Media Practices: The Moving Image, Mondays, FVNM 2000, Spring 2010
Instructors Lori Felker & Melika Bass
Our Film Video New Media Department’s “Media Practices: The Moving Image” course introduces students to the language and history of the moving image as well as a variety of media making methods. It is the gateway course to the department, often serving as the students’ first exposure to media studies/making. We began our semester with some readings:
Roland Barthes’ “Leaving the Movie Theater”
David Antin’s “Video: The Distinctive Features of the Medium”
John Baldessari’s “TV (1) is Like a Pencil (2) Won’t Bite Your Leg”
This post is an open space for our class to react to these readings. The class has to directly answer the questions below, but anyone is welcome to jump in and add to the discussion, respond to comments, or depart on a tangent.
To start it off, here are some questions… (answers should total at least 200 words)
1. Out of these three articles, highlight one statement/idea you DON’T agree with. WHY? Give evidence from your own experience or another text/work to support your claim.
2. Choose another statement that forced you to change your mind/ see something differently. How so? Explain…
“Any series of events that is unfolding for the first time, or in a new way, or with unanticipated intensity or duration threatens to overrun or elude the framing conventions of the recoding artist.”
I don’t think I completely agree with that statement from David Antin. That is almost like saying drip art threatens the image Jackson Pollock wishes to create. As true of a statement as it is, some artists may have the intention of letting random/new events enter in frame, even more so, that may be the intent of the piece of art. Unpredictability may be the key goal in the creation of a piece. Also when it comes to broadcasting, somebody does something unexpected, weather drastically changes the lighting/physical environment, that still may be part of the artist’s intent. Even if while recording, the camera operator makes a mistake and no image is recorded or recorded poorly, that could make the piece more interesting. Happy accidents.
“From 10 feet, all video looks the same”
-John Baldessari
I never really thought of it like that, and the whole idea of TV becoming something that people leave on more so for company than as something to focus on. TV has almost become like a light bulb. When you’re home alone you put on the TV so that there is the illusion of other people around, every now and then you’ll watch it. Maybe thats why they invented the 3D television, or maybe youtube is the new media that filled the void TV left over. Video games are still a fairly new and growing media that also may be filling the void of TV as well. Both with youtube and video games, your focus and full attention play a key role. Without your full attention a video game is stagnant, same goes with youtube, if you don’t look anything up, nothing happens.
1. One statement in article “Video: The Distinctive Features of the Medium” that was talking about time of video art, dragged my interest. The statement was mentioning that Video art could be boring in comparison with television but it’s not boring when it’s compared with paintings or sculpture. I don’t think that painting or sculpture are boring than video art because I think audiences who appreciate video art are still passive even though video art is more liberal than television. For example, usually some people don’t have much patience watching whole video art works. They leave in the middle of the art work that is still playing. On the other hand, audiences can see whole completed sculpture and painting work at once so they have more patience watching them. Audiences can even see painting and sculpture in different angles and different distances so they can translate art works more variable. That means painting and sculptures are more interactive and active than video art that is just projecting on flat screen with designated time and story lines.
2. John Baldessari’s article“TV (1) is Like a Pencil (2) Won’t Bite Your Leg” says TV is just another tool from artists’ toolbox. It was interesting for me because even though I am living in a ‘high-tech’ environment, I was still feeling overwhelmed making artwork by using video. For me, making video art was still usual media. Even though this article was written in relatively long time ago, it is suggesting to throw away the nervous feeling and use TV media as a art tool just like pencils. I especially liked the metaphor of pencil because it was really helpful to understand and think again about TV by comparing the most common art tool, ‘pencil’.
“The case should not be, ‘I’m going to make a video piece.’ but, ‘What I want to do can best be done with video.’”
While I was reading Baldessari’s article about TV, I disagreed with his opinion about how TV can spoil an artist’s pure concept of art. I think that is because just like other people today, I’m overly exposed to styles and concepts of contemporary art world. In other words, it is common that artists use unusual and special mediums to enhance their works, or even get inspired by a medium, and then think of the concept. And I personally think there is no wrong with using a medium itself as an art.
