Tag Archives: video

Nam June Paik

Nam June Paik is considered by many to be the inventor of video art.

Electric Superhighway, 1995

Electric Superhighway, 1995

Nam June Paik links in honor of his exhibition at the Asia Society until Jan 4, 2015

Comprehensive list of works and full bio

VIDEO LINKS

Great short video discussing how Nam June Paik predicted the Internet Age

Good Morning Mr. Orwell
(Initially broadcast on New Year’s Day, 1984)
Nam June Paik’s rebuttal to Orwell’s dystopian vision of 1984, is the first international satellite installation by Video Art pioneer Nam June Paik. Paik’s transcultural satellite extravaganzas links different countries (France, Germany, US), spaces, and times in often chaotic but entertaining collages of art and pop culture, the avant-garde and television. Paik saw Good Morning Mr. Orwell as a rebuttal to Orwell’s dystopian vision of 1984.
>> More Info on project from Asia Society

MORE RESOURCES
Nam June Paik website has a good overview essay on Paik’s work, The Worlds of Nam June Paik by John Hanhardt, former film and video curator at the Whitney and Guggenheim and is now the Smithsonian American Art Museum’s video-art curator.

Nam June Paik on ubuweb

Nam June Paik and Modern Technology Timeline

TV Buddha, Buddha and video with live feed

Watchdog, TV robot

 

IS THERE LIFE ON MARS? GOODBYE TO DAVID BOWIE

Many posts on the great David Bowie and his impact on popular culture and the arts. He was fearless and one of my personal heroes “for [more than] one day.” His retrospective David Bowie is that I saw in Berlin was one of the most memorable exhibitions I have seen in recent years. He was fearless is his art, seemingly not afraid to fail by trying something new —  an inspiration.

IS THERE LIFE ON MARS? GOODBYE TO BOWIE BY JACK HALBERSTAM | Bully Bloggers
(One of best pieces I have read)

“…For me, as for so many, David Bowie represented a glittering, odd, unearthly reminder that life is about change, risk, madness and mayhem, and that while our domestic structures work hard to keep the madness at bay, we must be ready at all times to “turn and face the strange.”… “

And Bully Bloggers is a great blog to follow: “The Bully Bloggers are a queer word art group.  We write about everything queer, so, pretty much everything.  Politics, culture, etiquette, vampires, cartoons, the news, philosophy, utopia and revolution.  This blog is our Bully Pulpit; we preach to the converted, the unconverted and the indifferent.  We are very serious, but in a silly sort of way. ”

and here is a great slideshow of the many David Bowies.

And his goodbye..

Chantal Akerman:

Chantal Ackerman died October 5, 2015. This post honors her.

 

Chantal Akerman: a primer | Sight & Sound | BFI

It’s a well-known fact, often rehearsed in interviews, that at the age of 15, Chantal Akerman saw Jean-Luc Godard’s Pierrot le fou (1965) and decided that her vocation was to be a filmmaker. Today, looking back over the career of this Belgian-born, mainly France-based director, we can happily conclude – and this cannot be said of everyone who makes such statements – that her own work has been worthy of the film that inspired her cinephilia. [read more]


At the age of 25, Ackerman made the film Jeanne Dielman,
23 quai du Commerce,
1080 Bruxelles (1975),
3 hours and 21 minutes,

Considered her “masterpiece,” it is a hugely innovative statement that made no concession to mainstream convention.

 


 

She also created many video installations.
Below: Chantal Ackerman, installation at the Venice Bienniale, 2015

More Links

Trevor Paglen

 Can an Artist Take on the Government (and Win)? A Q&A With Trevor Paglen
  Artspace

The artist and “Citizenfour” collaborator’s new show at Chelsea’s Metro Pictures is both an homage to Edward Snowden and an example of what he calls “institutional improvement.”

Trevor Paglen has tracked secret spy satellites, photographed so-called “black sites” like Area 51, cataloged hundreds of classified codes for military operations and their associated (and often bizarre) patches, and blasted images into space for the benefit of future civilizations or a visiting alien species. … Paglen approaches art with a steadfastly interdisciplinary and collaborative mindset, combining his academic training with an eye for aesthetics and a healthy dose of post-9/11 paranoia. [read interview]

LAURA POITRAS and HITO STEYERL [together]

A conversation between two brilliant minds,  LAURA POITRAS and  HITO STEYERL, in the pages of Art Forum May 2015
 A few excerpts:

LP: The limits of my imagination are much less interesting than what I encounter going into the field and filming. So yes, it obviously changed the narrative. But part of vérité filmmaking, and documenting in the present tense as things unfold, is going where the story leads. It’s uncertain and scary at times, but that is why there is drama.

