finals week readings
Chrissie Isles “Video and Film Space” p252 (S)
the moving image always transforms the space it occupies
this transformative process has been a central tenet of film and video installations since their inception in the mid 1960s
the earliest video and film installations made from the mid to late 1960s presented two different philosophical approaches to space, in what could be described as an overlap between the ending of one era and the beginning of another
the expanded cinema events of the late sixties marked the final gasp of abstract expressionism in moving image media terms
large projected film images transformed the space into a three dimensional image, a kind of communal dream space, or metaphor of expanded consciousness
the new consciousness doesn’t want to dream its fantasies, it wants to live them
these environmental spaces bore a direct relationship to the growing number of commercial experiments with large scale projection
in contrast to film, the instant, real-time quality of the new video technology, presented for the first time the possibility of observing human behavior as it occurred in real time
these performative video installations of the late sixties and early seventies, marked a new, anti spectacular, analytical experience of the space
space became the primary site for this inquiry, and as such, the viewer’s relationship with space became introspective
the single most important influence on the defining of the space in all the video installations produced by peter campus, vito acconci, bruce nauman, dennis oppenheim, and dan graham during the period 1968-1975 was that of phenomenology and psychological theory
bruce nauman pushed this psychological inquiry much further in his performances and corridor structures of the late sixties, in which the artist and the viewer experienced claustrophobic, uncomfortable situations involving physical restriction and video surveillance
a marked difference in the construction of space occurs in a related film installation by dennis oppenheim, echo
a central tenet of the psychological investigation of the viewer in space in the installations of the seventies was the concept of mirroring
the mirror in the seventies performative video space bears a direct relationship to experiments with the mirror in the 19thcentury realist painting
in an early video piece by the British artist david hall, the video camera and monitor operate as the mirror of Gibson’s self-reflexive condition of looking in highly physical terms
the placing of the camera and or the screen at unexpected angles obliges the viewer to negotiate space more obliquely in order to discover his or her image
campus’s durational space correlates with dan graham’s writing on video space
if a central strategy of all the video installations of the seventies involving a mirror, whether actual or metaphorical, was the fragmentation of the single temporal and spatial viewpoint
there is a peculiar resonance between these pivotal works of the seventies and certain works by artists of a new generation working in the nineties using the projected film or video image
in the installations of liisa roberts, constructed physical and conceptual spaces, of which film forms a central component, use the screen to suggest another, metaphorical space
as in the sixties and seventies, film and video space has become the location of a radical questioning of the future of both aesthetic and social space
Bruce Jenkins “The Machine in the Museum” p263 (S)
film is undoubtedly visual, but is it art?
It periodically rises to the surface, as when it is briefly embraced by artists who, in their youthful definance of the procedures and proprieties of art making, intuitively take up moving images for their disruptive potential
the desire for inclusion within the museum, for parity with contemporaneous visual and plastic arts, rarely has been articulated by filmmakers themselves, although they have often wrestled with and sometimes succeeded in subduing some of the most challenging aesthetic concerns facing the visual arts
before the electronic age and the array of technology it has made available for art, however, there was the machine age, which gave rise to the cinema and its photographic predecessors
throughout the history of modernism in the visual arts, the machine has served as subject matter
a revealing history of modernism could be told in the elaborate strategies employed by artists and institutions to counter and deform the machine and mass-produced culture in general
there have been less than successful attempts, however, at bringing the cinema into the gallery and into the museum collection
film as a mechanical medium has been less than readily accepted within the museum or within the art historical discourse of modernity
as a camera based art form, film is defined by the indexical illusionism of the medium and as such remains, as the American filmmaker and theorist Hollis Frampton noted “ontologically marked” to its referents
for duchamp the cinema is a bloodless body, a spectral presence that has been robbed of both interiority and aesthetic dimension
on rare occasion, a film has managed to make it intact into the gallery – in the form of installation of course
film is as much a temporal art as it is a visual one
relationship between décor and narrative
this interest in film as décor is taken up again in the work of experimental filmmakers in the 1950s and early 1960s
the social historian Arnold Hauser recognized the challenge that film production posed to artists – namely the “unusual and unnatural” situation of an artistic enterprise based on cooperation- and pronounced it “the first attempt since the beginning of our modern individualistic civilization to produce art for a mass public”
