Video Art

Oh, I remember another now in the Palais du Tokyo in Paris where it was a screeching aspic Vietnam plane frying through the air as it fell but played at a still-a-minute rate. This was pretty and infuriating, if nothing else. As I say, I like it. I've had no bad experiences yet.

I want to make video art installations. Someone give me a gallery space to do it in.

I am appearing onscreen in a two channel video installation at Cal State Long Beach.

Also LOL I don't remember being called "Barnet's greatest ever pimp" but that is typically hilarious of me

Any more for any more? I am wondering if anybody here has seen anything relatively new and good.

Yes, ok. Ryan Trecartin. But what else? I was thinking more essayistic work.

what's with the recent trend for karaoke video art?

has that not been a trend for a while? There was a karaoke themed piece installed in the top floor of SFMOMA around 2006/2007 by Phil Collins:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zTB9hic3ueU

yeah, i know, i saw it multiple times - there was also another one there more recently (forgetting the artist) that was a series of monitors spanning a wall each featuring a different person singing along to "Working Class Hero"

Yes that one is Candice Breitz

and by "recent trend" - I meant in the past 3 or 4 years. Who knows, maybe the media art curator at SFMoMA is just a fan of karaoke video art.

lol

there was another one that was people re-enacting activities at a nightclub but in a neutral space with dance music on the soundtrack

it made me wonder whether the Guggenheim sequence in Cremaster 3 with Murphy's Law/Agnostic Front opened up the floodgates for this stuff being shown in a museum context

Favourite up and coming video artist i've seen is Magali Reus, tho his(?) videos only make sense in the context of the sculptural work and unfortunately the best stuff isn't googlable (the video in the ibid projects show this year was amazing)

http://www.magalireus.com/current.html

(one video on this page but you have to scroll down)

http://api.ning.com/files/bKBecWHO59ThsMjXX-HO8a5ShQ1fNGoMIjAQbkcfKRXww0nU9mnF-anTcsBkvS5UsXyEgAS0HGNstzYEWkPLQ5zRzMMgVtpZ/Background2009web.jpg

here's a still, it was of all these buff army dudes in a desert w/ these plastic and steel abstract sculptures, just sitting around or working out and *interacting* w/ the sculptures

did we ever discuss the popularity of projection technology and flat screens in the context of video art becoming more painting-like vs. sculptural?

the otolith group are i guess not that new or w/e but still awesome. kinda chris markerish

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P3Btba88cxU

xp i dont think so, u got some thoughts bc i'm not gonna pretend this is something i'm too knowledgable on but that sounds v. interesting

i think it came up for me a while back when we were talking about Jeremy Blake, actually

well we kinda mentioned the relaysh w/ painting but i dont think we really got into it.

i love getting into it.

Jesper Just should give it up and start making david lynch movies btw

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PgsrPn0F754

but like, the origins of video art - it came out of performance art and was also sculptural, primarily because it was most often exhibited on monitors.

or it was commentary on television ...

i dunno, i stopped making and paying attention to video art when it became a lot more prevalent due to cheapness of technology.

stopped paying attention as much ...

Anyway, now it feels like everything is projections and flat screens, which resembles painting or photography, and for some reason I find it harder to concentrate on.

i like a lot of stuff in projections but yeah flatscreen blech in most cases

the first jeremy blake piece i saw was on flatscreens!

oh yeah but jeremy blake is a completely different case, i've only seen him on flatscreen i think

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IgSWqz4_SkQ

i also like marine hugonnier and i'm realising that most of the stuff i'm thinking of is stuff I saw during a trip to germany almost four years ago.

