Jan 23, 2008
Video Art is a cat
Following is my immediate response to the opening presentation by Tom Sherman at the Video Vortex conference in Amsterdam. Vernacular Video: Nine Lives of Video Art. I made lots of notes as it was inspiring to see Tom speak in the flesh. In condensed form what interested me where these concepts, which could be developed more (and checked for accuracy) when the video recordings of the event are released and published on the INC website.
His view on the evolving death and resurrection of video art in its many variations as part of adjusting to developments in technology and the changing politics of the art scene. My understanding is that with the growth of what he called “video culture”, for example through YouTube, there is a real risk of video art being obliterarated. This ties in with the change in practice where video production and distribution is accessible to all rather than a few artists.
Historically, he pointed out that video has always been a medium of “process rather than product”. Also he stated that “…many of the challenges of video has been the semantic challenges…”. These are concepts that I would like to expand on as they tie in I think with his later point on video art needing to react to the Internet. Some quotes taken from the end of the presentation that follow this concept:
“…[disregards the] potential as a communication medium ignoring its cybernetic strengths”
“…video art will be the response to the web.”
“…as the web delivers plurailty it must deliver video art”
The concept that the term ‘new media’ is what he called commercially motivated not only for business but also for art institution funding and education purposes. The term provided the potential to pigeon-hole certain activities for the purpose of establishing “marginal” funding and as he described was seen as “a set of technologies that filled the space between other technologies”. It is interesting from my point-of-view that this term is now loosing the aura it had and in Australia has been made obselete (Feb-March 2005) by the arts council and folded back into visuals arts. In Australia and perhaps elsewhere there seems to be a kind of hiatus around the term ‘new media’, with the expectation that like the arts council example new media will be seen as part of existing established disciplines. Perhaps this is a display of maturity or new media is looking death in the eye?
The characteristics of ‘vernacular video‘ where outlined. These I have written about before in a previous post as part of extending some of these ideas and locating examples that are familiar. It is interesting to make a connection here between the text based characteristic and the Japanese Nico comment videos shown in the last presentation of the event by Dominick Chen. What is new is Sherman’s concept of a video being effected by the process of messaging. Tom suggested that, “the desire for interactivity will transform into message exchange sites”. I look forward to seeing more of his thinking and writing on this concept.