first blog from Frank Mohr "Choosing a Signature Work"

This is my first blog entry for Frank Mohr IME


This video describes my thinking today. My opinions can change tomorrow. It could be my signature work as it was made today, and I want my work to relate my latest thinking, but for a signature work.. well...  I would want to be more eloquent, and have higher production value ... but I want to set a tone for myself of spontaneity and non-censorship. Yet, it's not representative of where I am heading... In the months to come I hope this blog will be a place to start sharing my interactive work, the work of others - and "how to" - the idea of open source is central to interactive art.






Selecting a signature work  is a challenge as I am not sure which criteria I prefer to use. If I were to ask what is the most popular, then my signature work would be my YouTube videos (750,000 views to date), but that doesn't seem valid as it's more of an archive than a single work.

I could choose one of my feature films perhaps, or one of my experimental art films, but none are interactive art which is where I am heading and thus not the best choice perhaps.

Along those lines, another way to declare my signature work could be my forming a time bank (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pahBd9pEQiU) or starting The Green Bus Tour (greenbustour.com) - both in New York City - while neither is art exactly in my view or intent at the time - both were aiming to raise consciousness and affect large scale behavioral change - which is the goal of my art now.

Two short films I have online are not my best examples, so not signature work but each has elements of what I am hoping to do. This is a trailer my DP made of a film that examined the idea of the Internet being self aware and later I had a psychoanalyst do a voice over instructing her to be critical of me (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DVHv_KaQfeg) and this one was a fictional reality show (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=30mEhMwuPFk) but mapped my return from a ten day silent retreat and my attempts to convey the experience helped dissolve its positive effects.

This is a picture I took upon dropping a bowl and rotating the shards - so in that it is spontaneous and created in the moment, perhaps this will be my placeholder signature work:

Broken Bowl Turned into Art Spontaneously