Winchester was exhibited as a 3 projection piece - thinking about it in the context of painting made me warm up to it more.

flatscreen... TV? is there a preferred brand? I kind of remember sony trinatrons being used for everything.

i cant really imagine any jeremy blake on projection, feels like you neeed the surface of the screen bc of that relationship w. painting.

lcd monitors i think, actually - generally mounted to the wall so that it reads a lot like a frame. some are flatscreen tvs ... the Vasulkas were fond of these 19" sony monitors that were a bit different-looking from the standard trinitron/pvm2030s or 2530s

jesus i could never get into making video, i'm too much of a control freak

doesn't the artist get to choose which monitor gets used?

in terms of make/model or flatscreen vs. regular vs. ?

what if the artist DIES? idk i have seen some badly installed video art but its pretty much impossible to fuck up installing painting as much as it is w/ video.

i mean if you don't trust the dudes, you can physically glue the dvd player shut so that it only plays with the TV you select, like how those lawnmower companies do for store displays.

yeah i mean its all well and good if ur only being shown in like the gagosian or something, but if you're showing in local artist run spaces you def have to be there hassling whoever's installing it.

still, i've seen things in museums where the dvd player is on the blink.

ha - there was an exhibition at the Berkeley Art Museum a few years back - mostly video work (totally blanking on the artist's name) - but we went there shortly before closing, and they were turning off the work as we were going through the galleries. Major faux pas. Like, you just don't do that at a museum if you want to be taken seriously.

i mean fuck capitalism srsly but its really only glossy blue chip galleries where you're more or less guaranteed shit like that wont happen. Museums in Dublin are pretty devastatingly unprofessional (i don't really mind so much though bc its part of our raffish charm maybe)

There's a local video artist in Atlanta named Chrisopher Chambers who does installations with tons of TVs all playing different edits of found footage, mostly local 80s/90s news broadcasts and stuff. Each Tv is usually busted in its own unique way, so even though some of them are playing the same stuff, they look completely different. Sort of reminds me of Nam June Paik, in my limited knowledge of video art.

http://clatl.com/imager/block-heads-christopher-chambers-magic-star-traveler-vol-1/b/original/1283498/c78d/arts_LeFlashWEB.jpg

The past few shows I've been to had well over a dozen sets tho...

Douglas Gordon's retrospective at Sfmoma was about 30 or so monitors in one room. It felt a bit too "busy" but so much of his work is variations on a theme, so i'm not sure that much was lost.

I had a video in a local film maker's night that was presented in a 70-year-old independent theater which was really a treat, but they had all sorts of technical problems and the bulb in fact blew out in the middle of the show, soon before my piece went on. Actually I wasn't too miffed about it because the video was really lo-fi (shot in 640x480 15fps) and the display just ended up looking darker and higher contrast. It was kind of a happy accident!

i tend to think of j.blake as more of a painter than vid artist personally - for the flatscreen stuff (he may have been the first to do this iirc?) + he got his MFA in painting at calarts before turning to video/animation

i went to a bunch of galleries today but wasn't particularly struck by any of the video pieces i saw - trying to think of ppl i like

the problem that museums + galleries seeing now with the '60s and '70s stuff, esp. ppl like nam june paik who worked in tv-installations moreso than single-channel, is that the televisions they used in their installations aren't available anymore + re-creating the installation as they originally conceived it is getting increasingly harder, which leads to some tough curatorial qns

oh and i'd like to put in a kind word for harry dodge and stanya kahn's body of work ('can't swallow it, can't spit it out' was in the 2008 biennial):

http://www.ubu.com/film/dodge_kahn.html

i guess video has a whole set of problems that are kindof historically unique. i mean this being able to say "well, jeremy blake isn't video, he's painting" and its a bit like "what?*" video has only been around for like 40 years or so right? (stfu w/ ur prehistory bs right now ok) and already its become so fractured that you can say stuff like that? at least painting had however many hundreds of years of history before ppl started getting all painting-no-painting (i mean in terms of reception)

*ftr i agree w/ this for the most part

haha srsly do you know ubuweb off by heart btw?

i think it's mainly an issue of maintaining the older equipment (e.g. the Vasulkas and those particular Sony monitors). But considering that most of the older work is being shown in formats other than those in which they were first exhibited - the precedent has been set for this, in a way.

xp - was Harry Dodge formerly known as Harriet Dodge?

ppl like nam june paik who worked in tv-installations moreso than single-channel, is that the televisions they used in their installations aren't available anymore + re-creating the installation as they originally conceived it is getting increasingly harder, which leads to some tough curatorial qns

Its probably pretty easy (and cheap) to scrounge around thrift stores for a few weeks for old TVs that would be tremendously appropriate. Not as easy as simply ordering a dozen TVs online, but not too difficult, depending on where you live...

