Monday, April 1, 2013
Wednesday, March 27, 2013
chapter 2 greg p
In Chapter 2 Rush talks about narratives, formal experimentations, short humorous tapes, and large-scale meditations all in the form of video art.
The most interesting part of Chapter 2 was the segment on personal narratives. The notion of arising artists in the 1990s that attempted to take questions of identity using passive and majestic approaches. This was represented in robinson or me, engaging in metaphors of solitary and lonesome life. Another instance was is Oriental Elergy in the attempt to capture a suspended time and space between life and death on a remote island. These pieces remind me of the representations and aspects of the modern day TV Series Lost. Here is a clip from Oriental Elegy, which depicts a narrated story intertwined with video.
Oriental Elegy, by Alexander Sokurov (excerpt) by medicitv
Oriental Elegy, by Alexander Sokurov (excerpt) by medicitv
Commercial Art is Still Art
In Chapter Two, Rush distinguishes video art from commercial television, documentaries and news reporting. "At issue here is the intentionality of the artist," he writes, "as opposed to that of the television executive or even commercial filmmaker or videomaker: the work is not a product for sale or mass consumption... Video, as an art, should be distinguished from the uses of video, however artfully executed, in other purposeful, that is, applied, arenas. Art and Artful are separate, though linked, terms that exist to help us differentiate between what can and cannot be considered to be art," (Rush, 83). (An FYI Rush, if two things are separate they cannot also be linked.) What is it about commercial use or practical application that manages to corrode the artistic value of video piece? Is it simply the presence an alternative purpose, a function extending beyond a moment of "pure" personal expression for the artist? If so, I have some bad news for all of us in FMS161- none of our video pieces are art. They were all created with an ulterior motive- fulfillment of the course requirements. Thus, we might take solace in knowing are pieces of "artful," but still not up to the pristine standards of Rush's definition of art. It seems to me, Rush has adopted one too many hackneyed ideas from Fluxus artists he enjoys citing. Today, we no longer have to see art as the opponent of the Man, Man. Advertisements are art just as experimental video pieces are art.
Chapter 2 Response
What
stood out to me in the chapter reading was the conflict between finding what
falls into the definition of video art. There is of course videos that are
specifically catered towards expression and has a forward artistic approach,
whereas there are commercialized and more mainstream videos that can be
considered expression of one's self however it is catered towards an audience
looking for entertainment. This somewhat connects to the growing debate today
of whether video games are considered art as well. Of course the broad idea of
creating video games, like most creations of today, is to create revenue.
However, the people who devote all their time to create something they love and
care about express themselves through their creation which in this case is a
video game. It's difficult to find a definite place to draw the line between
art and a piece of product.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8rNeuuUx-SQ
The part of the reading that I found most interesting was the comparison of Korean-born Fluxus artist and musician Nam June Paik's footage of the Pope to that of a newspaper photographer covering a story. As the author had stated, Paik's Pope footage (which he showed the very same night at an artist's hangout spot as his first presentation of video art) was a "...non-commercial product that was a personal expression". He further distinguished the difference by pointing out the cathartic and individually poignant aspect that Paik's footage had compared to the panoramic, all-encompassing (and probably mentally overcrowding) nature of the news, or commercial media in general.
To me, this separation of video "art" and video "commercialism" all boils down to whether the viewer discovers or believes to be a personal significance behind what they are seeing, regardless of whether or not it is true the screen of a television or one's own eyes. It doesn't seem unlikely that a viewer would not subconsciously use the video media as a reflection of what he finds familiar in his own day-to-day world, what he can relate to...etc. And through these intricate connections and interpretations that he makes, the individual --as both the viewer of and the experiencer of life-- believes he has taken away something special from that moment, whether it is from a commercial on his old TV or a moment that he shared with his lover a few minutes ago. People must remember that it isn't a sin or an offense to believe that one form of video art or another isn't what one would consider a work of "art". "Art" is the impression that can only be captured through one's personal connection with the work and whether one feels that cathartic pull or not is not up to artist or the art itself. Instead, it's the deep meaningful connection that can only be established through personal experiences and values gained from them.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6odQHn9GBA8
a documentary on video arts as a medium in the 1980s, featuring artists including Nam June Paik.
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