In addition, I do not really understand him saying
‘TV won’t hurt us; won’t bite our leg.’ I think TV can definitely relate audience with the real world, by showing, or ‘imitating’ the real world. Even though it might be true that audiences are being tricked by TV screen, there is no doubt that people can be ‘hurt,’ because what they felt is what they felt.
1. The T.V. is Like article was an intelligent take on a somewhat widespread opinion. One thing to me though stood out as beyond ludicrous. The talk of “a growing disenchantment among a group of artist that had been using video” really hit me the wrong way. Now, the word disenchantment to me brings about feelings of detachment loss of luster, and overall stomach-churning disappointment. In my stay in Washington D.C., I had the opportunity to visit the Smithsonian American Art Museum and others quite a few times.
In one visit to the Smithsonian American Art Museum, I stumbled upon a video installation by an artist named Nam June Pak called the Electronic Superhighway: Continental U.S. While I had seen many vid installations before and they were indeed getting full of the repetition addressed in the article, this was not. It was basically comprised of 49-channel closed circuit tvs with neon steel and electronic components in the shape of the United States. What mostly ran on these tvs were iconic footage from each respective state or inspired by the state. The footage would often stutter and constantly repeat itself make a nice motion. I found installation really refreshing and it brought about a lot of the vigor the most vid installations lost. It wasn’t too clever but the content made up for that fact. For this reason, I find I couldn’t possibly agree with the above statement.
2. This T.V. in Like Article was apparently a large vat of controversial but forward thinking statements also. Many of them sent me back and fourth into a tizzy, but being a reader who loves this style of persuasive writing I respected it. Through all of this back and fourth I did do, one thing that brought a lot of change to my disdain for this article was one where the use of T.V. in video installations was compared to a pencil. It exactly read, “ So the point I wish to make is this: To have a three-day conference of video is akin to having a conference on the Pencil, that is I think that, for there to be progress in TV, the medium must be as neutral as a pencil, Just one more tool in the artist’s toolbox.”
Aside from my interest in visual effects, I have a love for viewing/creating large works with inks. In the beginning with my process, I would just focus on how my strokes were made and looked with the ink. Content to me was not that big of a factor. That has since then changed with my growth but I’m saying this to say I actually got what Baldessari was trying to say. He just wants these artists to give more thought to what they put out. Yes, it can still be aesthetically pleasing but make sure you just don’t rely solely on that factor and the medium your using. So In the end, Baldessari wasn’t crazed soapbox preacher I thought he was and actually made a valid point and some sense.
I love that Nam June piece–good example to give in response to the Baldessari essay.
I am unable to see any comments related to this thread, so I am not sure if it’s just not displaying or I am the first to comment.
One of the statement’s in “Leaving The Movie Theater,” by Roland Barthes is stated by Barthes at the beginning of the article. He states, “he goes to movies as a response to idleness, leisure, free time. It’s as if, even before he went into the theater, the classic conditions of hypnosis where in force…” I know personally that I go to a movie because I want to go to a movie, not because I have free time. I feel like a movie is to long to fill up free time. It has to be planned in advance, the time already has to be set in place in order for me to see the movie. I don’t just decide, “Hey, I think I am going to see a Movie.” This may be different for each of us, but for me, and what I know of my friends, it’s something that is an intentional act on our part.
In John Baldessari’s “TV (1) is Like a Pencil (2) Won’t Bite Your Leg,” he talks about moving TV into reality, that we shouldn’t be afraid of it, as it’s unchartered waters we haven’t went in to those waters as of yet.
As this is an older article, and he was unaware of how big reality TV would come, this is noting of a new subject to me, however it did force me to realize that reality TV is here to stay. People wanted to see it, and it came, and it’s addicting. There may be the annoying shows out there about old rappers getting younger women, or shows like “American Idol,” which have definitely had their run, but shows like the “Biggest Loser,” and a more recent show, “Undercover Boss,” are shows that inspire people. This is basic ideology of Baldessari that put my perspective of reality TV into place.
