Video Art Chapter 4

Chapter 4- Extensions

The last chapter of this book focuses on the 4th and 5th decades of video art. This chapter looks at artists who create installation works as well as artists who whose styles are associated/ related to film. Rush describes the latter as 'Filmic' art.

Excerpts & Response

"...With digital technologies, the proper qualities of video itself that were so attractive to artists of the 1970s were no longer considered as crucial."

I pulled this excerpt out because I thought it was interesting how the view of the medium shifted from an aesthetic quality, to simply a means of conveying a message. In the 70s when technology was less advanced artists were using the medium itself as a chunk of the overall art piece solely because it was new and different and changed they way people looked at art in general. As the art world adjusted and got comfortable with the medium, the actual medium had to become less important, and the idea and conceptual value of the works increased.

"As Video art enters its fifth, and perhaps final, decade (from 1960s to the present), video, as a medium, is unimportant to artists. They are using whatever means of moving-image technology is available to them and often this means a combination of technologies."

This excerpt is partially related to the previous. Now that technology has improved artists can enhance their message through the production process they go through. By adding more elements to the process, more elements and more styles can be created to express a particular idea.

"[Rodney] Graham's strategies, familiar with the experiments of John Cage in music and Warhol and Brakhage in film, still cast their spell; altering perceptions and placing the viewing experience closer to the realm of dreams than waking life."

This excerpt is describing Grahams' piece Vexation Island. In this video he uses cinemascope, a very expensive branch of 35-mm film. He shoots his film with dolly's and close ups. It is interesting because the subject is asleep on the shore when it starts, he wakes up, shakes a palm tree and a coconut hits him on the head causing him to become unconscious again. It is interesting to use this narrative because it puts a hazy, confused, twist on it without using much effects. By using a high end movie style mixed in with his own intentions creates a very interesting piece.

"Installation art, by its very nature, suggests interactivity. Installation artists make environments for viewers to enter literally, thus creating a physical participation with the work. This in turn expands the perceptual and optical impact of the work. Installations, whether in museums, galleries, storefronts, or on street walls, video-walls, or any other possible surface, extend the experience of the moving image beyond not only the monitor, but also the darkened room."

"...[Doug Aitken]'s work retains a strong American preoccupation with landscape as well as a very contemporary interest in personal identity and time. 'I am constantly piecing things together, finding fragments of information, splicing them, collaging them to create a network of perceptions,' he has said."

"Shadows from candles, snow kicked up by puppies at play, flickering images of running horses on a television set - all add up to a very satisfying viewing experience. According to critic Ulrike Matazer, Consolation Service, 'like all of Ahtila's films, touches upon a fund of shared human experience. the events could take place anywhere. they are both personally and universally applicable. She draws upon styles and effects from such conventional genres of film as the shore feature, the commercial, the documentary, the music video, and the Hollywood fiction, weaving these elements together to form new worlds of images that defy clear categorization'"

This excerpt stood out because I liked the phrases 'the events could take place anywhere' and 'universally applicable.' I watched a clip of this piece and from it I got a sense that my work doesn't look or work like hers but I feel that description above does hold a similarity. I think that the content of my project, since it focuses on daily transport, is one of those universally understood things. My project will be understandable on a wide scale due to the familiarity that most people will have with the subject. I too hope that my shots of daily transport will provide a 'very satisfying viewing experience.'

"Video technology is now in hybrid stage, combining all manner of digital technologies in the creation of what is likely to be a new medium. It is time for video to assume its place as simply a 'filmic' medium, now that the word 'filming' refers to the many ways in which the moving or animated image is created. The golden age for video art took place in the 1990s, when every festival, biennial, contemporary gallery, and alternative space projected videos on to walls, screens, chairs, cathedral ceiling, and everywhere else. it has been done, and, as with cinema, the next phase is to come.

This book was published in 2003, and I feel that he ends it with a sense of, "video is over", and this new cluster- mash up method is the new video. I wont argue that Video art wont evolve, but I feel like Video art will only evolve into more technical means of producing a moving image. This new evolution will take on a new name, like it already has as new media art. Video, in its basic sense will always be a viable option to create art, and when he says it peaked in the 90s I get the sense he is saying the best of times are over. I don't agree with this because video is captivating that no matter how you use it, there will always be evolution branching of the different stages that technology has presented whether it's digging up an old functional porta pak to get that style of video, or shooting hi 8. Just because the medium isn't on the cutting edge of technology does not mean that no more ideas can be filtered through it.