Television, Sculpture, Architecture, Phototropic

I enjoyed the last readings of our class. I found Vito Acconci, Dan Graham, and Tony Oursler all have great perspectives on video art and the role of television in society. I also found the writing to relate heavily to a work I am planning on doing in the future.

In Television, Furniture, and Culture, I found the first passage on page 133 to be very interesting. "Once a TV set, however, is placed in a sculpture installation, the TV set tends to dominate; the TV set acts a as a target, the rest of the installation is functions as a display device." I find this to be a very true statement that I should think about more in my art. In AdShades2: Gallery, I plan on using one TV to block the images on the screen of another. I wonder how this feedback installation with one watching the other will function as installation.

I liked the structure of the Dan Graham essay. It was interesting to read the concepts of some of his pieces alongside further arguments he was making with his writing. I found the discussion of the nuclear suburban family to be really strong, as well as furniture designed for watching the TV, being squishy and reflecting the state of consciousness of a viewer.

The Oursler essay is interesting in the way it freely travels between quotes and unique observations of TV culture. It almost feels like a TV program flipping through channels. I was particularly interested in the FCC section as well as the public's reaction to the Tank Commander video game.

Aesthetics of Narcissism

After building up the argument, "...video art is the the psychological condition of the self split and doubled by the mirror-reflection of synchronous feedback," Krauss makes an interesting comparison between Acconci's Centers and Jasper John's American Flag. Where the nature of the painting is to compare itself to the wall as well as the history of painting, Centers has a meaning that thinks upon the history of itself in its own time. Vito Acconci not only interacts with a camera in his peice, but he also is performs alongside an image of himself while the viewer can see this world of mirrors.

Overall I get a sense that the article argues that video art uses moving images of the world to abstract and separate itself from the world. The screen doesn't really mater in the grand scheme of things because the video lives somewhere between the camera and the screen. All we can do is look in on the representation of that recorded world.

Steina

I found the article to be a little lighter on the concept than I would have hoped. I learned that Steina as an artist is 'playing' a lot, but I feel like concepts were not expressed well in this article. For example, Borealis(1993), has a very technical and environmental description, but then it states, "The images are mostly of rivers, oceans, stream, and spray."

What I did get from the article, is the communication style of Steina. I was really happy to read that she was interested in communicating to people in a real way, instead of to a mass audience. The old man who watched Tokyo Four may have not had her identical reading of the piece, but it did communicate deeply with him. He saw the piece. I also liked the quote, "But the primary motivation for all art is the desire to communicate with oneself." I find this idea to be very central to my art practice. There are many times when I have made pieces, that show imagery from my dreams and my imagination that communicate something unexplainable to others that communicates something concrete to me.

My question to the class is would you rather communicate to a mass audience, a few others, or yourself in your art?

Vasulka's Video

This article makes me think a lot about the difference between the analogue and digital electronic signal. Both of them are very different, and I feel like digital signals can lose the magic of an analogue wave. Digital signals are always sampled, approximations of what is being seen at that moment. In photography, pixels try to approximate the color in one little piece of an image, but it still cannot capture the minute detail of the surface of film. This makes me think that time based works should be divided into multiple categories; film, analogue video, digital video. Programs like jitter and processing, can never do what Vasulka's machines could, they can only try to mimic them.

I guess this post is going to be a highly technical one. I read a few weeks ago that the human eye can see roughly 550 mega pixels of data if you took an instantaneous screenshot of our visual field. It makes me think of how far away any technology is from replacing the magic of vision. It makes me wonder what the future of the time based image will be.

Video: Shedding The Utopian Moment

This article really challenges my beliefs as an artist and individual. I am going to start where Rosler comments on the the avant-garde Dada and surrealism movements. These movements that were created to break down some of the structure of the art world, were just accepted into the system as a new aesthetic while watering down the concept. This makes me think if any art or artist is able to be divorced from a commercial and academic art world. Can a message be strong enough to break out of the gallery walls?