I do not agree with needing to catalog film as one thing or another. In the Antin piece when he quotes Hollis Frampton about his anxiety, “I for one have felt a more and more pressing need for precise definitions of what film art is, since I extend to film, as well, the hope of a privileged future.” Why do we have to define film at all and what makes it so precious that the world’s progeny need it defined? It is an alternative medium to be sure and one that is mirrored by dreams and nightmares in its precision of producing vivid images but it is just another medium to work with. Not to sound abusive to it, I adore film and all its magic qualities, however it is wrong to say that it has a more promising future than photography, painting or sculpture when it is all of these combined. I would parallel film to opera due to both of their extreme circumstances in combining art forms and equally hypnotic natures.
This brings me to the Barthes piece about experiencing the theater, “ I must be in the story, but I must also be elsewhere: a slightly disengaged image repertoire, that is what I must have- like a scrupulous, conscientious, organized, in a word difficult fetishist”. I would never have thought of film as a drug before but after reading this piece it made perfect sense. This is a similar feeling that I have when I experience opera as well, both are equally intertwined with playing on our senses and we as a public go to both as per our tastes. Our addictions to horror movies and romantic comedies for example create a need to constantly be in the theater to experience them, to get our fix. That is the hypnotism of theater, whether it be on a stage or a screen, it constantly leaves us with an after taste that creates craving.
1.) I’m on the fence about Baldessari’s essay. While I do agree with his pencil metaphor, his inciting allegation regarding TV, that, “the infatuation period is over. The tail is beginning to cease wagging the dog,” (Baldessari, 2) is dismissive of the potential for growth inherent in all time-based media. The attitude of TV/video being a gimmick is unjustly attributed; and, as this essay was written in 1974, a premature assertion indeed!
2.) In the Antin piece, I was struck in particular with a passage he writes about the nature of video work being inherently “boring” and “long” (Antin, 4). I have to say, it was refreshing to read; I’m fairly certain that many people agree and keep their opinions under wraps for fear of coming across as inferior. I’m guilty. Upon my first introduction to video works several years ago, my thought was that perhaps there was some sort of threshold of comprehension I’d broach someday. This was probably an element of my attraction to the medium. Now, having worked with video semi-regularly for the past year, I find I am constantly addressing the fear of my audience being bored by the work I am presenting. Video is a lovely tool in the realm of time-based media—however, as Antin writes, it is a difficult task to separate video from television, as we have become accustomed to a certain standard of entertainment value being present when we gaze into the bright box. Antin quotes Les Levine, “The work is boring if you demand that it be something else. If you demand that it be itself then it is not boring” (Antin quoting Levine, 5).
To qualify my response to the Baldessari essay, I’m thinking of Pipilotti Rist at MoMA as an example:
http://www.moma.org/collection/browse_results.php?criteria=O%3AAD%3AE%3A8297&page_number=13&template_id=1&sort_order=1
1. All though the idea of mass hypnotism and world domination through film is something I have to enjoy, I can say I’m willing to disagree with Roland Barthes and his almost perverse adoration of Film leaving you “suspended in disbelief” while occupied in the theatre. I’ll say it’s nice, or comedic, to be pulled out of that sometimes, where the movie or show makes you aware that what your watching is staged, scripted, and being filmed, and is not taking place in “reality”.
My example! Is a Classic!
It’s from Woody Allen’s Annie Hall. The scene takes place in line at a movie theatre.
YouTube Link: http://www.youtube.com/watch#playnext=1&playnext_from=TL&videos=-e4CDgIDZe4&v=OpIYz8tfGjY
At the beginning of the scene we are interested in the dialogue, we ‘believe’ that they’re arguing, and we ‘believe’ Alvy and Annie are an actual couple, with some issues to work out. Also, we know that Woody Allen is the director of the film even though he’s a character with a role.
Here are some sorta funny examples I, shamelessly, found on Wikipedia.
“Problems are also noticeable in Friends where celebrities such as Winona Ryder and Bruce Willis are mentioned by name and later appear playing characters other than themselves. It would seem that the characters in the shows would recognize the celebrities, therefore making suspension of disbelief impossible or at least illogical.”