the collaborative origins of the medium are matched in the nature of the finished work, which consists of unlimited multiples
although conceived as a gallery based artist produced work, Akerman, in choosing to speak in the language of the cinema, has had us to make use of both the technology and the techniques of the collaboratively produced filmmakers
such a perspective, however extreme, can lead, to speculation on the expanded exhibitions possible when film enters the gallery
when modernity and postmodernity are animated by the vitality of the seventh art
Introduction art and technology, p384 (CA)
the imagination that pictures, researches, and seeks to engage in the transformation of all substance belongs to the alchemical minds of the scientist and the artist, both of whom approach the philosopher’s stone
for the last two centuries, the pairing of art with technology has been aimed at the manipulation and augmentation of light, movement, and sound in new materials and technologies
cybernetics dates from the early 1940s
while schoffer developed the socially useful aspects of technology, painter Gustav Metzger addressed its destructive side
although metzger never built his visionary monuments, Jean tinguely captured the imagination of an international public in March 1960 when he created Homage to New York
by 1964 tinguely had abandoned these destruction assemblages and returned to creating “poetic metamatics”kinetic works reflecting the aim stated in his manifesto static namely to use motion – the sign of life – to defeat death
takis was included in most of these shows
his interactive antigravity sculptures included spectator control and manipulation of the magnetic environment and he introduced light as a sculptural element in mercury vapor
artists groups formed to realize projects utilizing the newest technologies
Zero’s group events included public spectacles of environmental works works with light projections, smoke, fire, reflections, shadows, vibrations, and other phenomena of light and motion
many groups emerged during the same period as zero
Nouvelle tendance launched numerous international exhibitions of Kinetic art and represented an association of European collectives that stressed anonymity and technological research
maurice tuchman, then senior curator at the los angeles county museum of art, wanted to expand this collaborative potential
a very different kind of collective emerged in the late 1970s when mounting frustration and anger over corporate and government collusion in the nuclear weapons industry gave rise to the widespread anxiety most vividly displayed in the punk movement
science fiction writer j g ballard and novelist william burroughs were philosophical mentors for both srl and laurie anderson
using a xenon slide projector to greatly enlarge visual representations, Krzysztof Wodiczko projected images onto the facades of public buildings and public monuments to visualize relations between ideology, power, and control inherent in the representational presence of public edifices
increasingly concerned with the interrelationship of Manhattan urban development, real estate values, the condition of the homeless, and the failures of market economy, he designed homeless vehicles to provide shelter for disenfranchised citizens
stelarc’s book obsolete body/suspensions documented his many controversial performances or suspensions, first realized in tokyo in 1976
stelarc envisioned the artist of the future as an architect of internal body spaces and an evolutionary guide
since the introduction of photography in the 19tcentury, no new technology until computers affected art as much as video
paik purchased one of the first black and white half inch portapak video recorders marketed by sony in 1965 and recorded a fluxus event in new york
in 1964 paik also worked with the japanese engineer shuya – abe to construct robot k-456, a twenty channel radio controlled robot
paik often credited artist, writer, and educator davis with having first introduced satellite technology to the arts in 1977 when davis broadcast from documents 6
davis used video to demonstrate how television extends from the private to public and is a tool for two- way communication
bill viola’s multimedia video installations situated video in the interplay between the physical, mental, emotional, and psychological aspects of perception
after 1979, wegman increasingly worked with large format color polaroid photography
lynn hershman produced her first interactive electronic laserdisk, lorna
computer art might be said to have begun in 1952 when ben f laposky composed electronic abstractions using an analogic computer and a cathode-tube oscillograph
computer graphics were created in 1960 by kurd von alsleben and william a fetter in germany, and digital computer graphics appeared in 1965
these are only some of the significant events in the history of computers in art
krueger’s interactive installations became the prototypes for electronic computerized simulations and virtual reality
these works were not presented by conventional art institutions until such international exhibitions as ars electronica and international symposia on electronic art began to regularly exhibit computer work
weibel used his knowledge of philosophy, mathematics, science, and semiotics to shape his video performance installations, as well as his later interactive computer installations and research into artificial intelligence and postbiological, artificial life
one of the leading practitioners of telematic art - art created by geographically dispersed individuals collaborating via computer mediated telecommunications networks – Ascott had identified in his numerous writings many of the aesthetic, educational, and social implications of cybernetic art, issues that continue to grow in importance in the visual arts and in society
