Video Art Reading Notes:

“The Body, the Image, the Space In-Between”

-Installation Art depends entirely on the existence of the museum or gallery

-Framed by the room itself, when visitor examines the piece, they are (in a sense) in the piece

-With installation pieces, with the necessity for gallery permission, grants, and formal requests through detailed plans and models, improvisation is left to minimum…But there is still risk in execution, whether the installation will work in the space or not.

-This type of art allows the audiovisual experience to be a mind and body type of leaning.

-Performance art vs. theater:

Performance art allows the viewer to be part of the experience, inhabiting the same world, “possessing the same capacity to influence and respond to events.

-types of video installation:

-Closed-circuit video: Plays live footage of the viewers and space, projected or displayed on monitors.

-Recorded-video art installation: like spectator on a stage, with viewer interacting with screen, which has pre-recorded video playing.

-TV vs. Video Art: When watching TV, placement of the monitor itself is not important, only the imagery on the screen. With Video installation, the space the imagery is shown in is important, the monitor, imagery or video, floor, wall, window.

This video installation is called "Play Dead: Real Time". The artist is Douglas Gordon.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q-XD6fuf0ho
Currently I believe it is at the MoMA, but I'm not positive.

“Video Art”- Reading Notes

pg. 20-25, 36, 54, 68, 76

Candice Breitz “Mother + Father” (2005)

-Uses numerous monitors, arranged in arcs while playing clips from various parts of movies containing 12 famous actors.

-Cuts the clips to have them moving in conjunction with one another

-“It’s a rhythmic, electronic collage.”

Dan Graham  “Video Piece for Two Glass Office Buildings”

-This piece uses projection of architectural space to show different perspectives and viewpoints.

-Ideas of architecture have been present in his work since this piece

Aernout Mik “Dispersion Room”

-Presents an office space with workers in an “unfettered, free state.” 

-outside of confines of the office space, juxtaposing the standard and boring work of the office space, and the norms within such a space, and the actions the workers are performing.

Tony Oursler  (Numerous Works)

-His work is both sculpture and video art

-Possibly the best known American video artist

-Commonly uses various projections of faces in situations of anguish or discomfort projected upon mediums including wood, plaster, and the wall.

-Ideas pursued in his work include mental annexation, loneliness, insomnia, and fear.

Appropriated Video Project: Planetarium

Here is the link to my video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gkpUB-R_TaA

Innovation and Plagiarism vs. Copying Without Variation 

           Though rationales to convey messages are the same, the 20^th and 21^st centuries are unique in the amount of resources we have to convey messages to one another. In the context of today’s world, people’s attention is gained through advertising, media and art. In this stream of messaging, there is a rush for originality, and new outlets to convey messages. It seems that many people think if it is not new it is not good.

There are problems with this statement, but also truths with this statement. In my opinion, humans are natural innovators that strive to improve their environment, and are always solving problems. In conveying messages to one another, I think that creative solutions to the problem of sending messages are the most interesting to receive. Plagiarism seems to be the reusing of someone else’s method of message making while transmitting the exact same message.

Using the same method of transmitting a message as someone before you, without changing the message that person conveyed, is not living up to the innovation that humans are capable of. There are however different messages that can be sent using the exact same method of sending messages. This type of “plagiarism” is acceptable and creative in my opinion.

Take painting and the example of splattering paint onto a canvas or surface. Pollock, arguably the innovator of the practice, may have invented that aesthetic, but has by no means exhausted the different messages splattered paint upon a canvas can convey to a viewer. For example within the genera of street art, becoming seriously popular within the last 5 to 10 years also employs the use of spattered paint on canvas and surfaces quite extensively to convey a completely different message to the viewer.

Life Feed: Webcams, Art, and People Article Notes

JenniCam is a “superhumanizing prosthesis”, a machine that empowers the ear and voice to operate across great distances.

"Video's real medium is a psychological situation, the very terms which are to withdraw attention from an external object- an Other- and invest it in the Self."  ---Rosalind Krauss

Marisa Olson (30 yrs later) after comment above describes the real frame of vision not to be the field of vision for the web cam video, but the window of the browser, or what is shown. She is collecting reflecting images, or artifacts of another time and space to view.

Justin.tv was the start of vlogging.

2006- Guthrie Lonergan collected introduction videos from kids' introductions on Myspace. By putting all the videos together onto a Youtube channel, they become unoriginal, and far from the expression they were trying to achieve.

Project # 2: Continuous Shot Film titled "Simple Instructions"

Here it is:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ExUTBteCMMk