Webspinna Battle - Fight vs. Flight

We chose fight or flight as a subject for our Webspinna Battle. This was one of the strangest projects either of us have ever done. The whole time we were preparing we kept saying to each other “What are we doing?”. At some point we just decided to go with it. It took some letting go and not worrying about outcomes anymore -- which was hard to do and a bit strange. But it was also very freeing in a lot of ways.

Something that we discovered while doing this is that just how much we love certain media and how much media has influenced us. As we were discussing different possibilities, certain quotes or clips from movies and shows would come to mind. It was revealing that a lot of our clips were from Pirates of Caribbean and Lord of the Rings. These were films that we grew up on. They informed a lot about who we are, how we view and tell stories, and even how we interpret different ideas and emotions.

        

Everything that we come in contact with influences and becomes a part of us -- especially art. The Ecstasy of Influence talks about using others’ works and ideas in our own work -- whether or not we do so consciously. This project was interesting because we were very consciously taking works and using them in completely unintended ways. Creating art by sort of stealing and changing art really required us to try different approaches to creating. Creating art from something that is already made instead of starting from scratch takes looking at things in different ways.

Somewhere along the way of creating our battle, our objective became just trying to make it all work, as opposed to trying to impress or even make something super great. It was a bit of a mess, and perhaps in some ways it could and should have been less messy, but in some aspects there was beauty in the mess. We made some mistakes while performing and had some technical issues, but they created new things that would not have been created otherwise. Creating something new through mistakes -- whether it works or not is in and of itself a beautiful thing.

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