Reading Response- Extra Credit

Video Installation- "The Body, The Image, and the Space-In-Between"

Very useful read, especially with our final project. Margaret Morse really details the necessities in making an installation successful, in which sound and moving image are of main focus. Video Installation is defined as a contemporary art form that combines video technology with installation art, using as much external factors and environments to further stimulate the viewer. Morse goes further to state that the "disposition of bodies & images in space... and their...temporal and experiential passage,"   is the one of the most important factors of video installation. In others words, all factors and elements must be taken into consideration when installed, and taken down-"the passage of the viewer through the space is what creates the work." That last quote definitely hold true in the sense that your installations, whether video or not, is only as good as the space you place it in; it may not seem like it but the surrounding environment in which your art lays places subconscious impressions.

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?

Extra Credit: Naomi Fisher

I went to the University Gallery last Saturday to view the Naomi Fisher "Lay of the Land" exhibit. While I was there I saw the artist recording a performance. I looked at her work and after I was done I talked to her about her work. My favorite work was her videos. She had two, one was called "ASHES" and the other was called "ASHES - Hands." In the video "ASHES" she went to the Everglades with scientist to record a deep message. It is about how we burn down the trees and plants just so new ones will grow. She says she wants the viewer to relate this to their own life from the way we have to go through "a lot of shit just to grow and learn." She shows this message by showing a women who is dressed in very natural clothing throwing around dirt and embracing it in an angry manner. The movie "ASHES - Hands" was on a smaller screen but it was shown right next to "ASHES." "ASHES - Hands" showed a close up of hands letting dirt fall through in a repeating loop manner. She said she used this technique so that the viewer would almost be "hypnotized into" the video. I told her we were working on a sound project in our class and I asked her how did she decide on what sound she would use. She told me she wanted "simple nature sounds." She also told me that all the sounds in the video were not the real sounds. She said that a airplane flew over as they were recording and also a lot of times the wind blew too hard. So they had to use sounds from previous shootings of nature. She said it was all "natural and fake." I think the sounds worked great with her video. The were subtle but it also gave you the true illusion of being in Everglades. All around the exhibitions were photos and "ethnographic" indian objects from museums. This helped play with the idea of "past and present" which surrounds the idea of rebirth. The photos were very large in size so that the nature feel took over. Overall I really enjoyed her work and I loved the deep message behind it, I can definitely relate. The artist was very nice and she was excited to answer my questions. She also wished us luck with our sound project.

Extra Credit: Ways of Seeing

The reading Ways of Seeing listed the many ways we see art and the factors that contribute to why we perceive it a certain way. Some of the factors include society, camera (photos), time, and text. Society can affect the way you view art because if there were similar things accepted by society during the time of the artwork you are viewing, as there are now then you will interpret the work in a similar way the artist envisioned it originally. This is discussed on page 14 of the reading.  The readying continues to explain how cameras and time go hand-in-hand because the artist is trying to capture a certain moment for the viewer to feel. “What you saw was relative to your position in time and space” (18).  Viewing an image of a town from 50 years ago to viewing a different image of the same town from 5 years ago will have a different experience. The position will also evoke a different emotion. A big factor is text because it can be a hit or miss when it is incorporated with artwork. It is the artist job to make sure the text will only enhance the moment and emotion they want to create. This theme is discussed on page 28. Each of these factors should be well thought when an artist is creating work. Correcting one small factor can give the viewer a complete connection to the way you want your work to be “seen.”

A huge theme in the reading is how original artwork will be seen differently than a reproduction. With all the technology that we have today it is hard to keep artwork completely originally.  You can spend years creating an originally piece but within a second it can be photographed and it has quickly lost its value. “It can never be seen in two places at the same time. When camera reproduces a painting it destroys the uniqueness of its image” (19). In the world today no matter how hard you try your work will be reproduced in one way or another. The artist now has a harder job of creating artwork because you have to make sure your art is so good that it has the same magic from the first time it is seen to the one hundredth time it is seen.

This was a great reading for us to learn about because as artist we need to understand how people will view our work. Once we understand how our work is perceived we can create our work in a specific way for whatever the purpose maybe. By knowing the ways of seeing, we can learn better ways to create.

Works Cited

Berger, John. Ways of Seeing. London: British Broadcasting, 1973. 7-33. Print.

Extra Credit: Ways of Seeing

"How does the situation of seeing affect the content or meaning of a work of art?"

     The reading discussed how the way we see and interpret art work depends on our relation to it. When an image is presented to us as a work of art we begin to judge it by the inherent assumptions associated with art (beauty, truth, genius, etc.). When we view art, we are seeing the subject as the artist saw the subject and not the subject itself. For example, the painter Hals painted his wealthy clients as seen through the eyes of a pauper, regardless of how objective he attempted to be. In the same way, our persepective makes us and our understanding of artwork the center of the world because we can only see it in relation to ourselves. Cameras destroyed that idea through the reproduction of the same image, turning it into multiple fragments with a variety of interpretations depending on the setting. It made the content and meaning depend on where you were standing and when. The uniqueness of the content was removed. Reproduction can also isolate elements of a painting and change their significance. For example,  if Venus and Mars by Boticelli were to be cropped and reproduced only as the image of Venus, it would change the content of the work from an allegory of beauty and valor to a portrait of a girl. The article goes on to discuss that this is why the art of the past no longer has the same meaning it did when it was originally produced, especially in the case of religious images which no longer have the authority they once did.