youtube remix

http://www.unr.edu/art/site/areas_of_emphasis/digital_media/projects/Liana_Weber.html

Video Reenactment

Hilary Harris's video shows clips from busy big city highways in the 1950's.  I decide to use her idea but rather than just show the highway I decided to kind of do a showcase of clips of defining roads of Reno.

Link to original video by Hilary Harris

http://www.ubu.com/film/harris_highway.html

Response to Videos

Gary Hill: I Believe it is an Image

Gary Hills work is the most chaotic of the three.  His artwork seems to have less of a story but is loaded with flashing lights and odd imagery. Most of his work seems to create an uncomfortable sometimes even irritating atmosphere.  The images are sometimes very spastic and jump from one image to the next and sometimes he will pair sounds and text the  image as a means to portray his message. Hill states that he is trying to show a separation of the senses and study ambiguity.

Marlon Riggs: Tongues Untied

            Tongues Untied is a politically fueled documentary/ art film that shows the lives of homosexual black men during the eighties, and the  prejudices they had to face.  Not only were they discriminated against by whites for being black, but they were also looked down on by their fellow African- Americans because they were gay. Riggs put some of his own experiences into the film which give a face and voice to the black gay community, something he explains most others run from doing.

Shirin Neshat: The Woman Moves

            This film about Neshat and her work looks at how Muslim women are viewed in both their countries and worldwide.  Of the works showed, I thought “Turbulent” was so striking, not just visually, but also emotionally.  The two split images, one of a man singing to an audience of men and the other of a woman facing the same auditorium but empty.  When the woman finally begins to sing it starts off so sad and longing and then turns into almost shriek like agony.  All of the elements in Neshat’s work play off of each other making her pieces very strong.

Thoughts

            I really enjoyed all three of the videos because each showed very different takes on  video art.  I found all of the films to be very visually amazing. Each artist creates very strong works of art in their own subjects, but I especially liked the videos by Marlon Riggs and Shirin Neshat.  These two films had a much stronger emotional value which made them even more captivating.

Discussion Questions For Chp. 4

1. Could feature length blockbusters or even television series be considered video art?

2.  Being such a new and different medium of art, why do you think video art was able to gain such a strong following.

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