Breaking Through: A Video Essay

About a year ago Jarrett Fuller published “A Rough Sketch for a Video Essay as Design Criticism” which strings together Orson Welles, Tony Zhou and Charles Eames as a means of understanding the video essay. As the title implies, Jarrett explores his interest in the medium of the video essay as a potential vehicle for design criticism.

Jarrett’s video has stuck with me and I’ve been itching to give the video essay a shot. While Jarrett considers how the video essay might be used for design criticism, I’m intrigued by how it may be used as a means of criticism at large. In this video, “Breaking Through,” I weave together history, documentary, and my own improvised thinking not to examine Nike’s Breaking 2 project but rather what it means to be believe. What it means to risk. What it means to be human.