Video Art

Ryan Trecartin

Typed up this artist in google to learn little about him before I blogged. I found myself on google images looking at colorful , makeup covered characters, portrayed by Ryan. A lot of these characters of his looked almost like clowns with their brightly painted faces and easily read expressions. I soon clicked open youtube and looked him up. After watching a few of his video works I could see that his work seemed to be very energetic stuff. Some of it just left me looking at the screen confused, but I guess thats what some artists want.

Pipilotti Rist

We viewed one or two of Rist's works in class. One of them being "I'm not The Girl Who Misses Much". If i remember correctly, we watched all or most of this video. The high pitched, fast forwarded video was a little bit creepy at some points, but did have a strange lure that kept me watching. The other Rist we watched was once again strange but entertaining. It was someone, pushing their face against a pane of glass, with the viewer behind the glass and seeing the smushed face sliding and pushing against the glass. A strange but very entertaining artist in my opinion.

The Residents

The first thing that I have to say about these guys is that they might be a bit off in the head. Other than that I can agree that what they were doing defiantly started a new type of art. We had viewed nothing like their short video clips in class prior. Not only does it seem like they had really helped to push video art into the light, they also made some of the first music videos, which we viewed in class. They might not be what you imagine when you think of a music video but regardless, thats what they made. Certainly an interesting group of artists.

T.V. Delivers People

This short video art piece was really quite interesting, and it make tons of sense. Every new paragraph as it rolled up screen got me thinking more about television in general. More looking at the structure of TV rather than the programs. When you look at TV from a different vantage point you can really see it true purpose in today's consumer society.
The music in the background, being very reminiscent of elevator music has a very settling affect. It is un-obstructive of the message being conveyed, but adds a very interesting affect to the piece as a whole. The message being pushed by the artist is that TV is a commercial and propaganda device. Everything on TV is specifically made to affect you, the viewer in such a way as to get you to buy a product. The TV show is just a cover for the real purpose. We like to think that commercials are the only advertisement we see but everything we watch is there for a purpose.

Performance art

Gilbert and George

These two really lightened the mood of the class after seeing all the radical performance art from the last classes. I found them extremely entertaining and comical. I personally thing that their performances are much more enjoyable than the rather violent and extreme ones we had viewed in prior classes. But then again, these two really weren't making any bold political statements with their performances. I thought that their singing sculpture was brilliant. I definitely enjoyed these artists

The Robotic Man

In my opinion Stelarc was the easiest performance artist to understand. His ideas aren't as out there as some of the other artists we looked at. Stelarc seemed to focus his work on the modification of the human body. One of his inventions was the robotic arm that when attached to a human could be manipulated much like a real human arm. Really amazing stuff. His newest project consists of him having a human ear grown under the skin of his arm. The thought of it is a bit strange but once you see the pictures you will see how strange it really is. At some point he is going to put a microphone in that third ear and stream the sounds live on the web. I think that really brings his newest act up to the level of his prior acts.

Orlan

Santiago started this particular class by telling us that we would see some crazy shit today. He wasn't joking. We looked at Orlan, a performance artist from France. Her performances were radical and extremely odd. Orlan's legacy was made on a surgery table and with plastic surgery. She had a few plastic surgeries done. That alone isnt that strange but she made it art. She had cameras in the surgery that let viewers watch live. She also read from a book and was dressed in unusually outfits. The first thing that came to mind after seeing her performances was that she is crazy, and committed to her ideas.

Fluxus and Joseph Beuys

We briefly looked at a performance art group called Fluxus. It was immediately noticed that they were on the radical end of the movement. After viewing a handful of clips from several artists from the Fluxus movement it was quite obvious that these people felt very strongly about the ideas that they were addressing in their acts.

One of the artists we looked at was Joseph Beuys. He was Germans performance artist. The performance that, for me, was the most notable was his dead hare performance. This act consisted of him walking around in a gallery with a dead hare in his arms, telling it what art is. This was seen by many people as they passed by the gallery but few actually heard what he was saying, so it just looked like he was talking to a dead rabbit. Some odd things came out of Fluxus.

The Photocopy Nightmare

1800 push pins later...

New artists and new movements

This last week in Art 211 we viewed some new material. We jumped off the main track of watching video excerpts about art/technology advances and actually focused down on a handful of artists and their movements.

After seeing the timeline of the ever changing art movements we were introduced to a few in particular. A couple of artists were brought to our attention. One of these being Marcel Duchamp. This artist helped to fuel one of the largest turning points in art history. His works challenged what had become know as art. One picture in particular stuck out and is considered one of Duchamp's most important paintings.

This painting makes fun of histories most noticeable painting, the Mona Lisa. In the Duchamp version not much is changed. The women still sits in her pose, but now she wears a mustache and a go-tee. Also, at the base of the painting there is text spelled as L.H.O.O.Q. This text has little meaning unless you speak French. If said in the right way the text becomes a phrase, "Her ass is on fire". Duchamp is clearly making a huge statement with this painting. He is making fun of not just the Mona Lisa but all art.

The second artist we viewed was one I have heard of and seen a large portion of his work. He is the father of the surreal movement and he is Salvador Dali. We were shown a video of his that was incredibly hard to understand. But I believe now that, that was one of the points of the movie. Some of the scenes were odd. One scene had a man cut open a womens eye, another a hand with a hole in it and ants crawling out. Very interesting video to say the least.

Flip Book Clip

Just a little snip-it from my flip book animation for class.

Minority Report

After seeing clips in class I was intrested in seeing the full movie, so I did just that. After the class I went and got my hands on a copy of the movie, sat down and watched it, and I have to say that I did enjoy it quite a bit. I have always loved sci-fi movies and this one has made it into my top 10. If you haven't seen this movie make sure you do.

Big Change

In class the other day we viewed several clips from movies in chronological order. The first few we watched we your idea of an old black an white movie with a story that tries to tell a simple but important story. When we got to the end of the class we watched some clips from movies after an apparent change in times had happened.

One of the movies we viewed had extreme violence, nudity, and other things you would have never seen in the old black and whites. The change wasn't slight but extreme. The whole idea of a movie had seemed to have changed between the few clips we saw. This is all most likely based on some world events and social changes that allude me at the moment.

A good start.

At first I was a bit iffy about the Art and tech class, but now that a few class has come and past my thoughts have changed. This class seems to go in a completely different direction than the greater majority of my other art classes. So, at this point I can say that I am enjoying the change, and looking forward to what this class has to offer. On the other hand, a big change can really throw you off the beaten path and present some new and difficult problems. Guess I'll have to wait and see.

-Mike