Research

For my final projects in this class, I'm going to create a video installation that will hopefully summarize and exemplify an accelerated hallucinogenic thought process. I will project a video that I have shot and edited against false track lighting and a ceiling vent that are hung on a wall. This is integral to the installation. In a heightened sense of awareness, such as hallucinating, one essentially re-experiences their world. In essence, everyone is re-experiencing things every day. However, in this state of mind, one becomes more aware of the stimulus around them and. New pathways are opened up in the mind and ideas that might not seem related at all begin to buzz based on stimulus from a singularity. The lights and vent will be made of white paper and placed on a white wall. The video will overlap these objects and essentially frame them. The overlapping of artifact and video create the effect of thought -- seeing a stagnant object, or pair of objects, and thinking constantly in an ever expanding and abstracting manner.

Video Art today is narrowed down into two varieties: single-channel and installation. Single-channel video art follows the idea of the cinema and entertainment more closely than installation. Installation works involve an environment, several distinct pieces of video presented separately, or any combination of video with traditional media. Installation video is the most common form of video art today. A successful example of contemporary video art would be the artist Bill Viola. His work deals mostly with the themes of human consciousness and experience - taking additional cues from different cultural lifestyles such as Zen Buddhism or Islamic Sufism. In one of his pieces, Viola projected videos of people walking through a sheet of water. The effect makes it seem as though spirits are re-emerging into the world or something. 

Nam June Paik is another example of a successful video artist. Paik's most memorable work uses multiple screens and videos combined together in a more structural form. In one project, he composes video screens and lights into the shapes of the United States of America and uses different video to represent the heart of each state. In another work, he creates a grid of television screens that create an American flag that vibrates and gyrates through colors and other videos. Through using video, Paik is able to combine many ideas at once and make them all cohesive. The use of multiple television screens in most of his work echoes the American and near global obsession with the media and television in general. 

What really inspired me to take part in video art though was the feeling I got after seeing Javier Téllez's film at the Whitney Biennial "Letter on the Blind for the Use of Those Who See." In it, the artist had six blind people step up to a live elephant and describe what they "saw" as they ran their hand over the animal. Each one describes something completely different. The idea struck me as being interesting -- of all things to include in an art gallery, Téllez chooses blind people as his subjects. This makes the video seem more sentimental and almost voyeuristic. It's shot so beautifully in black and white that the movie becomes very somber. As the viewer revels in the beauty of it all, they're also struck with the sad fact that these blind people still cannot see. The environment that you watch the video in, an art gallery, is an alien one for the blind which makes it even more striking.

I feel that video art is an ultra effective way of communicating ideas in a cohesive manner. As Americans develop and grow even more technologically addicted and concerned, it seems as though video seems to grab our attention. In video art, ideas can be more easily combined and edited however you chose. Video art moves and changes, much the same way as the human thought process, and perhaps that is why I like it. Through video art, the viewer gets a condensed view of what you are trying to get across which to make makes it a great vehicle for communicating.