After reading the chapter, visit a few of the sites listed on page 354. The addresses are: www.billviola.com, www.davidhallart.com, http://ukvideoart.tripod.com/, wwwltonkonow.com/campus.html, wwwlkortermand.dk/overview.htm, http://home.snafu.de/ruinekuenste.berlin/wolf.htm, www.videoart.suite.dk/videobank/index.htm, www.c3.hu/sccs/butterfly/vasulkas/synopsis.html
Which work do you find the most interesting and successful? Why?
What qualities do you find revealed in the piece you most admire?
In which was the participative experience the most intense?
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27 comments:
After visiting some of the websites, I found Bill Viola's work extremely interesting and intense at the same time. His work has a piercing affect with an almost eerie ambiance to it. I especially liked the video clips, 'He Weeps For You,' in which Viola exemplified the use of sound, through a drum, and time intervals, which added intensity to the moment, as single drops of water slowly hit the drum. His other piece that caught my attention was 'Heaven and Earth,' where Viola had a split image of an elderly person lying on their 'death bed' at the top of the composition and a newborn baby positioned on the lower half. The video clip surely resembled the title of the work.
I liked Bill Viola’s work it was so different in what someone would consider art. I have never seen pieces like this before it is amazing how some things can be amazing to someone and seem pointless to another.
The Crossing is one that stuck out to me. It was strange yet some how amazing! It seemed like a person walking toward the camera and then water washing them away. It was very strange in the way I didn’t have a clue what was going on.
Without a Shore is another that seemed really interesting. It was a person standing there and looked like water was being poured over her head. It was interesting.
Emergence is odd… I would say it seems like someone is emerging from a fountain or well of some kind, along each side is a girl one looking sort of excited the other smiling looking at the other.
The work of David Hall is also very odd. Nothing like I’ve ever seen. It was saying on the website that the work would just show up on a TV. Unannounced and no title, it just popped up. There is one where he is standing in the street with a TV, but the screen is broken so you can see through it and he is pointing a pistol at the camera through the broken screen. You can also see the cars on the street around him.
In another piece he was sitting at a work table with his back toward us, and then a shadowy figure is taking something off the desk. It is very hard to understand what he is trying to say or tell us, then again maybe it’s nothing maybe he just said, “I’m going to make something today.”
For me if I ever do anything with art or anything described in this book it is from built up emotions.
in response to audpod
i liked Viola's work to. It was really interesting but also kind of strange. but u described his work so well great job.
After trying all the websites. I really don’t understand the assignment or how I can even say if they are going to be successful or not because they are from the 70s so to me they are already successful because they are on the internet. I would have to say the Bill Viola has the most successful ones though because of the way it strikes people and that is why it will become success. It is interesting to me that his video arts are about religious impulses. When I watched the crossing it was somewhat understandable how it relates to religion but the video was so weird and over my head. I would say the most intense part was a person on fire and then disappears with water at the same time the music with it. It is all very odd to me because you really don’t know what is going on because they are two sided screens and one thing is happening on one side and on the other something else.
I agree with natalie b
It is very odd and a different way of looking at art
The website that I visited last was http://www.kortermand.dk/overview.htm I found this the most interesting to me, because I was able to watch different little videos. I NEVER would have considered little couple second video clips as art. I was interested regardless, and I was watching the first clip I saw was of these nude girls I think climbing over a wall. It was curious because I wanted to see what was on the other side of the wall that made them climb over it in the first place. I was thinking like first off why are these ladies nude, and the only conclusion I could come to was that nude is an art form. And that was the only conclusion I could come to that made any sense to me. The second thing I was thinking while I was watching was why they would want to climb over this wall. I was thinking symbolically in the sense that they are over coming something or maybe it’s their way of not having anything hold them back, like if they come to a wall in their life whether it be in the form of different hardships it’s their symbolic way of saying I can climb over whatever life brings my way. Then I started thinking more logically about the clip after it was finished and thought, well there wasn’t anything on the other side of the wall, so there was no actual point in climbing it in the first place. All I could think about after it was wow if they rubbed against that cement they are going to have some painful scratches. But all in all, I enjoyed this website the best because I did actually enjoy watching the many different video clips this site had to offer, I thought some of the other ones were neat but I liked this one the best.
