Sitting somewhere between nominalism and realism

I’m currently working on developing a concrete theme/statement of which to focus my explorations in my work this semester. This is mainly for the video art work I have planned to produce for my independent study but as I develop these thoughts I am trying to also allow the inclusion of my print work. To some degree what I have already been working on through printmaking has been affecting my digital/video work and vice versa but I’m struggling to really define what I’m doing within a selected area – I think my problem is that I get excited about one idea or concept and before just that one can come about as a work of art I’m lost in a scheme of developing ideas that turn into a much broader idea of which can no longer be easily defined by one piece. Having said that, I think one of my underlying goals for this semester is to produce a body of work that may be shown together but is still strong when separated individually.

Current thoughts:
the surreal and the sublime
memories
what are memories in comparison to documentation?
what are memories in comparison to reality?
are memories documented or remembered?
when embodying a certain persona – are memories documented or remembered?
what is the difference between remembering and reviewing?
treachery of the memory? treacherous memories?
edited memories – what is the act of editing memories?
memories as reproduction? reproducible memory?
how do you replay, revisit, review your memories?
block out memories – delete unwanted memories
ambiguous memories
In what way do we perceive memories that differentiates the experience from that which is documented and/or maybe even shared??
how are we alert/awake to memories?

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I really want to buy several dozen pairs of sunglasses, they’ll have to be cheap, remove the lens and print on them – then put them back in the frames and hang them – I working on figuring out the best way to print on the glasses now… I feel like this relates to my questions about the perception of memories to some degree as well.

These are the main trends of my thoughts at the moment, not mentioning the dozen that don’t relate or have to do with school, and I’m still working on organizing a printmaking show. The show will be on Friday, February 13th (I’m kind of excited about the date) but I imagine I’m only going to get more and more stressed as it gets closer. Right now I’m a little terrified about getting enough work to fill the space… Should be a fun semester.

Introductions Mean Everything

Meta may be meta? Sorry, I just like the play on words… This is a short video piece as an attempt to create a “meta” film although it is more likely closer to metafiction. Rather than focusing on the production drama of its creation (in my case, the re-appropriation and then editing), which metafilms seem to usually be characterized by, I was more interested in trying to create something surreal but based around the idea that you are consciously watching video (the medium, “self-consciously addresses the devices”) not fantasizing, which is an underlying theme in metafiction. So in this way I hope that the obvious re-appropriations and the pixelation make the viewer conscious of the digital medium as well as what is being displayed. I couldn’t help but try to make it into a video art piece as well though… Hopefully it is successful in some ways and is at least an intriguing piece of video art if nothing else…

In and Out of Time: Video Art Symposium.

The Symposium which took place on Saturday at Atlas in regards to the Video art exhibition currently going on at the BMOCA brought some interesting speakers and topics. To my misfortune I missed the lecture on Jeremy Blake which supposedly was very interesting. Instead I made it for the lecture on “Looking at Music” (currently an exhibition at the Moma) from Barbara London who is the Associate Curator of the Department of Media at the Moma. Then Chip Lord who was of the 60’s and 70’s video/media group Ant Farm, Gary Emrich who is a former CU grad working in video art and teaching at RMCAD, followed by video artists and CU professors Dan Boord and Luis Valdivino, and finally Steve Seid who worked with the San Francisco Center for Experimental Television in the 60s. It was interesting to attend the symposium for me to begin to get an idea of the history of video art but also to see the aesthetic differences occurring within its world; ultimately I felt I was trying to understand other aesthetic ideals rather than relating to them from my own.

