Loops, Video, Time, Loops

1. Time-based art has one crucial characteristic: it is time-based.
Bare with me.
Whether it's Matthew Barney's latest motion picture or a Dan Graham's classic tableau of the spectator, in this universe, the appearance of something is defined by its appearing.
Well, as obvious as it might seem, this idea is often forgotten and disrespected by both artists and curators... A visit to the Museu do Chiado, where a temporary exhibition of the classics of Centro Pompidou is shown until January, makes it pretty clear. But what makes appearing a problem?

2. First, let’s clear some semantic issues.
What is this thing that is sometimes called “video art”, at other times, “video installation”?
For one, let’s distinguish "sculptural installations that include video" (and call them video installations) from "films shown as a work of visual art, either on a TV screen or a projection or the like" (and call them simply video art).
Also, video art can be closed-circuit (with a live - or near-live - image from a camera) or pre-recorded: this last case is basically a film, whether it’s abstract spots, the film of a tree growing or a narrative fiction (and whether it's single- or multi-channel).
It’s the film I’m interested here in.

3. When entering a room with video art, I have a much better chance of appearing at the middle of the film than at the beginning. But is there a beginning? And does it matter? After all, in most cases of showing a finished, pre-recorded video, and not a closed-circuit video where we are seeing live or nearly-live footage, the artist himself suggested or accepted the idea that his work would be shown in a loop. What does it matter that a time-based work starts anywhere?
A valid argument is that this approach can have substantial causes. The starting point can be irrelevant or of little importance (e.g., in the footage of Gordon Matta-Clark's Day's End), or in Douglas Gordon's Foot and Hand:





It can also be an essential element of the work. After all, the loop might just be the closest we can get to eternity.
Yet this is not always the case.
Not in regards to the works I've seen at the Museu do Chiado. Most of them not only acknowledge the existence of a chronological dynamic, but clearly use it in their very structure.
(The curious thing here is that many of the works at the Museu do Chiado focus on the concept of time. There is talk of empty spaces in time, of the slowing down of time, of the feel of time. And yet, the point (of time) when the spectator enters seems to matter little!) It shouldn’t be surprising that film may well have a dramaturgy that develops over time! We may need to see the work from the beginning to the end to feel it. The only problem is - by the time we've seen it all, we've probably seen the end already and it just doesn't feel the same - sort of like having seen a spoiler in a trailer. You can still enjoy the feature film afterwards, but you wish you didn't know so much.
The other argument is a pragmatic one: how are we to show a film from beginning to end to every single visitor? It seems impossible.
But only at first glance. If you look carefully, you see how technology has changed - and the audience, too. Today, we are out of the videotape era, and we can easily go beyond the loop. We can have a PLAY button on every TV set that shows a work, we can have DVD menus, and even (cheap!) infrared sensors that play the video when a new visitor enters.
And if anyone is worried about the overflow of spectators who make it impossible to keep starting at the beginning - unless you are at the Pompidou or at some other big-shot museum, it really isn't a problem. The museums and galleries still have a tendency to remain empty, there is more than enough time, and if there isn't, hardly anyone will mind waiting a minute longer to see the next work. It will only make her stop a few minutes longer by the previous one. Which wouldn’t be that worrying, now, would it?

4. Another issue comes to mind: What sort of aesthetic experience do we have while loopvision is still the spectators default universe? How do I, as a spectator, deal with seeing something “as if” I didn’t know the end/goal/development? It is not quite as if watching something I’ve seen (in its entirety) before. Could I say I am experiencing something, but acting as if I weren’t experiencing it just yet, fooling myself into a “genuine” experience? But is it not an ever more distant one, a bracketed one?
The brackets... of knowledge? The issue of a well-informed spectator. A too-well-informed spectator. Let’s not over-simplify it into the old discussion of an intelligent reading of a work vs. an emotional living of it. There is more to our experience of a work of art, and it seems a fertile ground for further discussion. There is a sense of an incredibly fertile ground in the multiple and complex layers of what is and could be lived through by the spectator. The on-looker. The in-looker.


PS: Here is a video I would love to see looped and looped and looped- Gilbert and George's Ten Commandments For Gilbert and George.
Notice the modesty in the title. The commandments are for them. They do not feel any need to preach them to the world, beyond proclaiming that this is what they choose for themselves.

Male anatomy studies

as much as i enjoy drawing girls, i need to balance out with some guys sooner or later :P will post more soon

WHY PICTURES ARE BETTER THAN WORDS

Once lines have been hardened into the shapes of letters of the alphabet, their only function is to form words and sentences. They march in straight rows, following the commands of their master, punctuation.

But ah, before that stage, when a line is still free and retains all of its original primordial wildness, it can do a thousand things and communicate in a thousand ways.


