Introduction to Video and Sound: 2012-09-16

Thursday, September 20, 2012

struggles

The "struggles" that art experienced will always be there, no matter what technology stage or perception level is. Since art is defined by people, it is extremely hard and reach consensus over standards of arts, by the fact that people tend to believe whatever they want to believe.

Starry Night would never be recognized if the society never shifts its standard of arts; Kony 2012 would not be criticized if people never change. This is all about the undetachable subjectivity of people. Arguments will persist as long as the center of arts is still the audiences.

Mothlight

Mothlight. Stan Brakhage. (1963)

Zen for Film

You are watching film. Zen for Film by Nam June Paik(1962-64)

Man with a Movie Camera

Man with a Movie Camera. Dziga Vertov (1929)

Muybridge and motion

Quote

"All art is experimental or it isn't art." Gene Youngblood.

Wednesday, September 19, 2012

Art, Technology, and Politics

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Audience and Artist

The idea, or topic, that left the biggest impression on me in Michael Rush's introduction would be the discussion of video art as a more experimental and involving form of art than the others that had preceded it. With the first forms of visual art, mainly painting, the medium felt closed off to a select few. If you had the talent, and more importantly the ability to be trained via an apprenticeship or costly schooling you could work your way up to being a successful painter/artist. Even then, the artists who began to branch out of the normal expectations of painting were limited by their medium: canvases cannot be shipped to various galleries around the world at once, they're available for a limited time in a select place, and therefore to an inadvertently "select" audience. I feel like this kind of led to a disconnect between the audience or viewers and what they perceived as The Artists. They're two separate groups, and one can't do what the other does.

But then - people began experimenting with video. I think video stemming off of photography helped to make it more accessible for the "everyman" from the beginning. Rush writes that "with photography, humans began to participate in the manipulation of time itself: capturing it, reconfiguring it, and creating variations..." (12). Cameras were much easier to use and own than painting supplies; the equipment does half of the work for you whereas a blank canvas cannot turn into a painting without a lot of skill on the painter's side. Once film cameras began to be "more portable, and eventually more affordable... a new chapter in media art began" (33).

Artists like the Fluxus performance artists Rush mentions, and Andy Warhol and Factory members began to make their own pieces, without the strictures and expectations of art before. This way the people who had previously been just the audience, could pick up a camera and become the artist - and still be an audience member, for themselves and others. With the Fluxus pieces "the viewer not only completes, but actually becomes the work of art in his or her direct participation in the event" (25).

This kind of participatory art, I think, has been seen a lot more in recent times when social networking sites and the worldwide accessibility of the Internet has been able to bring together people and art like never before. I immediately thought of an example from a few years ago, of an amazing blend of audience "participation" in creating the art and the artist still having some control and focus over the piece.

One of the music videos created for the Arcade Fire's 2010 song "We Used to Wait" was created with software that allowed the viewer to type in their childhood home address. Using that images taken from Google Earth would splice in pictures and views of your house and neighborhood along with some standard images that go with every incarnation of the video.

This is extremely effective, and really amps up the emotional content of the song. I had done this once when it first came out, but I had forgotten how it made me feel. There's something about seeing your home - and the Google Earth photos of my neighborhood were coincidentally old and from my childhood - in the mix of these other lyrics and images. There is then a point where you can write a postcard to your old self, and it is surprisingly emotional (for me anyway). This music video succeeds in getting its own message (that of the band and the designer of the film, Chris Milk) and becomes something unique and personal to the viewer, infused with their unique memories and emotions.

Here is a link to someone filming the totality of the video, as it goes for everyone: We Used to Wait
But if it works on your computer I highly recommend participating, here: thewildernessdowntown.com

The age of movement

One thing I realized while I was reading the introduction was that the twentieth century art world was dominated by this concept of movement and time. As art became less of a "privileged" medium and more of a "common-man" thing, art tried to appeal to the audience by integrating into the "human perspective". During the early 1900's, the thing that humans had and art did not was movement and time.

Many of the pictures in the introduction show different ways artists tried to control time and movement. The art piece I thought was most interesting was the "Dynamism of a Dog on a Leash" by Balla because the picture was made after video cameras came into existence; however, the artist decided to keep the medium as a painting. This was a BIG no-no in the painting world, as paintings were supposed to be elaborate and full of detail and emotion. However, this painting looks simple and for a lack of better words, weird as it depicted this mundane movement. This embrace of motion in a medium that is historically stand-still shows a new approach to an "old" medium.

This is another work by Balla called "The Speed of a Motorcycle". This painting was also done with oil and has a simplicity to it that isn't seen in much more older works of oil. However, it shows his passion and the century's amazement for the concept of movement. In this picture, you can actually feel the motorcycle rushing past you. Even though this is not a movie, the concept of time and movement is embedded right in the picture.

The Power of Montages

Oliver Stone said, “Film is distinctive because of its nature, of its being able to cut through time with editing.” On page 19 of the introduction to Rush’s New Media, Rush discusses editing and how the perfection of the cinematic montage allowed for filmmakers to direct the viewer to a certain emotional state. After reading this passage, I began to contemplate the power of the cinematic montage, and how montages allow film to accomplish what other forms of media cannot.

Many formalist filmmakers, such as Sergei Eisenstein, saw editing and film montages as a form of abstract art, a way to communicate certain themes without being restricted by the rules of traditional art or even reality. When making Battleship Potemkin, Eisenstein combined his editing, which ignored the normal flow of time, with the mathematical principal known as the golden ratio. By placing each of his most important scenes on Fibonacci numbers (a sequence of numbers in which each number equals the sum of the two preceding numbers), Eisenstein attempted to evoke powerful emotional reactions by combining his editing with what his audiences were experiencing in real-time, whose perceptions were bound by the laws of time and space. Although Eisenstein saw this experiment as a failure because he believed the golden ratio did not aid the emotional impact of his film, films such as Battleship Potemkin pioneered the use of montages in formalist and classical cinema.

This excerpt also made me realize that, as viewers, we are so used to seeing montages in film that we do not care that they breaks the rules of time or space. Now, directors are able to suspend the viewer’s disbelief much more easily than when Eisenstein was making Battleship Potemkin, yet still maintain as much control over the audience as in the past. I have attached what I believe to be an excellent example of the use of montage in classical cinema. This clip is from the film Rushmore, directed by Wes Anderson. Many agree that Anderson is a master when it comes to using montages in his films, and in this clip he introduces the main character in Rushmore, Max Fischer. In 1 minute and 13 seconds, Anderson not only familiarizes us with the character, but he also convinces us to like him by exhibiting his unbridled optimism. He also uses editing to slow down time, jump from location to location, as well as pass through time in a non-linear fashion all without bothering his audience, none of which would be possible without Eisenstein and other pioneering filmmakers.