In response to Natalie b: I liked your post on bill viola's work, It was very interesting reading your blog and I agreed with your comments. I too really liked his piece the crossing. Nice post
in response to aschwartz
I agree, it is a bit tough for me to determine whether or not they are all going to be successful. Unfortunately, however, being on the internet doesn't necessarily make them successful. After all, anyone can upload stuff to the i-net! I definitely agree, Bill Viola's was really interesting in its approach and everything.
Natalie, yes, the Crossing was really interesting. It amazes me how this piece, and his others, can be so creative, real, and all together amazing and strange all at the same time. The way that the person vanishes just like that - kind of like death. One moment they're with us... the next, without much notice, they're gone. Thus, the crossing from life to death. Sorry, that's a bit morbid, but it's what I thought of.
A large part of why I think that Bill Viola’s work is more interesting and/or successful is because his website was even more easily navigated versus others. It seemed as though the designer of the web page put a lot of time and effort into how the page would look and run. It could be just me, but even when I am doing research, I prefer a site that is clear cut and to the point. Some of the other websites offered to look at had a lot of words to read and I just don’t care for that. I still don’t feel that I know enough about art, of any kind, to critique it. I mean, I thought, and still kind of do think that a lot of the video art is just randomness. If I had just watched the videos on Viola’s site, I would be dead set on that thought. But, after reading the explanations, it helps the meaning of the videos to be seen more clearly. Kind of like Lehman’s terms for those like me who are art illiterate.
I was drawn by Peter Campus’s work the most. I wasn’t able to access some of the other sites, and of the ones I could visit didn’t hold my attention. Of Peter Campus’s work, the videos with sound were the most captivating. I found both the “el Viejo” and “Beeing” to be my favorites. In “el Viejo” on the left side of the screen a video camera is following a man walking down a path. The camera is a bit shaky, like they are zoomed in, and they even lose the man a few times. The right side of the screen is black until near the end of the clip and then a building comes into focus. I’m not sure what it is, but the man walking on one side and the still picture on the other combined with the sound in the back round pulled me into the exhibit. I can’t answer the other questions in the assignment, but I can say I gained an appreciation for video art. I don’t think I even new what video art was before reading this week’s chapter!
Dan
I have to agree with others that some of the work is eerie. The last website that i checked out was www.tonkonow.com/campus.html and that was interesting so to speak. They were kind of eerie in the sense of like a stalker type of the video of the guy walking and some of the pictures just creeped me out but i see them in a way being successful as some people like that kind of stuff. I also like theCrossing on Bill Viola site that was very intense.
response to audpod
I agree with you on how Bill Viola's work was intense and eerie. the crossing that was a trip.
When visiting the websites I found that Bill Viola's work was kind of odd. I really don't know how to explain it but I watched some of the clips and they all just have a scary, lonly feeling to them. When I was watching some of them I felt like I was watching a horrior movie. The one that really stuck out was "Room for St. John of the Cross". This one just gave me a really eerie feeling when watching it, then when the man start to say the pray in spanish that just made it even more odd, and eerie. I really don't know how I would explain the feeling it was just unusal, but I guess that is what makes it well known and famous.
It is really hard after reading everyones to decide what I think. I think some of the work is very interesting and almost makes you think to much about it. Just watching it may change your mind every second of it. It makes you wonder what else could be concidered art.
Eveyone really put good comments down. They really do exemplify the art in different ways and I really liked Natalies way of putting the interpretation and wordings.
In response to Mckenzieb: You really expressed some good thought of how can this really can be art? Film making is sort of different way to think and it seems to move so slow but it does peak your interest a lot. Good comments and very well written.
I watched several different films from Bill Viola, and Raskado. They protrayed very different ideas and it sort of looked like a distant pictures or close up. It was light then dark and protrayed some interesting ideas of what they wanted us to get from the different films. Sweet Light and Reflecting Pool were both very different. I didn't find this sort of art very satisfying or something I could really understand very well. When we read about the television I can laugh at when we got our first one in our home. Black and white and you had to turn the rabbit ears with the channel to see anything. Then one christmas we recieved as a gift a television with a stereo, radio in a console very high tech at that time. Now as we look for a new television I realize how far we have come with pixel, Hdl and slim look to everything. I love what we have to pick from in the 2008 series of television. I did enjoy looking at the video art and would not had done so without having taken this class. Good to stretch the mind and always realizing you may not like everything.
In response to Lorraine: I too found that some of the work was a bit "Creepy"! I am really trying to train myself that that is art.