Excerpt from a drawing by Saul Steinberg

The designer Milton Glaser emphasized the potential of a simple pencil line:

There is no instrument more direct than a pencil and paper for the expression of ideas. Everything else that interferes with that direct relationship with the eyes, the mind, the arm and the hand causes a loss of fidelity.... I like the idea that this ultimate reductive simplicity is the way to elicit the most extraordinary functions of the brain.

The domain of the created line began with the first bubbling urschleim, before your words had consonants...


Prehistoric cave art from Queensland, Australia

... and extends to the most exalted and sublime heights where the air is too rareified for mere words.


Detail from the great astronomical ceiling of the ancient Egyptian tomb of Senenmut, c. 1500 BC. Note the parade of gods at the bottom, with sun disks on their heads beneath the four lunar cycles.

The domain of the line still extends just as far today-- unregulated by civilization, unfettered by geographic borders or language limitations, and potentially infinitesimal in its granularity.


Rembrandt, Three Women Looking Out a Door

Lines that have been civilized into letters and words can never return to the pagan state. Language is rule defined, so it becomes unintelligible as it approaches chaos. But the lovely, wild line of art is still at home in chaos. And as Nietzsche said, "One must still have chaos in oneself to be able to give birth to a dancing star."

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Picasso Run Over by Citroen Car?

My theory on this Picasso Art Car is that Picasso was run over by a Citroen 2CV while crossing a lonely French country road and at the same moment there was a rift in the space time continuum and Bizzaro's World came crashing trough. The two worlds collided, a supernova occurred and out came this magnificent art car. Or it was created by and amazing artist named Andy Saunders, a well known custom car creator from Dorset, England. He is also the creator of "Flat Out" the ‘World’s Lowest’ Crown car standing a mere 22" tall, built by Sanders and his team in three days.

Some curves and creatures

Doodledump :)

Art Car Covered in Christmas Lights

I'll Drive my Christmas Decorations over to your house...

Yes its time again to say it, Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to you all. There I said it I got it off my chest, the whole shebang, the whole enchilada, and the whole nine yards. The month dedicated to Christmas house decorating competitions, useless gifts and running up the credit card debt, eggnog and tons of food. My favorite time of year and chance to visit the neighborhoods that have been set apart for the the annual light-a-thon, the most amazing display of Thomas Edison's most amazing invention, the blinky light bulb. So what does that have to do with this site you may ask? Well Jon has beat the competition with his Christmas Light decorated Art Car that blinks to the sound of Christmas Music. Think about it, you no longer have to drive anywhere, the car covered with lights comes to your neighborhood instead. I saw this video last year and I was truly amazed. Jon you have inspired us all and have taken you art to the next level. Thomas Edison would be proud. For more Christmas Art Car videos check out jon's youtube channel.

GOINES

David Lance Goines started out as a student of classical languages, reading ancient texts in the original Greek and Latin. After being arrested and expelled from his university for participating in student protests in the 1960s, Goines found work as an apprentice with a nearby printer. Soon, Goines was combining his classical background with his own good taste to design posters that were both beautiful and interesting.

Goines also drew upon his classical studies in a series of witty essays (on subjects ranging from miniature golf to the Italian Renaissance artist, architect and philosopher Filippo di Ser Brunellesco).



Despite Goines' brilliance and erudition (or perhaps because of it) he had a completely unpretentious view of art, which I love. He described his work as follows:

I find it useful, when asked what I do for a living, to say that I am a printer and graphic designer, and leave it up to the questioner to decide whether or not I qualify as an artist.

* * * *

A plumber would not dare to call himself a plumber unless he were qualified in the opinion of others to do plumbing, and had experience and credentials to prove it, and actually got paid good money for his work. The same is true of an automobile mechanic, elementary school teacher or newspaper reporter. You can't just call yourself a college professor or medical doctor and expect anyone to take you seriously. You need to have something to back it up. The term "artist," unlike "electrician," or "dog trainer," neither conveys qualification, nor is it specific enough to shed much light on what a person may actually do.

* * * *

I am a competent technician. I give value for value. I am an honest workman, and I do not want people to think that I am a con-man.... therefore I do not call myself an artist. I create flat, representational objects---books, illustrations, posters, stained glass windows, greeting cards, wedding invitations, wine labels--in return for money. I'm glad that people like what I do, because that means that I can go on doing it. I like what I do, and consider it a privilege to be able to make my living doing it. But, I am not, at least in twenty-first century terms, an artist. I'll leave that to those who have no idea at all of what they do, or who they are, or where they are going, and must, for want of any other word, call themselves artists.

Goines did have his own views about the merit of different kinds of art. Here is his funny take on the "seven deadly arts:"

Just as there are Virtues and Sins; just as the Letter killeth and the Spirit giveth life, so are there Arts that prosper humanity and arts that are a pain in the neck. The Seven Deadly Arts are:

Mime
Science Fiction Poetry
Performance Art
Bell Ringing
Liturgical Dance
Experimental Film and
Decoupage