Evaluation

Evaluation

Before I started my work I had to find some inspiration to then begin my work and hopefully make it slightly different compared to the artist I researched. I did an Essay based on Bruce Nauman, Bill Viola, and Marcel Duchamp. From then on I was able to have an collective amount of research to then start my video installation experiment making it slightly similar but with a few tweaks to make it my own and give it my own signature. In the begin I decided to just have a slow motion Mexican wave with four people. But, shortly I realised that is very common as many people have done it before therefore I decided I should reverse it just like Bill Viola did in his waterfall piece. I then added a distorted transition when the Mexican wave is reversed with a distorted sound effect to add sound and give the audience a bit of a fright. From then on I added a piece which was originally meant to show the difference between happiness and sadness with XXXTentacions song in the background ‘Let’s pretend we’re numb’ just so that the lyrics would match the piece I did. However, I then came to a realisation that although it has a weird green filter and facial expressions which may be seen as weird or creepy the music will distract the audience for them to then wonder about the lyrics and not focus on the video itself therefore I decided to leave it with no sound and make it reverse repetitively so it’ll irritate the audience and make them wonder why I decided to do that. I also had a 3-5second pause which each person’s face (Hosai and I) just so the audience would feel uncomfortable whilst watching it.

After that, I then had a video of me walking through the college sped up, with split screens with both videos going at different speed rates and a ghost effect on both. Just so it would have no meaning and not be something the viewers would often see on day to day bases. I also reversed this as it is not normal for human beings to speed walk whilst walking backwards. My objective was to disturb the eyes of the viewer to then make them have more questions based on my video installation.

I then recorded railing from Northumberland Park train station whilst I was on my way home. Laid each and every video four times and reversed them with no meaning except reversing.

I then added a variety of weird GIFS found from the internet such as, Bart Simpson crying, the queen walking with no eye and no main body but two fingers for legs, a strange person covered it liquid eating their own head and a waterfall. I reversed all these videos and added a distorted sound effect in the background. Firstly, a baby crying to match the lip of Bart crying. Secondly, a distorted sound (over the clip of someone eating their head) with someone whispering through the microphone but people may not be able to understand what the person is being said therefore it’ll give the audience discomfort. I also over lay these videos as well with no pattern whatsoever just to make it even weirder than it originally was.  Ending with a short clip of a waterfall reversed. Just to add the thought of Bill Viola.

My work could be published in theatres/galleries throughout London for example, St Paul’s cathedral (gallery section), Tate Morden and Queens Film theatre.

Media students, Art students and viewers who are interested in Video art may watch video art for their course work or for their own interests.

Throughout this unit, I have learnt that not all videos are seen as normal. By simply just experimenting with different cameras and things that people may sound weird may be seen as a Video installation. Most people often perform video installations every day. By us youths posting random videos with our friendship groups simply having fun with new filters can be seen as an experimental video.

Video imstallation

Video experiemntal essay

Bill Viola

He is globally known as one of today’s leading video artists. In many of his videos he uses a form on contemporary art. This has expanded the knowledge of video art and the different forms of technology uses within. For 40 years he has produced many videotapes, electronic music performances, video installations and many more. His work focuses on universal human experiences.  His work connect to a wide audience, allowing viewers to experience his work directly in their own particular way.

Bill Viola combines filmed images and a soundtrack (music) which he calls “total environments that envelop the viewer in image and sound.” With origins of both the western and eastern worlds art and the spiritual beliefs. He pursues timeless video installations which are based on his popular themes for example: birth and death and the extremes of emotions. A good example which includes these themes would be Quintet of the Astonished (part of the “Quintet” series, 2000) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MR9av-I35ME It’s soundless therefore allowing the audience to have their own thoughts about what’s going on without having a narrator/voice over to explain what is going on within the video. As displayed in the video each persona is expressing an emotion. Which leaves viewers to wonder why they may be reacting like this and leave you on the edge of your seat.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mJpv4Z1X3CY

Bill Viola: The dreamers

This is the exact video that made me want to study Bill Viola and have a better understanding in his work. The video itself is different compared to other video artist for example, Bruce Nauman, he often combines different styles together to complete a final presentation (performing arts, conceptualism, video art Minimalism).

