Mike Schneider, a Stroudsburg resident, with training from ESU and Kutztown University is continuing his work as, "a media whore turned pimp." Previously, we had followed him during his installation piece 'Ra-man Noodle' which sat in the Laurel Hall lounge, but Mike is also a sculptor, designer, photographer, projectionist, technician... and in his recent work has become increasingly involved with video. Trying to categorize Mike's 'art' is like trying to eat ice cream too fast; It makes your head hurt. After jumbling through phrases like somnamtic Surrealist or organized Dadaist, Mike stopped me. "I'm really more of a low-art artist now... a media maker... low art shouldn't have those inflated terms attached to it when the key to the work itself is deflated and target audience expanding outside of the art community." When I asked him how long he has been an artist he told me, "I can't answer that question because it's such a nebulous term... a term some might not even consider applicable. Somewhere between birth and death if at all." He also added, "I'm not really an artist, I just play one on TV. *laughs* though often it's a projection." At this point Mike grabbed the tape recorder.
"My work is nothing but a play on words, Clichés and idioms." If there was any way to describe Mike's work, his own response is best. There is always some irony that draws the viewer in, something one can recognize as familiar and then laugh at because it merges opposites. An unmerciful juxtaposition of comic and tragic, his art carries a light darkness that draws from the human soul. Reading this from my pad he replied, "Wow, that's deep... you should come sell my ideas to Phoebe (Adams) for me." I felt that it was important to dive deeper into his feeling on the arts as a whole because over the years I've known him, I've noticed that he has become squeamish when referring to himself as an artist. "What do you think of the art community and what is pulling you away from it to the realm of movies?" I asked and quickly pulled back as if I had lit a stick of dynamite. After a minute of silence, the fuse burnt down and with a bang he began. "In the contemporary era, the ideals set forth by the established high arts are nothing but a memory and the practices novel by virtue of their antiquity. Artists throughout the ages have compared their work to the world around them... nature... beautiful and graceful. In our society, the view we have is nothing more then a wonderland seen through the looking glass of TV and computer. Bacchanal images dance across screens of energized particles brought to you by sponsors pushing products at a click or phone call away. Like a scratched record, the same things play through again and again only now digitalized, the scratch made obsolete by a line of corrupted data. Shouldn't art reflect the fact that we are a society of reruns and repeats of clichés and catch phrases? Why video...? A still image is worth 1000 words... a movie is 30 stills/ second... that's 1.8 million words per minute... just do the math. I sure as hell can't say that many words in a minute... besides it caters to the masses. Most people display established art as decoration... prints tacked up along side images of pop idols. Just mention literature and most people 'book'! On my last reference, the library was a mausoleum with internet access. Even music, which many people use to define themselves, is only an apt comparison because most of them really have no content either and are just background sound to make sure dead air doesn't rise from its grave. Movies, however, are different, for a movie people part the seas, wait in lines and even shut off their ever present connection to the world, their cell-phones, and yet somehow they survive. The Gestalt of cinema almost demands your attention by stimulating your eyes and ears simultaneously. It is something which envelopes a plain consuming reality into itself and showing a world that is exciting and eventful where everyone, even in the poorest movie, has a role and a purpose. The viewers are invited to lose themselves in a world which never hurt anyone.*laughs*...besides maybe the Japanese kids who learned how to break dance from pokémon."
Finally wrenching my precious tape recorder back, I asked him about his use of film. "When making movies, I always feel like the voice over from the Outer Limits, controlling the transmission, all you see and hear. It allows you to be god of a self-made microcosm where all your vices are fan-service and whims law. Films like Versus, Army of Darkness, and Destroy All Monsters which look at the media and say this stuff is shit... but then later stagger onto the screen as if film was a drug shouting 'Hell yeah, man, damn good shit!" Before movies the closest a project ever came to my original idea was "getting the point across." With my current work I feel the result matches my idea." With our time at an end, I asked Mike about his upcoming project and his plans for the future. As an Art Education/ Sculpture dual major, Mike is preparing to sculpt the minds of the future...literally. Mike grimaced at this remark. "I like a dead horse which isn't already beaten to chopped meat and glue." Aside from his teaching requirements and sculpting work, Mike has a novel film concept in the works. "Well, I've recently been granted an old animation studio to work in. The project I'm currently working on is Magical Girl parody done in live action with animation integrated. It will pull out all the clichés of reused scenes, transformation sequences, speed lines, and looped backgrounds which one would expect from an old cartoon, only using live actors who critique the world from the inside. It will have explosions, fan-service, lesbians, action, cheesy dialogue... art at its best."
The curtain falls on the interview and after the credits the audience goes home and returns to reality. When the world seems too 'reel' it's good to know there are always villains like Mike who will tie you right on track so you get hit by his train of thought.
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