“On the three CSI series, it is frequently implied that forensic test results are received immediately after said tests are performed; since in reality, it can take several months to get results back, it is inconvenient to the plots to show the necessary waiting period. To advance the plot, a suspension of disbelief is necessary, and viewers must accept that the waiting period has passed.”
2. Baldessari’s article was a read I enjoyed. I can see how monotonous TV, in an art space, can seem. I still feel that (large) projection can still maybe let viewing be more indulgent, but im sure it has the possibility to become lame and repetitive. Maybe I haven’t seen enough, I still enjoy the black gallery room with a wall projection. So the statement “ – from ten feet, all video looks the same” is what made that click.
Also, since my ideas always seem to involve me making a list of what mediums I want to use, usually a little of most, I can support the thinking that video should be used as a pencil. Simply put, It can do things drawings and ceramics cannot. And it’s still a relatively very new medium, im sure this could of happen with the invention of oil paint. How many damn oil paintings do u think there were when that shit was invented? I don’t know, probably a lot. And I thought I was sick of looking at paintings.
I originally disagreed with Baldessari’s cynical statement- “And what was once said about painting can now be said of video- from ten feet, all video looks the same.”
To be literal, if you stand back far enough from anything it would look the same. This is true for most things- sculptures, installations, paintings, video art, film, and people, all are very similar from a distance.
Baldessari’s argument is that video art isn’t versatile in its application. I could go on about different forms that video can be presented, but I would rather focus my argument on the work of Kryszto Wodiczko. Although Wodiczko’s work does have the limitations that the elements of projected light have (it requires some shape/form of screen to be projected onto in order to be visible) he goes outside of the constraints of the boob tube format by using walls, buildings, bridges, and sculptures as his screen. His work varies in sizes, silhouettes, and interactions with space accordingly with his concept and the location of the piece. Although the overall span of his artwork tends to seem formulaic, it still pushes the boundaries of a square video screen.
On the other hand, Baldessari also says that we “went to witness the medium, and not what the artist has done with it.” Baldessari’s argument is that video, in itself is interesting enough that something very non-impressive could be running on a television and our attention deficiency disordered world will still find interest in watching it.
It always bothers me when there are televisions in restaurants- what could be more inappropriate? So much conversation is drained away by the presence of pretty colorful images moving in a glowing light. Like a moth to the flame, social interaction melts away so easily.
Baldessari causes me to rethink my opinions of the versatility of video, because video art is so limited by the attractiveness of the medium itself, that it is distracts viewers form the art. If an audience is mostly interested in just the medium, then no matter the placement, size, or content of the piece that defines it as something different from another video art piece, it still carries a similar thread of interest just because the medium is so enticing.
and i guess ill also give a video refferance
In TV Is Like a Pencil John Baldessari compares video to painting. He points out that they both put work into a frame, “a confining rectangle”. I agree, until he goes on to say “At least with painting, the size could be infinitely varied, but not so with TV.” What? I don’t know when this article was written but, it’s 2010, and although my knowledge of TV technology is extremely limited I say TV size can be infinitely varied. I would argue that TV not only puts work in a frame but that it does something that the canvas doesn’t, it can give the viewer information about time, place, and economics.
“Audience watch the screen with as much interest after a tape has run off as when it was on. Watching something, I guess, is better than watching nothing.”
It may be the magical quality of TV and the projected image, or the ability for moving images safely contained in the frame of the TV screen to take us somewhere else, or the watching and watching without the threat of involvement or interaction which keeps us watching something.
Watching nothing leads to self-reflection.
So, I guess watching something is better than watching nothing because watching something is escape.
Question #1 Out of these three articles, highlight one statement/idea you don’t agree with. Why? Give evidence from your own experience or another text/work to support your claim.
“TV is in crisis. Can and will artists who are not believers push on? There is much doubt now.”
