Nonchalance? Or Inter-dimensional Hopscotch? The deeper you went, the more the trail twisted and turned.

Was it real or just a game? The nature of the experiment allows different people to interpret it in different ways. But then that is the nature of art. What is real, and what is fantasy? Is there a boundary at all? The project explored that question, and the documentary offers its own look. A fascinating movie about an equally fascinating piece of art.

Rating – **** Recommended

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Obey Giant (2017) – The work and career of public artist Shepard Fairey is the focus of this documentary. Beginning with small stickers featuring wrestling icon Andre the Giant, he created art that challenged both the establishment and his viewers. It also resulted in his repeated arrest, including federal charges.

Why I Liked It – What is art? That’s the central question of both the artist’s life and this film. As always, art is a fluid concept and one that challenges the status quo.

I had not intended to watch two documentaries that discuss the concept of art. But this film and “The Institute” offer a wonderful examination of what we mean when we say “art”. In both movies, there are people who challenge that what we are seeing fits the category at all. That never ceases to amaze me. Even a superficial study of the history of art shows that this is always the response of the establishment when something new comes along. The other lesson from that history is that the establishment is always wrong. The past never defines art. Rather, art defines the future.

Recognition of Fairey’s artistic ability came early, but he stumbled into the art form that would be his claim to fame. It began as something fun to do. Working at a skateboard store, he began making some stickers and posters that featured the professional wrestler, Andre the Giant. They were fun and obscure and gained some attention in his hometown. That would lead him to full-scale public art pieces (derided as “graffiti” by some critics), and the creation of the iconic Obama “Hope” graphic. Fame would not save him from a confrontation with the Associated Press over the question of what qualifies as “fair use”.

“Obey Giant” was a wonderful surprise. Fairey’s art is stunning and gorgeous. The documentary team touches on the question of when other artists’ images can be used, and also when and where this form of art is appropriate. It was chilling to watch governmental authorities overreact to the work. One Boston police officer tried to charge the artist with 60+ felonies that would have resulted in a maximum of 80 years in jail. In part, for placing a sticker on the back of a street sign. The look on the judge’s face during that presentation in court is hilarious.

Like the art form or not, this is a movie worth seeing.

Rating – **** Recommended.