Hey guys and girls,
I had some trouble with my internet for a while so I am just appearing on this blog but am going to catch up as best as I can. My video to start with is 'Faint' by Linkin Park. Its a track from their second album 'Meteora'. It is the first video they did that showed a live performance of sorts. It was shot from behind the band on stage with a large crowd in front of them and a huge wall of lights behind the crowd. Almost the whole video is shot in siluette with the band being suddenly illuminated at the end of the song, which lets it down a little in my opinion. However, The video is fast and cuts from member to member with almost every beat. The effect to having their faces hidden for most of it, is quite refreshing and adds a different angle to the way many music videos glorify the identity and features of the artists. With the siluette effect, things beging to look differently. The water for example, being poured over the drummers head in the middle and when the lead singer sprays the water in an arch towards the end. I also like that the light intensity is dimmed and raised according to the intensity of the moment in the song. Tell me what you think and also notice the guitarist about halfway through flipping his guitar around his head!
Tuesday 27 November 2007
Monday 26 November 2007
'Setting a Good Corner' (Allegory and Metaphor) - Bruce Nauman
‘Setting a Good Corner’ (Allegory and Metaphor)– Bruce Nauman
I have decided to look at Bruce Nauman’s ‘Setting a Good Corner’ 1999, a piece of video art depicting the artist installing as fence post, looped repeatedly.
I feel this work is significant as it confronts the viewer with a structure which they are unaccustomed to. Everyday television provides the viewer with a narrative structure; however this piece repeats something generally seen as mundane and succeeds in entrancing the viewer, with its hypnotic quality.
Nauman himself has commented on the work, stating that he was as much interested in making a good fence, as filming the activity. This idea brings more meaning to the piece; and the viewer can look at it as a reflection of real life, essentially bordering on the idea of documentary.
Commenting on his previous work containing a built-in continuous loop ‘The Artist is an Amazing Luminous Fountain’1967, Nauman stated :-
‘You don't have to sit and watch the whole thing. You can watch for a while, leave and go have lunch or come back in a week, and it's just going on. And I really liked that idea of the thing just being there. The idea being there so that it became almost like an object that was there, that you could go back and visit whenever you wanted to.’
I feel this idea is very much carried over to ‘Setting a Good Corner’ where it is possible for the viewer to tune in and out of the piece; there is no requirement to see the whole thing. The idea that nothing much happens is significant, whilst the MTV generation looks to video to provide fast paced excitement, Nauman has used video to retaliate against this, instead depicting something slow moving with not much action or noise.
I like the idea of something so raw and simplistic becoming so fascinating through the medium of video. I like the dual purpose of the piece, firstly as a form of video art and secondly on a more basic level of a man really building a fence.
I have decided to look at Bruce Nauman’s ‘Setting a Good Corner’ 1999, a piece of video art depicting the artist installing as fence post, looped repeatedly.
I feel this work is significant as it confronts the viewer with a structure which they are unaccustomed to. Everyday television provides the viewer with a narrative structure; however this piece repeats something generally seen as mundane and succeeds in entrancing the viewer, with its hypnotic quality.
Nauman himself has commented on the work, stating that he was as much interested in making a good fence, as filming the activity. This idea brings more meaning to the piece; and the viewer can look at it as a reflection of real life, essentially bordering on the idea of documentary.
Commenting on his previous work containing a built-in continuous loop ‘The Artist is an Amazing Luminous Fountain’1967, Nauman stated :-
‘You don't have to sit and watch the whole thing. You can watch for a while, leave and go have lunch or come back in a week, and it's just going on. And I really liked that idea of the thing just being there. The idea being there so that it became almost like an object that was there, that you could go back and visit whenever you wanted to.’
I feel this idea is very much carried over to ‘Setting a Good Corner’ where it is possible for the viewer to tune in and out of the piece; there is no requirement to see the whole thing. The idea that nothing much happens is significant, whilst the MTV generation looks to video to provide fast paced excitement, Nauman has used video to retaliate against this, instead depicting something slow moving with not much action or noise.
I like the idea of something so raw and simplistic becoming so fascinating through the medium of video. I like the dual purpose of the piece, firstly as a form of video art and secondly on a more basic level of a man really building a fence.
gary hill
sorry, I don't think i posted it properly the first time..
From our readings I have decided to look at the video artist Gary Hill’s piece “Viewer” 1996, which involves 17 men (all homeless, living near Hill’s studio) doing little but standing in a line, facing forward. The non-matrix action of these 17 men, who stand still with no expression, makes the viewers attempts to enforce any supposed narrative on them redundant. By the end of the two minute piece we are forced to question who is the real participant within the piece, (the man in the line or the man watching the monitor in an art gallery) as boundaries between who is the viewer and who is viewed can no longer clearly be defined.
Stylistically within this piece we see the return to the low tech performance style of the 1970s. The line up, shot in one continuous take, in what looks like a dark studio is not a refined or polished product; whether this was Hill’s choice in order to create his effect, or merely determined by his budget. The anonymity of each of the 17 men works to question the idea of identity, and this sense of longing for identity is prevalent within many of the male video artist’s works of the 1990s.
From our readings I have decided to look at the video artist Gary Hill’s piece “Viewer” 1996, which involves 17 men (all homeless, living near Hill’s studio) doing little but standing in a line, facing forward. The non-matrix action of these 17 men, who stand still with no expression, makes the viewers attempts to enforce any supposed narrative on them redundant. By the end of the two minute piece we are forced to question who is the real participant within the piece, (the man in the line or the man watching the monitor in an art gallery) as boundaries between who is the viewer and who is viewed can no longer clearly be defined.
Stylistically within this piece we see the return to the low tech performance style of the 1970s. The line up, shot in one continuous take, in what looks like a dark studio is not a refined or polished product; whether this was Hill’s choice in order to create his effect, or merely determined by his budget. The anonymity of each of the 17 men works to question the idea of identity, and this sense of longing for identity is prevalent within many of the male video artist’s works of the 1990s.
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