-John Baldessari in TV (1) is Like a Pencil (2) Won’t Bite Your Leg
This is to say, the present day trash-television craze, that was initially sheltered from the public, is the marvel that David Antin suggests permeates the artistic-film world. “Commercial Television is essentially a post-World War phenomenon, and its uses was, logically enough, patterned on commercial radio since control of the new medium was in the hands of the powerful radio networks, which constitute essentially a government-protected, private monopoly.” It is the artist’s task to overcome their limitations set forth by commercial television masterminds. Firm restrictions on what the public eye may view on the television screen have presently been conquered by the communally desired out-of-body relaxation. Artists should exploit this progressive television expansion to separate themselves as “artists” rather than “entertainers.” Trash television is not the latest rival to film artists, but an emergent of the general public’s need to be directly engrossed.
Question #2 Choose another statement that forced you to change your mind/ see something differently. How so? Explain…
“It’s not that you couldn’t see the Los Angeles police department’s tactical assault squad in real time, in full living color, in your own living room, leveling a small section of the city in search of three or four suspected criminals, but that what you would see couldn’t be certainly discriminated from a carefully edited videotape screened three hours later. So what television provides video with is a gravitation not of falseness, which would be a kind of guarantee of at least a certain negative reliability, but of a profoundly menacing equivocation and mannerism, determined a species of unlikeness.”
- David Antin in Video: The Distinctive Features of the Medium
In search for the veracity in the news, why must it be instantaneous, why is there that desire for it to be instantaneous? I recall watching a televised broadcast assuming then wandering whether the clip was truly being recorded at that direct second, and yet was somehow on my television screen. How is it we rely on immediacy for integrity when probing television for its news? Perfection in video let alone film news broadcasting is perceptibly impractical without delay.
“What was once said of painting can now be said of video–from ten feet all video looks the same. That is you see the box, the confining rectangle, the grey light. At least with painting the size could be infinitely varied, but not so with TV.” Baldessari.
I feel that with new methods of television distribution, the act of watching has become in itself a new technique of the medium. Projection, televisions, HD TV, and the most versatile of all, the computer, whether through downloaded shows or the internet, are all available. How many windows might be open on the screen, how many other things happening at once? Actually trying to find television that looks generic when combing for something to watch becomes a more difficult task once you cut out shopping networks and dating shows.
I feel that people who are disillusioned with the medium do not watch it progress, or else don’t realize that they are standing in the middle of the movement. Painting is so ancient, it learned as it evolved how to change in size, in color, in material, in subject. TV is only a few decades old, and it is changing. Baldessari says “what was once said of painting can now be said of television,” and I disagree. What was once said of painting could have always been said of television-the same grey box, the black and white images–until now.
#2
“Videotapes are boring if you demand that they be something else. But they’re not judged boring in comparison with paintings or sculpture, they’re judged boring in comparison with television, which for the last 20 years has set the standard of video time. ” Video: Distinctive Features of the Medium, David Antin.
I had been trying to figure out why I find so much of video art so treacherously boring. I love moving images, I love television and movies and all of it’s abilities. I enjoy watching many different types of video and film. But so much contemporary video art rocks me bored to the core of my bones. I think I felt before that this was the wrong medium for the message, or the wrong manipulation of the medium. I’m lacking in detail only because video art was never my genre and never appealed to me purely as an audience member, so I don’t know too many names. But if I look at it like Baldessari says, in TV is Like a Pencil, in which he insists that “the medium must be neutral,” then this art makes more sense. The idea that video art is better compared to sculpture or painting than television though seems counterproductive to the point though, and slightly pretentious. If the idea is to look at video art on its own, not by the standard of video for the last 20 years, why judge it by the standard of all art for the last hundreds of years?
In David Antin’s writing I found perspectives and thoughts that I never second think about it. For examples, the mediums (the types of tool to film/record) that drew the distinction between artist’s video and the TV and also the way that the TV shows run that can catch audience’s attention. I found it true in many ways from a lot of the film artists. I do often see that tend to work with low quality video cameras, and also often had bad sound recordings. Even though they work with low quality equipments, I still get interested in some of them. I think the author made assumptions that only supported his feelings about the negativity television had. I don’t really know how the editing was in 1986, but I know that now, we can edit films with the technology now, so there is more elements that an artist can play with. I think that artist’s video can be interesting if they want them to be. I think through the writer’s writing, there is some observations that were raised up that helped me analyze some facts, but there is also some generalized statements that I don’t agree on.
