Marlo Shankweiler

About

Marlo Shankweiler is an NYC native who is in her Sophomore year at Gallatin after transferring from the University of Southern California.  Marlo is a musician and plays guitar in a band called Melt, which plays shows in the tristate area.  In addition to playing music, Marlo has a passion for seeing live music and going on wild adventures.  For this piece, Marlo created a short video called "Wild Cow" which incorporates original music.

“wild cow”

Reality is not real. These days with the internet, you are not sure what you’re looking at is ever real. The screen in front of your face is just a presentation of images highly curated for mass consumption, and often with profit in mind. Through my amalgamation of clips, I create a somewhat uncanny collage. Is there a linear narrative? What happens when you try to look for one? Are you so conditioned to believe stories and media should follow a specific formula?  Can you categorize this video and ascribe a specific genre to it?

In jazz, musicians strings seemingly random notes and licks together to create a solo.  In this video, I took videos of nature all in the “same key” (of the same location) and tried to improvise the video equivalent of a jazz solo, leaving a lack of linear plot. This video also questions the idea of expectation, as the first few shots of the landscape set a serious tone for what quickly becomes a comedic parody of serious short films.

To accompany footage, I designed sounds.  The video begins with nature and therefore is accompanied by a guitar to represent the analog. However, towards the end, the sound transforms to a digital soundscape and is accompanied by sounds that I designed in Logic.