Marcel Duchamp influenced Nauman in the 1960s in a variety of ways from encouraging his love of wordplay to filling his work with an ironic and sometimes absurdist one. Many of Naumans work echoes on disappearance of the old modernist belief in the ability of the artist to express his ideas clearly and powerfully. Many of Naumans work included comedy and wordplay   (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lDDoo1zkn0M ).  Bill Violas waterfall video is a reflective feeling which gives the viewer a different feeling whilst watching it. It’s different in a way that it brings you to the edge of your seat leaving you to wonder what was his aim, what’s going on and how was it made. It’s an overwhelming use of art with sound and moving images combined that distress your mind in a way love or mourning can. It’s disturbingly magnificent as some of the moving images may display as the person being deceased and drowning.

Video art is a medium that has been founded to view videos in a different perspective that has been seen as weird due to the fact it is different and many people don’t tend to understand the meaning or purpose. Its old-fashion and the technology often dismisses what humans count as true. He describes the technology used as what he needs to express what he is portraying.

Some of Naumans work was created in the 1960s. In his videos he would often do repetitive tasks that were in sync with himself and objects surrounding him. It showed the relationship between the viewer and the sculptural object. His interest often contains the concerns of the betrayal of gravity. His Self Portrait as a Fountain (1966) shows the artist spouting a stream of water from his mouth. At the end of the 1960s, Nauman began constructing claustrophobic and enclosed corridors and rooms that could be entered by visitors and which evoked the experience of being locked in and of being abandoned. A series of works inspired by one of the artist's dreams was brought together under the title of Dream Passage and created in 1983, 1984, and 1988. In his installation Changing Light Corridor with Rooms (1971), a long corridor is shrouded in darkness, whilst two rooms on either side are illuminated by bulbs that are timed to flash at different rates.

Since the mid-1980s, primarily working with sculpture and video, Nauman developed disturbing psychological and physical themes incorporating images of animal and human body parts, depicting sadistic allusions to games and torture together with themes of surveillance. In 1988, after a hiatus of nearly two decades focused on time-based media, he resumed his work with cast objects.

Marcel Duchamp

Although his father was a lawyer the family had many artistic features stemming from his grandfather. Four of his six children also became artist. Once he had arrived in Paris in the year 1904 he had already completed a few paintig which showed his interest styles and techniques. He passed  through main contemporary trends in painting that was influenced by Paul Cezanne, Fauvism and Cubism. He was simply experimenting therefore coming to an understanding that being different was better than being the same as everyone else. He was outside the most common traditional artistic features other artist were commonly doing the same work. Duchamp's early art works align with Post-Impressionist styles. He experimented with classical techniques and subjects. When he was later asked about what had influenced him at the time, Duchamp cited the work of Symbolist painter Odilon Redon, whose approach to art was not outwardly anti-academic, but quietly individual. He studied art at the Académie Julian from 1904 to 1905, but preferred playing billiards to attending classes. During this time Duchamp drew and sold cartoons which reflected his ribald humor. Many of the drawings use verbal puns (sometimes spanning multiple languages), visual puns, or both. Such play with words and symbols engaged his imagination for the rest of his life.

In 1905, he began his compulsory military service with the 39th Infantry Regiment, working for a printer in Rouen. There he learned typography and printing processes—skills he would use in his later work.

Due to his eldest brother Jacques' membership in the prestigious Académie royale de peinture et de sculpture Duchamp's work was exhibited in the 1908 Salon d'Automne, and the following year in the Salon des Indépendants. Fauves and Paul Cézanne's proto-Cubism influenced his paintings, although the critic Guillaume Apollinaire—who was eventually to become a friend—criticized what he called "Duchamp's very ugly nudes" there.[citation needed] Duchamp also became lifelong friends with exuberant artist Francis Picabia after meeting him at the 1911 Salon d'Automne, and Picabia proceeded to introduce him to a lifestyle of fast cars and "high" living.

In 1911, at Jacques' home in Puteaux, the brothers hosted a regular discussion group with Cubist artists including Picabia, Robert Delaunay, Fernand Léger, Roger de La Fresnaye, Albert Gleizes, Jean Metzinger, Juan Gris, and Alexander Archipenko. Poets and writers also participated. The group came to be known as the Puteaux Group, or the Section d'Or. Uninterested in the Cubists' seriousness, or in their focus on visual matters, Duchamp did not join in discussions of Cubist theory, and gained a reputation of being shy. However, that same year he painted in a Cubist style, and added an impression of motion by using repetitive imagery.

Cameras