As Baldessari’s “Tv is like a pencil” describes, that looking at artists tapes was simply to witness the medium. Which when you look at the nature of the event, this statement appears to be truthful, however consider the mental engagement within the media itself. As the viewer takes into account the way frames, lighting, dialogue work through the medium as many parts working in order. At this point it begins to feel as if every part is a necessary paint stroke in a large masterpiece. While we might have intended to view the work simply from a “Tape” perspective, we subconsciously see it for much more than that.
“won’t bite your leg”
Television is much like a pencil to some extent, we use to express a feeling, narrative or simply allow the mental amusement of others. Baldessari suggests that we tempt viewers with a minimal approach, but since this art form has a large part of entertainment, are we simply implying our own artistic ideas or simply looking for a new way to take the pop and fizzle out of television. He says that this form of media is like the pencil, and I say there are several different types of pencils in this world aren’t there?
I Strongly disagree with John Baldessari when he argues that TV can be an escape from reality. I will allow that the television does have a arguably unique feed back like quality in that it can fascilitate both the perception and projection of reality however the facility in it’s self is an existing component of reality that shares the same existence as the humans it Transports. A person who watches TV still has to pay the consequences of his existence whether he devotes his faculties to it or not. Likewise the TV cannot avoid the materials that makes it’s function possible for they will erode with time. This tension is what keeps the TV as a viable art object and threat to humanity.
It would seem to me that this Idea also contradicts the author’s request that we look at the TV like a pencil or a tool that we can use to either transcend or call attention to it’s own materiality. After all, Isn’t that kind of what we do in art? If television were truly an alternative to reality this would not be possible.
Actually kind of along the same line, what Roland Barthes says about the “artifact of film” and how he needs it to take him “elsewhere” as he needs the story to take him into the plot. It’s like in a movie he is not fully adsorbed by the film, which is to say that part of his attention lies outside the plot, and floats somewhere outside where it can still feel the seats, the strangers and the whirring machinery. He does not suspend these impurities of the medium from his experience, he revels in them alongside the creative performances on screen like a sleeper who lets himself nod without drifting off so that he can appreciate sleep from the edge of consciousness. He is in love with the experience with and without the movie that plays during it. I’ve known of this level of buff before I just never quite understood the obsession with types of film and camera that I always thought freakish until I read that.
Like maybe he needs that tension between the reality and the suspension to keep the novelty alive.
When I read the Baldessari piece. I was struck with interest in his comparison of painting and the television. I think his negativity toward television is justified, mainly because incessant advertisement and popular themes for television irritate me. However as he states, “…because TV is more and more there as it really is– a thing, a box with gray light, with dancing electric impulses.” I can again acknowledge that as just a THING, sapped of the subjectivity it projects via programs, it in equilibrium of loveliness with an abstract expressionist painting. As a sheer phenomena of fluttering pixels it has as much innocence as a simple squirt of ultramarine blue paint. A friend of mine did a painting of a classic landscape on a static television (the static being the sky). Another friend of mine cut out the silhouette of Michael Jordan from a sparkly red piece of velum and stuck it on his television so the static became Michael. A third friend of mine tends to place a colorful knit blanket he owns over the television and stares at the light beaming through. They all seem to be abstracting what is imposing about the television, using it as a buzzing canvas. Because of these examples I found Baldessari’s remarks to be a bit much, such as, “With enough disillusionment, perhaps more artists will consider doing works using the real world, consider real experiences, rather than hiding behind the screen.” One could be said of painters hiding behind the canvas, duh, duh, duh. I think that the television could, has, and is in great potentiality to coalesce as painting and sculpture, and maintain a thinginess, hence be real world.
by the way ecinerp is prentice backwards. This is Katherine Prentice.
Been reading your blog now for quite a long time and really like it. I don’t know if it’s your style or not , but do you think you could perhaps do a post on the oil spill in the gulf?
I love your thoughts and opinions, and would love to see your comments on this sad event.