Reading Response - Video Installation Art

This article touched on some very important things my art teacher stressed in high school. She would go on for ages about how different it was to look at an enormous painting in real life versus on the internet. For a while while I was in high school I always found that strange because I thought "well I know what paint looks like. It's not that hard to imagine what it looks like in person." Then I found the Google Art Project which shows these beautiful closeups of paintings where you can see everything down to the canvas fibers like you're looking through a magnifying glass and I began to understand that there's so much more texture and color happening that we don't get to see from an image.

Experiencing artwork is important in understanding what the artist meant for the viewer to feel. Looking at something not in it's physical space is like playing the game Telephone and getting secondhand information. This is especially important in relation to this project where we have to enter the space of the piece. A lot of great information to think about.

Reading Response - Video Installation Art

"The Body, the Image, and Space-in-Between" 

 This was a nice easy read. It gave some history and vocabulary but it also gave a good understanding of how your installation can make others feel. It’s completely different from a painting in a gallery. This is actually an “experience.” From the timing to the imagery you have to question whether your installation will be a memorable experience that the audience wants more of or will people walk out before it is over. This reading makes me think of how can I keep the viewer engaged. It’s not just one video they see it is the surrounding as a whole that will make the installation.

 From the historic John Hanhardt and his work on Wolf Vostell and Nam June Paik he set the bar in the early video installation age. "Electronic Superhighway" is one of my all-time favorite art pieces. He’s taught us that the world inspires us to make the “raw material” that we know as images. For my project I want to manipulate sound and images to make an overwhelming experience. All the things that surround me, the things that surround us all are going to be changed and we will present it in a new form. This new creation is something that you will only get the full experience from in person. It is a “you had to be there ….. ” moment. So what I took from the reading is that you have to make the moment right and special, because it’s just that “a moment” and it will either be a moment to remember or a moment to forget. What will yours be?