I find this article to be effective in the way that it
explores both sides of the argument regarding video as art. It acknowledges the
fact that some people, like John Wyver, are skeptical about considering video
as separate from other moving image forms (like film), while others, like David
A. Ross, enjoyed video for its lack of restriction. This idea was what stuck
out to me the most from the article; the idea that video offered a new and
undefined way for artists to express themselves is really interesting to me and
helps me to start to piece together the puzzle of video. I often find myself
thinking like Wyver and wondering why people separate video and film, but the
idea that video was appealing due to its separate qualities from film and other
media makes sense to me.
Before video, moving images were not shown in museums; video brought about this idea of moving images as part of performance art. The performative aspect is what separates video from film. This is due in large part to video's accessibility. When handheld cameras became commonplace in the 1970's, people explored what they could do with them. This made for a less rigid structure for video, or a lack of restriction, as Ross calls it. This also made it more intimately connected with our lives, as it came more of a product out of them. Video also works in a variety of situations; this video (https://vimeo.com/40348356) by Sabina Shikhlinskaya, called Dangerous Red, can be viewed on Vimeo as a video in and of itself. But it was also shown as an exhibit at the Tou Scene art center in Stavanger, Norway in 2010. A film is confined to be seen as a chunk, all at once, and in a specific environment. But video, due to its versatility, as with exhibits in a museum, can be walked in upon, viewed for a moment, and then left, all the while imparting a message on us.
The segment on Fluxus also struck me, as a group of students at my high school made a performance based on flux. They took over the gym area, and had different performances going on in each of the squash courts. People could roam the atrium and see the performances on their own time. This idea breaks the convention of theater as something that you see in a string of passing time, and instead puts the viewer in control of what they see and when they see it. It turns theater into a window-shopping experience instead of a locked-in roller coaster ride. I can see that this relates to video as a medium, though similar to film, intentionally subverted its conventions.
Before video, moving images were not shown in museums; video brought about this idea of moving images as part of performance art. The performative aspect is what separates video from film. This is due in large part to video's accessibility. When handheld cameras became commonplace in the 1970's, people explored what they could do with them. This made for a less rigid structure for video, or a lack of restriction, as Ross calls it. This also made it more intimately connected with our lives, as it came more of a product out of them. Video also works in a variety of situations; this video (https://vimeo.com/40348356) by Sabina Shikhlinskaya, called Dangerous Red, can be viewed on Vimeo as a video in and of itself. But it was also shown as an exhibit at the Tou Scene art center in Stavanger, Norway in 2010. A film is confined to be seen as a chunk, all at once, and in a specific environment. But video, due to its versatility, as with exhibits in a museum, can be walked in upon, viewed for a moment, and then left, all the while imparting a message on us.
The segment on Fluxus also struck me, as a group of students at my high school made a performance based on flux. They took over the gym area, and had different performances going on in each of the squash courts. People could roam the atrium and see the performances on their own time. This idea breaks the convention of theater as something that you see in a string of passing time, and instead puts the viewer in control of what they see and when they see it. It turns theater into a window-shopping experience instead of a locked-in roller coaster ride. I can see that this relates to video as a medium, though similar to film, intentionally subverted its conventions.
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