I too felt like this one one of the assignments that I felt very confused on. After looking at several of the websites that were listed I too, felt that Bill Viola’s was probably the most interesting pieces of art that were shown to me. I find it hard to train my brain that almost anything can be considered art in someone’s eyes. I am learning to be more open minded and discover and look at everything through “fresh” eyes and not take anything for granted because it may be someones art!
I found that video art is a new way to show what the artist has to say or would like the viewers to think. It takes some time to adjust, I had to watch many of the videos several times to really see what message the artists were trying to relay. Not that I figured out what it was they were trying to get across, but I found myself thinking in different ways. I also thought that Bill Violas work was eerie at first, after watching “The Emergence” several times, I thought it was uplifting, kind of like a birth or a life reborn. The motions are slow, I think that we are just so used to seeing everything going so fast, it takes some time to adjust and think about what you are seeing. I think that Viola is successful in the way that he gets his meaning across. To capture every moment, not just what is being seen at the time but also what emotions that are aroused while you are seeing it. (If that makes sense?). For me, I think that the participative experience was the most in tense during this video!
There were other video clips that I thought were interesting also, Peter Campus, Three Transitions, 1973. I watched this one several times also. The man is wiping something on his face that is erasing him but behind it is another picture of himself. Odd but kind of cool too!
in response to Natalie
I agree, that Bill Viola's work is different in that it is called art. I think that the video art is going to be more of the future, so that is why we find it a bit odd. It is out of the "ordinary" of what we consider art to be. I guess we need to have an open mind and look at things differently than we would by just watching TV or a movie.
I found this assignment to be the most challenging. I would have never viewed anything like these video clips. For the most part, I found myself confused, and trying to judge the art in it. But I soon, figured that I could not judge it, but to only embrace it. I found Bill Viola to be the most interesting, and in my opinion to be the most successful. The more I looked and listened to his work, the more creped out I got, yet I still wanted to view more. This is why I found him to be the most successful. He keeps your attention, and while you may not think that you would enjoy his kinds a work, in a strange way you love it and can not get enough of it. When I first arrived to his website, I looked at his photograph of his titled “Ocean without a Shore”. At first I did not get it, but after viewing it, I sort of seen it. I mean, the eeriness made me see the waves and dark beauty of it, and then the glow brought it together. The clips that I enjoyed the most are “Sleep of Reason” and “Reason for Knocking at an Empty House”. Oh my, it is so hard to find the words that explain how I felt when viewing the clip and hearing the sounds. I have never had some many goose bumps crawl all over my skin!
In response to Sandra Gilk.... I too needed to view many of the clips by all of the artists to in a sense " get what they were saying". I would have to agree that after viewing the video clips, that I was thinking differently with each clip that I watched. Emotions played a huge role, when watching these clips. Each clip created a different emotion, yet is was still all eerie. All of these artists have to be odd, but that is what makes them so good at what they do. I mean who are we to say that there is not good, what is good art?
Mschimek,
I also noticed how Bill Viola's website was much more organized than others. I am also glad that he made the titles of the clips self explanitary, because I would've had a difficult time, as well, trying to figure out what message he was trying to get across.
i wasnt able to get into a couple of the sites..and Bill violas i couldnt figure out how the view the video clips? but the pictures i did see i enjoyed
I found the third website to be the most interesting. There was a lot of information on this page. I thought that it did a good job of combining information all in to one place. I preferred this site over some of the others because I felt that it had the information that some of the other ones did but it contained additional information. I found this site to have good graphics as well. This site contained a lot of information and it was not just about one certain person it was an overview of the early years of video art.
I couldn't open a few of the websites, but the ones I could were very usual. This is art once again another form. We have been observing many different form of art through this class and it has really opened my eye to all the different kinds of art. I like the David Hallart website. The clips from this site were simple and intriguing. I wanted to see happened next, so it drew me in. I like that most of the clips on all the websites didn't have a purpose and that you could interpret them as you wanted. One of my favorite clips was the one from the David's site were the man with bushy eyebrows smears a dark reflective substance on his face only to reveal his face again. It is hard to explain, but if you caught that one you know what I mean, right? I think the Bill Viola's website was the most intense. It was vivid and the images really caught my eye. It wasn't my favorite website, but it was definitely interesting.
I think evryone's comments were great. I enjoyed this exercise becasue of the unquiness of the video clips.
I can't post my blog from my house because of the word verification. It dosn't shoe the letters to type. I submitted it as soon as I got to school this morning.
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