Foster Response

One of the questions I asked in class on Wednesday was, "How are we defining art?" After reading "Video and Intermedia: Remarks on their Relationship," I am almost ashamed to ask the question. I will explain why that is.

First, we of course had to watch Hans Breder's video as the first sentence instructed the reader to do. I am not sure as to how to go about criticizing video art, so I guess I will keep my analysis in lay terms. Watching what was happening was confusing. I began thinking it was a video of a portrait - but the women continued to move. They were moving in what seemed to be sexualized gestures, or....maybe just choreographed body movements used to portray specific angles of the body. I'm not sure. However, in reading through Foster's description of intermedia, I realized this uncertainty is exactly the point. The "generic intentions" that he says intermedia can perpetuate, seem to be portrayed through me attempting to classify the art into one of the following: sexualized image of the body, video strip, portrait, angles, etc. All of these are "art categories" that we learn to interpret art into. Intermedia though is a "thing."

Hans' represented art both abstract and concrete, which is what I found the most fascinating about his work. He used geometric shapes and plain portrayal of the figures in his work. However, there was also an intentional message of ambiguity to the meaning and purpose of the art. Working together, I believe is what forms a part of the "intermedia" concept that Foster is referring to. He says that it "...'facilitates' or 'enables' intellectual, critical, and aesthetic activities." As a viewer, I am intrigued and want to know more. Through the mediums that he works through, there is a possibility for interpretation that pushes his work into it's own category of medium of it's own. And Hans said himself that every time his art seemed to get popular and developed a following, he changed it. I suppose this is what makes a true intermedia artist.

I would like to go back to the beginning of my response. I said that I was ashamed to say that I asked how do we define art after reading this passage. It is not because I was confronted with the possibility of varying views on art. Or that intuitively the definition of art is supposed to be ambiguous anyway. I am regretting my question because "...the effectiveness of intermedia isn't unlike the effectiveness of a human being..." If I were to truly immerse myself into art, I would understand that art is human. When art works together that it is, as one, it is a human being. I thought this was one of the most insightful sections of Stephen Foster's writing because it just makes sense. In attempting to define a human being, you lose the "essence" of a particular human. I believe that essence is what allows us to say that we are all unique from one another. When we label, that uniqueness is taken away. Intermedia seems to exist for the artist that embraces that concept. The intermedia artist runs into ambiguity and makes it move.

In the end though, there is still a lesson that I am taking away from the Foster's reading that is not a result of my shame. Specifically, he extends video into the conscious world of communication and media as to touch on how hard it is to make unconscious video art. Hans seemed to succeed at the separation, and I hope now that I can make a video that is an open ended question.