non video new video net video
Linda Wallace‘s latest video art work, ‘non-western | are you or have you ever been?’ which is broken up into smaller parts and distributed on YouTube. Each part is distributed as a separate web page. There is also a focus on tagging.
FIVE parts one example page http://www.mysafehouse.eu/
on youtube
I was intrigued by theweathergroup_U initiative at the Sydney Bienale. KD said to check them out for potential VD colloboration. I have had contact with David in the group previously through an experimental video screening of ‘The Hazzards’ at UNSW. Part of the summary of what they are about as a collective:
theweathergroup_U is a collective interested in pursuing experimental methods of audio-visual media production, environmental mapping and monitoring technologies, and processes of community-based interaction and knowledge exchange. As artists and media workers, they are primarily concerned with cross-cultural digital storytelling methods. Using the interlocking themes of weather, ecology, climate, geography, communications and collaboration, they seek to explore different ways of seeing, listening and documenting the interactions with natural systems that punctuate our daily existence.
I had chat with AD about environmental portraiture as a concept of practice within cinema theory. He put me onto some great references:
John Smith (Regeneration?)
Article – On the Street where You Live: The Films of John Smith by Adrian Danks
http://www.sensesofcinema.com/contents/03/29/john_smith.htm
Film/Video
John Smith, Lost Sound
Stan Brakhage, The Child’s Garden and the Serious Sea,
Ross McElwee, Sherman’s March
Ross McElwee, Bright Leaves (family background in Tobacco)
Ross McElwee, Time and Definate (extends Sherman’s March)
Andrew Kötting, Gallivant (observational essay)
Nick Broomfield
Melbourne Cinematheque, Experimental Landscapes 2008
Peter Forgacs, The Land of Nothing
James Benning, Landscape Suicide
Book
Scott MacDonald, The Garden in the Machine (review on Screening the Past)
Cantrills Filmnotes nos 63,64
Arthur and Corrinne Cantrill
There has been some discussion in the Guardian online on publishing video art on the Internet, in the article ‘Moving images stay in the dark – Why are video artists so reluctant to show their work on the internet?’ It is interesting to see that reputable institution like the Museum of Modern Art in New York has created a video channel on YouTube to publish video art trailers. Yet as the article points out there is not a lot of video art collections showing up online, instead most of the video art on YouTube is captured and posted by people attending exhibitions (via mobiles etc.) Although it is interesting to see what is happening with tank.tv in the UK via www.lux.org.uk and the luxonline project.
Back to the earlier Guardian article which discusses things like size restriction (working in the miniature), quality and of course the ability for the viewer to scroll back and forth. In terms of YouTube having frame size, file type and therefore compression quality control of your video uploads this does not leave much room for individual aesthetic input from the artist. I see this as setting publishing standards, a referral to old media like TV broadcasting. A video sharing site like blip.tv at least lets you chose some file types, determine frame size and choose a creative commons license. Also there is some key differences in the terms of use in regards to copyright and intellectual property. But this type of flexiability could be taken a lot further. I discuss the notion of standards in more detail here on my blog. The idea that apple also like YouTube aims to gain some form of control over the way content is distributed often in a manner that Nicholas Carr points out as being unsympathetic towards what the Internet offers as a networked environment.
The question here is whether artists, (like YouTube or even Apple with video podcasts) should be thinking of the Internet as a place to reproduce video in a single-channel form (or in the way that it was originally designed for off the web, i.e live etc.)? This approach is emblematic of most television, cinema or even a lot of video art. Perhaps it is more about how video may be repurposed within this environment. I notice on the MOMA YouTube channel that the closest they can come to this, is a lame form of trailer, again a direct referral to cinema.
In this other Guardian article ‘Bringing video art online’ video art as a commodity, along with copyright issues is seen as restricting factors. Although, the writer points out that painting and sculpture has got past this barrier quite some time ago.
Also on the videoblogging mail list an some links to websites that archive earlier movements independent video production right back to the first portapaks. The Radical Software movement:
“Our purpose is to make all the historic issues of Radical Software freely available to everyone. This site is designed for easy browsing and downloading, and hosts a sophisticated search engine to help you find the information you require on all aspects of independent video and video art back in the “Portapak Era.”
A curated group of artists on the California College of the Arts, Wattis Institute website.
And an archive of individeo iniaitives the Media Burn website:
“Welcome to Media Burn Independent Video Archive, the first website of its kind, created entirely from progressive nonfiction videos and television programs.”