HS: What kind of storytelling can adapt to the technological novelty and also to the vastness of the database as an archive?

….how does the editor work in the twenty-first century? Especially if, as in your case, the editor is also the person with the movie camera and the Soundbeam and the encrypted hard drive; she is a writer who designs a whole infrastructure of communication.

HS on Editing:
… And I think that editing, not only in filmmaking but in a lot of different activities, is a crucial activity. Postproduction is not working on content in retrospect but creating the content. Editing is where the meaning is created.

Godard said an edit could be an “and” or an “or.” That is how traditional film or video editing works. But now editing, with newer media and with physical reality becoming mediatized to a large extent, becomes a much more expanded activity, being able to channel and process information and to put together meaning in a much more expanded field.

Now instead of expanded cinema, it’s expanded editing, expanded postproduction, and circulation across different platforms and formats. I think it’s one of the crucial lenses through which to analyze contemporary activities.

LP: I think in the art world, duration is often seen as transgressive because it’s somehow forcing the audience to go beyond their comfort level, to subject them to an endurance test. And yet duration is absolutely accepted within mainstream cinema. So duration is perceived very differently in those two domains. Warhol, of course, was the supreme example of really pushing that in beautiful ways.

[read entire article]

“Hito Steyerl” is on view at Artists Space, New York, through May 24. “Laura Poitras” will be on view at the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, Feb. 5–May 15, 2016.

Hito Steyerl, How Not to be Seen: A Fucking Didactic Educational .MOV File, 2013more links:
Hito Steryl in e-flux and more articles in Art ForumLaura Poitrais Praxis Films

Dorothea Lange Documentary

Dorothea Lange ~ Watch Full Film: Dorothea Lange: Grab a Hunk of Lightning
American Masters | PBS.

Dorothea Lange by Paul S. Taylor, 1934American Masters — Dorothea Lange: Grab a Hunk of Lightning  explores the life, passions and uncompromising vision of the influential photographer, whose enduring images document five turbulent decades of American history, including the Great Depression, the Dust Bowl and World War II Japanese internment camps. Peabody- and five-time Emmy award-winning cinematographer Dyanna Taylor — the granddaughter of Lange and writer/social scientist Paul Schuster Taylor — directs and narrates this intimate American Masters documentary.

more info and links to Dorothea Lange resouces

Ryan Trecartin

I just saw Ryan Trecartin’s exhibition at Elizabeth Dee Gallery (until April 26, 2014) which inspired this post.

From UbuWeb: Ryan Trecartin’s video narratives unfold like futuristic fever dreams. Collaborating with an ensemble cast of family and friends, he merges sophisticated digital manipulations with footage from the Internet and pop culture, animations, and wildly stylized sets and performances. While the astonishing A Family Finds Entertainment (2005) has drawn comparisons to Jack Smith, early John Waters, and Pee-Wee’s Playhouse, Trecartin crafts startling visions that are thoroughly unique.

Watch more of his videos on his Vimeo page

Read New Yorker profile on Ryan Trecartin

His gallery page

Bill Viola

Bill Viola’s Moving Void > good read

Insightful article on video artist Bill Viola’s exhibition in Paris on Hyperallergic. [Good introduction to his work if you don’t know it.]  There are several embedded links to view videos online, but the power of Bill Viola’s work is to see it in installation form. See this if you are in Paris before end of July. If we are lucky, the exhibition will travel.

How to Create a Performing Arts Video Work Sample

How to Create a Performing Arts Video Work Sample Part 1 of 3: Your Video Is an Artifact • tips from NYFA.org – NYFA Current.
NYFA current is a great list to be on >  grant opportunities, artist profiles, professional advice, etc. This article about video documentation of performance (or installation) is very useful.

A video work sample is a tool you should probably have if you create work in the performing arts or make installations. Many grant applications and festival submissions require it, or even if they don’t, your application still may need one in order to be competitive…

A good work sample video draws you into the performance. It makes you feel like you’re there. And it compels you to keep watching.  read complete article

I will update this post when parts 2 and 3 are online.