Btw this book
http://www.vasulka.org/Kitchen/PDF_ExpandedCinema/Expanded%20Cinema_files/ExpandedCinema_cover.jpg

is AMAZING. And you can read the whole thing online. Extensive interviews with the Whitney family, in-depth analysis of ancient video editing console effects, batshit wonderful into by Buckminster Fuller:

http://www.vasulka.org/Kitchen/PDF_ExpandedCinema/ExpandedCinema.html

That book is amazing!

Harry Dodge teaches at my school.

i visit ubuweb like every day! it probably is the best internet resource for a lot of this stuff. artforum's got a decent video selection on their website, too.

i feel like, as i think sarahel mentioned upthread, that the divide was between video/sculpture at first and then as the technology grew more sophisticated and you had ppl like the vasulkas dealing with totally technologically-specific forms that contain no referent to reality, that we get a bit more into the video/painting binary. but this is only because i can't think of the early stuff that i align with painting so much and wouldn't know where to pinpoint where this began. (did paik paint directly onto tv screens? i think he did) plus in saying this i'm ignoring several other uses of video

xp to plax

Also the Dodge/Khan weed-whacker piece was shot just around the block from my house.

This thread got buy while I was gone!

adam b - another prob tho is finding ppl who can maintain those sets - as the tech ages and dies out so do the ppl who know how to actually work with them (there is seriously only a small cluster who know how to maintain 2" quad video machines, for example)

i mean only tv stations ever used 2" quad but a lot of the '70s formats like 1" tape that were often used by vid artists are REALLY hard to come by now in terms of functioning machines

There is also the material of old videotapes themselves. I worked on a large museum retrospective group show of video art and was amazed (though I shouldn't be, I guess) of the pains that are taken in archiving this work in a way that preserves the errr, crustiness of the signal when it could easily be cleaned up or "remastered".

Surely there has to be some kind of depository online somewhere of scans of instructional manuals...? Although yes i agree with you. I think dealing with analog technology takes a certain kind of touch that digital technology doesn't seem to need as much.

But TBH I'm not crazy about a lot of the older, now "classical" video art, the stuff that I think the term too readily conjures up. Perhaps I'm too much of a film person but stuff like the Otolith Group posted above is more up my strasse. I do feel lke the video essay has sort of peaked too, though. And I was never sure of how one is supposed to approach an essay piece when it's shown in a white box, even with bizarre "screening times" or whatever

there's some stuff here: http://www.experimentaltvcenter.org/history/tools/tools_list.php3

the website as a whole is somewhat out-of-date but there's some pretty cool stuff

xp- there is for 16mm film stuff! haha - http://www.hollywoodmanuals.com/

yeah video art always sits really uneasy in a gallery if it's longer than like, a couple of minutes - galleries just aren't as comfortable as cinemas

in terms of early video art i prefer the more lyrical stuff

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uW0Ll5OP4Jc

This is quite hard to watch online but I saw it in a "dark room" gallery space (I like these, good compromise) and it is kind of intense:
http://www.ubu.com/film/payne-relph_mixtape.html

Also <3 <3 <3 this
http://www.ubu.com/film/burden_wrench.html

Also on the glossy side, saw this in Paris and it was great:
http://blip.tv/file/912422/

yeah video art always sits really uneasy in a gallery if it's longer than like, a couple of minutes - galleries just aren't as comfortable as cinemas

Agree. I SOO wish cinemas would show experimental video art in between movies or maybe late night or whatever. I would go to the movies all the time were that the case.

