Sara A's Response to Pipilotti Rist Reading

After reading about Pipilotti Rist, it is clear that her approach to film finds its power and strength through her use of female emotions. She takes her frustration, disappointments, disillusionments and regrets and then translates them into ambitious video installations. In some videos she reenacts romantic fantasies and it others she constructs emotional symbols, while others recreate dream like states. She stated that she "is fueled by trials, not triumph for her videos." Rist hopes to achieve the idea that her imagined love is often shattered by a gullible belief that seduction is an expression of enduring affection. Rist's video installation have been compared to a MTV porno-pop. In some examples of Rist's videos, she shows forests, rivers, oceans, and swamps drenched by "moisture of arousal." Rist is capturing the feminine culture emotively, instead of physically. One example of her video installations was "Sip My Ocean" in 1996. Rist also uses the camera to show the complexity of human emotions, both being loved and being abandoned. It is so interesting that she juxtaposes these opposite emotions and it is fascinating, as the viewer, to watch and feel the different emotions throughout the installations. When she is editing her work, Rist works hard of enhancing the emotive power of the footage she has taken. Something that is ten hours of tape may only make a three minute sequence.