Later in the article Pollock was commented on as becoming a media celebrity, which also changed the meaning of his art from an expression of motion into a commercial commodity.

The Kaprow quote also challenges me. As he states the lunar module is more art than any sculpture, or that the dialogue and beeps of the radio communication is better art than any electronic music piece. I kind of believe the statement in a way. The Lunar Module has had more impact on society, and its symbol for human perseverance has a stronger message than art in a gallery.

Then Rosler begins to attack Nam June Paik, saying,"... [he] has done all the bad and disrespectful things to television that the art world's collective imaginary might wish to do." I feel his practice of trying to break down the image and control of the TV had a strong conceptual base. Unfortunately, his work was consumed by a commercial market that learned to market the frenzied style of music and video. I feel like he was the infant video artist, who did everything he could to change the meaning of the TV and video. It was Paik's calling to do everything he could to the TV signal so I don't feel like his work was unsuccessful at all.

Anyway, its another article that makes me think about the role of the artist and their art in the world.

Introduction and Video Black

There were a few points of the introduction that I found really interesting. The first of which is that the storage medium of the tape has a very short life span compared to other art forms. Early video works as well as less known pieces have lost the magnetic data that was the video, and can only be experienced by reading a description of the piece. Its also interesting that the works that have survived, have been maintained by the gallery and in some sense, they have the authority of what early video work was kept into the future.

I feel like the temporary nature of the tapes and the immediacy of recording, allowed video art to evolve very quickly and for it to be able to rewrite itself many times.

I also found the idea of the video being hard to watch by the gallery goer interesting as well. When someone has to devote a set amount of time to a piece, they may feel alienated by it. I also expressed my concerns with a viewer observing a piece from the middle or at another random point. If I do any gallery work with video, I would like a viewer to be able to start the video from the beginning. I feel like allowing a person to start the video on their own would allow them to accept that they are going to be interacting with the piece. I also feel that concept is built up over time with video, and it may not be in the artists attention for someone to enter it at a midpoint.

Origins of Video Art

I really enjoyed the article by John Hanhardt. It better explains the reasons for why video art started and the commercialization of the TV at that point. I thought that the corporation controlled TV signals was a more recent evolution, but it seems that it started earlier than I thought. I also realize how the works of Paik was a rejection of the elitist minimalism of earlier art movements and was trying to comment about how the device affects all of the public. Its also the ultimate example of the readymade.

I have been wanting to build a device now for a while that could interact with an incoming cable signal. It seems that Vostell may have beaten me to it though. I was going to create a commercial blocker, but after researching product placement, I would have to block everything. Maybe a box that blocks all content could be my piece.

I enjoyed global groove yesterday when I watched it. It had a great ability to suck me into it. I really felt this video was the reason that MTV could come into existence. I worry that this piece that was meant to break the rules of TV, was picked up later down the road and was the rule of TV at that point. Its problematic when work is hijacked by businesses and a concept turns into something 'cool'.

About Greg Cole

I am a Graphic Design and Digital Media major working on finding my artistic focus. As a designer, I do a lot of work for a 'client' that is trying to communicate with an audience. Sometimes I have a problem when I feel that I am trying to sell something to someone who may not want or need an item. As a designer, I am interested in doing work that tries to communicate in new ways to or to make portals for fair information.

My artistic practice can sometimes be in opposition to typical design work. I have a deep interest in trying to explore modern culture and globalization. I fear that our culture is becoming overly influenced by corporations that spend countless hours trying to equate happiness and beauty with a product. I also am interested in money, identity, and choice as it applies to both the physical and digital world.

My favorite project that I have done so far is titled Ad Shades: A Visual Simplification System. It is a live mobile video processing piece that aims to reduce the amount of advertising and other non-natural objects in an environment. The new system of vision is supposed to make the viewer realize and thing about the manufactured messages in their environment. The piece runs on a mobile computer and feeds video in through a webcam and processes it into video glasses.
Here are screenshots of the live video.

From top to bottom Oaks Mall, 50% off Sign, Sleep Number Store, Victoria's Secret.