On that note, just saw Harmoney Korine's "Trash Humpers" and while i can't recommend it as a movie, the formal experience of watching full-length degraded fuzzy VHS tape in a real movie theater was pretty terrific.

My favorite stuff is anything non-narrative, pretty much. Non-objective is even better.

with the 2 in tape format you end up getting into philosophical theoretical territory, like "what is the work?" obviously this stuff is transferred to contemporary formats for exhibition purposes. but how much effort is necessary for conserving the original work?

Do you watch experimental film (as opposed to video art) at all, Adam Bruneau? Where do you live?

I SOO wish cinemas would show experimental video art in between movies or maybe late night or whatever.

I am deeply interested in this question

oops sorry. I probably shouldn't have typed out your name like that. It just seemed funny because you're Adam too

heh, for me the non-narrative and non-objective stuff is hard to watch for a significant period of time, unless it involves text. however, under the influence it has more appeal.

I know I'm getting predictable, but I am way more likely to stick with non-narrative work if it is on film and projected properly! There are certainly exceptions, but I don't actually think this strategy works so well for video - I'm thinking more about visual abstraction than fragmented narratives

Yeah experimental film probably over video art for me, though I'm trying to learn the difference. Are they really two different beasts these days. My main reference points are: Kenneth Anger, Maya Deren, Harry Smith, Stan Brakhage, Oskar Fischinger, Erkki Kurenniemi, Jan Svankmajer. I try and make videos inspired by these guys but i've never been able to afford working in actual film, so i use video.

I know everybody likes to say video isn't like film, it's like painting, but I don't think the documentary qualities of video have been totally exhausted/subverted yet in a fine art context. Especially now that with HD "documentary" doesn't have to mean "cruddy-looking" and even if you just have a Flipcam (I just got one of these btw, amazing!), you can still put it on a tripod.

xp

Experimental film is definitely still separate from video art, but I'm not sure if that's a good thing. I think they definitely need to come together, dialectically of course!

So they really are two different beasts these days? My knowledge only goes up to, maybe the 80s work of Paik.

i really wanna see some stan brakhage, tempted to buy that recent dvd set.

btw i just watched that mixtape video someone posted AND IT IS AWESOME. also i had never heard (of) that terry riley song on it (omg)

I saw a bunch of Kenneth Anger's new stuff and I would say he's more of a video artist now than anything like an experimental filmmaker. I don't know who Erikki Kurreniemi is, Finnish?

omg that song is awesome! I am glad you got to hear it =)

There are definitely crossovers, Adam B, but it does seem like (maybe just in the US?) people are still very keen to keep experimental filmmaking close to its roots, galleries are seen as money-grabbing, "trendy", etc., video as cheap, quick and shallow.

Brakhage - both DVD sets are fantastic. I would love to see the second one on Bluray.

Erkki was a Finnish electronic musician & R&D engineer for Nokia. Known mostly for his synthesizers but he also made wonderful films and videos and they are featured in a documentary called The Future Is Not What It Used To Be.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k6ml7RME-GU

is anger actually shooting in video for his 2000s stuff?

Brakhage- a weird example. Maybe the big daddy of US exp. filmmaking, spoken of in hushed tones by people in darkened auditoriums and yet by all accounts he DID see himself as a painter as opposed to a filmmaker.

Brakhage working on Super 8 with sharpies = Jeremy Blake's Wacom tablet?

xp- yes, HD

a lot of experimental filmmakers are still very caught up in the aesthetic differences btwn film and video (eg michael snow refuses to issue his films on dvd)

I have The Future Is Not What It Used To Be! Miika Taanila!

oh okay i saw a doc. about erkki a few years ago. he went mental and records every detail of his life now or was that fiction or

New Anger I saw featured lovingly shot Mickey Mouse memorabilia, guys playing soccer and guys fucking each other in a dark parking structure...all HD =)

i actually know ppl who have grumbled about brakhage's stuff being on dvd because SB didn't much care for video but i'm also a "widest-audience-possible" kinda guy so

TBF seeing the films projected from good prints IS something else.