Of the different speakers, I was very intrigued by what Barbara London had been working to curate and the aspects of early music videos as being video art or the reverse video art as the music video (and walked out with an extreme urge to remix Laurie Anderson’s ‘O Superman’). Although she was not an incredibly strong speaker she brought some interesting ideas to the table to define video art as a medium but also helped firm my understanding of its history. The same falls in line for Chip lord, but in regards to the work which Ant Farm was producing this is where I first began questioning the aesthetics of video art – both of my own personal aesthetics for what I appreciate in video but also theirs. Time is a factor here though, that being that they were working in the 60s and 70s on the forefront of video as art, but still I felt uneasy as to whether what they had done was video art or maybe performance… and was it good or were they just there during its start. To counter my thoughts on this maybe I do not have a fully developed aesthetic for video art and am to warped by our modern media culture which for video art, as they say, stands on the shoulders of giants… if you would in any way refer to them as giants. Then comes Gary Emrich, who I was not impressed by but I must admit to being annoyed by his attitude in the presentation which I felt was, oh, rather cocky. So, I was turned off by this man who seemed to think of himself as something ‘hot’ (my perception/outside opinion – he could be a wonderful person… in person) but I was also turned off by his work at BMOCA even before seeing him and couldn’t help but think of it as being a Nam June Pak rip off – but (I’ll try to justify him) really I suppose it is hard not to draw upon the one superstar and the pioneer of video art as a medium – and by this I’m referring specifically to his display at BMOCA, that of 3 small televisions lined up next to one another. Ok, but the guy has an obvious background in video art with his father having been a cinematographer and him currently being the video art prof at RMCAD – and he’s using video art as a method for storytelling and activism which are both rarely incorporated in my own work, so again we’re back to the question of aesthetics. His work at BMOCA is quite different than his other work and to me it had a much greater feeling of composition than did any of his other pieces, and in terms of video as collage his new piece began relating to me but there was something missing… something very unfulfilling in the end. We then moved onto Dan Boord and Luis Valdivino, who were entertaining to watch introduce their films even though they hardly did that – they seemed like an odd performance act. With them though, my aesthetic taste was really called into question but also opened up and elaborated upon (am I apart of a group of new video artists being born who just want to make video art an offshoot of Hollywood cinema? Am I so shallow and diluted that production value is the basis for my judgement? I’m not saying that production value is not important to consider but as the defining point of aesthetic appeal, I’m hoping not…). Maybe it was the humor in their first piece that broke the bad taste in my mouth, but it was the piece regarding Jack Kerouac that made me appreciate their kind of documentary-esque approach to video art and their incorporation of the small production aspects into their work that I began to appreciate. Reflecting back to Emrich, I may have taken in his work a little more harshly than I thought but he still didn’t bring an aesthetic pleasure to his video work like these two. None the less, all of the aesthetics as to what the content of video art is to be had been very different than my own, but my aesthetic for video is still developing – I know I do not share the same tastes as these artists but now have them to consider in the creation of my own work – no more overly abstracted strictly collage based pieces… The final speaker was Steve Seid, who brought with him a typed essay to read to us while flipping through a powerpoint… a Symposium on video art and all he has is an essay and powerpoint… He spoke of some very interesting things which occurred in video art in the 60s and 70s but they were ultimately rather obscure. They did present me with an idea of the shoulder which I stand on though – hand built synthesizers and the beginning of live video performance – that being video manipulated as it went out on the air (even though he made it sound as if most likely no one was watching it). His images did spark my curiosity but I was disappointed not to be able to see a version of their video work or even hear some of the effects created by these hand made synths…

I made it through his lecture although a good deal of people had left during it… And walked out with my aesthetic taste to consider – the work done in the 60s and 70s are the shoulders we stand upon, namely Nam June Pak, but also Ant Farm and the SF Center for Experimental Television. But content wise I do not think like the documentary type pieces nor imagine things similar to the psychedelic explorations of the Experimental Television center – and think video art is much greater than what Emrich creates; I am impressed with the direction Jeremy Blake has gone in but am not about to begin where he left off…

Winchester Redux – BMOCA Review

Of all the work within the current exhibition at BMOCA, In and Out of Time: Selections from the CU Art Museum’s Video Collection, some of the work stands out being accomplished, beautiful and critical while others seem lost in an attempt at something unfulfilled. Certainly this is a debatable criticism of the collection in terms of aesthetic intent but I think it is without much question that some of the pieces pale in comparison to their peers. Of the various works within the show i found both the strongest and most intriguing piece was found in the large viewing space in the back of the gallery from Jeremy Blake. The piece Winchester Redux brought a barrage of imagery in such a way that I had not seen before in video art, and after reading further about the piece I became aware of what a privilege it was to have seen it and that Jeremy Blake was an artist I should have known. Other than having become a icon in the contemporary art world and the tragedy of his death, it was his talent and technique in video work – melding film, photography, hundreds of ink drawings, and his process of frame-by-frame retouching – that made his work show with such an impressive aura. The cross of what he refers to as the “victorian aesthetic (embodied by the Mansion’s architecture) and the psychedelic sensibility (referenced through hallucinatory manipulation of the film)” bring about thoughts both introspective and tranquil in its viewing. By this I mean that it engages us in a sort of internal mental play, even without knowledge of his subject we are caught examining our perceptions of reality and then countered by a soothing experience, and upon the realization of the figures with guns and rifles brought into an imaginative/dramatized history. His subject is the Winchester Mansion in San Jose, California, where the widow of the heir to the Winchester Rifle company fortune built a mansion of 160 rooms to appease the deceased spirits which she felt haunted her in retaliation for the weapons that caused their deaths. Understanding this and viewing the film again it comes across more as an examination of the story which brought the house into its being as well as an exploration into the cultural iconography of the cowboy and Winchester firearms, but it still remains hauntingly personal for the viewer as we then begin to rationalize the situation and the psyche of the women through our understanding of what is spiritual and what is hollywood.

As an artist working with video as a medium this piece brings great inspiration and value to what is possible through its elaborate imagery and the intricate technical work put into its fabrication. How he incorporates hand drawn work, which may be considered a traditional practice in comparison, and seamlessly bring it into motion, a practice still developing its place within art, highlights the crossing of mediums that is currently occurring through digital work. It is still the early stages for both video and digital mediums but through works such as Winchester Redux the bar of both the possible and the expectations is set high.