I really really want to see the Harry Smith films projected from good prints one day...

xp true

i saw a print of 'early abstractions' years ago and still vividly remember a lot of it

haha these harry dodge videos are great! maybe i should pay more attn to ubu than i do huh

To illustrate - I made a hand-processed 16mm film last year and had a good transfer made for screeners, but on video it is NOT the same. The bits of "white screen" you see on a monitor are in fact parts of the film where the image has been bleached away to leave clear. it's two entirely different things. I never really got this distinction until I had to go through it myself.

I cannot possibly follow UBU, it's too much

For Adam B. to prove that film doesn't have to be expensive:

http://www.othercinema.com/otherzine/otherzine4/hh.html

oops

http://www.angoleiro.com/cine_texts/recipes_for_disaster_hill.pdf

oh well. Worth buying!!

Niiiiice!

yeah that has about a million things i wanna try now in it

btw stanya kahn is hilarious

<3 helen hill

She is great. I'm not a full-on direct techniques guy but I love to dabble. I taught a class of kids at an all female high school in East LA some of this stuff early this year and their reaction to it was one of the awesomest moments of my year. Seeing them go from shock and frustration at how each tiny frame was 1/24th of a second in screen time and then watching them view the final pieces and go crazy. Many many many hearts and boyfriends' names scratched into emulsion or flashing up in hot pink crayon haha

Cameras and projectors aren't that easy to find or too cheap (IMO of course, and compared to VCRs/VHS tapes at thrift stores). It's a shame you can't use painting techniques on VHS tape, they are so cheap these days. Is there any way you can work directly on VHS tape and then have it run back through a VCR to produce a new image? Perhaps with magnets or something.....?

vhs is tough, even trying to make tape loops was a dead end for me bc of how it wraps around the spool. im sure it can be done tho

Haha, probably. Or you could do tape to tape stuff. Have you heard of Animal Charm? They do live VHS mashing

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

http://vimeo.com/user1677919

This guy does live VHS tape loops, going between multiple VCRs even!!

okay fuck that's exactly what i was trying to do!

http://destructuralvideo.blogspot.com/2010/03/vhs-vcr-loops.html

Sweet Jesus i want one of these

http://www.greentreegazette.com/uploads/Remember/pixllll.jpg

haha what is that pixelvision?

I heard the lens on those is SWEET actually

yes. records straight to audio cassettes. if only you could route some effects pedals into it!

u should figure it out

you could probably hack one of those yourself would that work?

Bruce McClure uses effects pedals sometimes, I think:

http://vimeo.com/2462299

I have other things i want to figure out first. Apparently it can record to audio because it spins the tapes pretty fast, as video is sent at a much higher frequency than audio. Years ago I tried recording video to a WAV file and then playing that back into the input of a VCR and nothing came of it. Perhaps i should try again at a higher bitrate...

i really liked Harun Farocki's Parallel I-IV, which is about 42 minutes in total. the first (below) begins with a brief overview of the evolution of trees in video games. the rest of the series focuses on boundaries and internal logic systems. there's a lot more to be said about it but i know i won't be able to describe it very well. there was a good essay in this month's artforum (behind a paywall, sorry) that brought my attention to it. i have always been an emotional person but for some reason i have been getting broadsided lately by things like this that seem intended to be analytical. late night tears over watching his film partner's son glitch out ocean wave surfaces. so who knows, maybe others will enjoy it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yzc3OPc8gUM

any other recommendations? preferably stuff that i can watch online?

this is so cool, i would love to see it in person

http://jsteinkamp.com/quicktime/html/blind_eye.html

it might take a few seconds to load, but wait to see the video