Vidding as Art
Mar. 7th, 2010 05:21 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kiki_miserychicI've been pondering vidding and art over in my head for a while. At first it was a passing thought, but then I noticed others in fandom discussing the subject and my passing thoughts formed into something more solid. Laura Shapiro suggested an art panel for Vividcon and those solid thoughts began to run wild in my brain. I decided not to present them at Vividcon, but here to read instead.
The only essays I write are for my college classes, which consist of early childhood education theorists and methods. I'm not an academic by any means of the word. Generally, I'm not good with words, hence vidding. When I have something to say, I usually produce a vid instead of saying something. This is not a professional essay or a work of literature. Most of the thoughts are my own, but nearly all my thoughts have been synthesized from somewhere else. I had originally intended to be an artist, but then I decided I liked having money to eat and went with a more stable career choice. I've had a few art courses in the past, but nothing advanced. I've only had one art gallery opening, which was in high school and I think it was only because I'd participated in an art internship program. This is my disclaimer of trying to not come off as a stuck up vidding expert snob.
Coming from my perspective as a vidder, I see vidding as fitting into a wide variety of artistic movements and historical trends. I look at art history and see the course leading up to, circling around, continuing with, and following after vidding. I'm going to briefly touch on the pieces that come together as portents of vidding within art. Let's talk art. What is art? The word itself comes from the Latin word for skill, ars. The Greek word for art is tekne, which is the source for the term technique in English. The determination for artistic value used to be made in terms of a physical perfection in idealistic form. There has been debate over the label of art for a long time.
Marcel Duchamp, Fountain (second version).
One of the better known disputes is of the artistic validity of Marcel Duchamp's Fountain (second version), which is currently on display at the Philadelphia Museum of Art under the Modernism to Postmodernism period with the medium listed as porcelain plumbing fixture and enamel print. It's essentially a urinal signed with “R. Mutt” and it is art. It's a readymade piece of art, which is an ordinary manufactured object that is transformed into art through the decision of the artist. Readymades demonstrate the choice of creating a new way of viewing an object by changing the perception of it. As long as I'm getting historical, Alexander Calder's kinetic works and mobiles were among the first works of art to incorporate physical movement, whereas most previous works were still and unmoving.
Alexander Calder, Circus.
The rejections of artwork as being a portable object has been noted, but some contemporary artists make installations, which are tied to a location either temporarily or permanently. These and other compositions often experiment with light, sound, video, and/or digital computer technology. Those working with video either incorporate video monitor(s) into their creations or project video onto walls, screens, or other surfaces. Video artist Nam June Paik said, "as collage technique replaced oil paint, the cathode ray tube will replace the canvas." I see vidding as adding to that tradition in the 21st century.
Action painting, or gesturalism, is another precursor to vidding. The term was coined by Harold Rosenberg, an art critic, who wrote that "at a certain moment the canvas began to appear to one American Painter after another as an arena in which to act - rather than a space in which to reproduce, redesign, analyze, or 'express' an object, actual or imagined. What was to go on the canvas was not a picture, but an event." By contrast, Marcel Duchamp believed making art should be a mental activity and not a physical one. Following in his footsteps, the Conceptualists deemphasized the art object, pushing Minimalism to the extreme. Conceptualists produced a physical product that was secondary to the idea behind the work: often printed statements, directions, or documentary photographs. Conceptual artist Joseph Kosuth believed the use of language would direct art away from aesthetic concerns and toward philosophical speculation.
Nam June Paik, In-Flux House.
Vidding may not be considered a part of the mainstream art world, which is merely a centralized conviction of artists, critics, and art historians that some works of art are more important than others because they participate in the progressive unfolding of some larger historical purpose, not necessarily a judgement of their aesthetic quality. But more and more this concept is considered to be a myth of Modernism. Until recently, the history of modern art was thought of as a linear progression of movements that followed each other one by one. Minimalism and Pop Art were the beginnings of undoing the notion that art developments were journeying toward a penultimate art. The art world of today generally accepts the pluralism within which vidding can be held as an artistic practice.
Robert Rauschenberg, Retroactive I.
Vidding generally draws from film and television sources using appropriation, which I see as the representation or re-presentation of a preexisting image as one's own. In this vein, Marcel Duchamp insisted that the quality of an artwork depends not on formal invention but on the ideas that stand behind it. For example, Sigmar Polke, Julian Schnabel, and Robert Rauschenberg are considered "collage appropriators." Artists like Sherrie Levine are known as "straight appropriators," repainting or rephotographing imagery from commerce or the history of art. Much like artists' readymades, appropriators work more through the artistic idea than the physical skill (or tekne) of creating a pleasing object.
Sherrie Levine, Fountain (after Marcel Duchamp: A.P.).
Postmodernism is something of a catchall term for art approaches, including those I've discussed, that sprang from the remains of Modernism after World War II. It does involve the notion of artistic pluralism, the acceptance of a variety of artistic intentions and styles. It sounds a lot like vidding would fit into postmodern art well.
As for me, I like to crawl inside things like source, characters, and subject matter to get to swim in the pieces, parts and guts. That's an awkward and creepy metaphor, but it's all I have. I'm certainly not making an effort to tarnish the source. I consider it to be more like adding to it by constructing my own meaning and comprehension, which can't damage the original. I always laugh when people say that a movie ruined the book it was based on. Nothing about the actual book is different -- the movie has done nothing to it because it's still sitting on the shelf same as the day it was printed.
Is This Art? - Volume 17: Race, Politics and Dispossession - New Media in Film Screener DVD.
I believe in the idea of "l'art pour l'art" ("art for art's sake") in my own vidding, focusing on the aesthetics rather than the narrative, which seems to be a minority approach. My vids have defined themes and stories, but these are secondary to the visuals I want to produce. A high number of vids focus on narrative, which is a strong form of human expression. Similarly, some of Isaac Julien's artwork consists of narrative films that combine fictionalized scenes and documentary footage, referencing movies and genres from mainstream Hollywood. There are many interpretations of Julien's work because he intentionally leaves things up to viewer interpretation. The allusions in his film The Long Road to Mazatlán, a homoerotic tribute to the American Southwest, include Andy Warhol, the film Taxi Driver, and the paintings of David Hockney. Aernout Mik, another video artist, often projects repeated television news segments onto multiple viewing screens. Telephones, a work by Christian Marclay, takes clips from movies to recreate the process of a phone call. Rodney Graham loops videos, which he calls "circular featurettes." Pierre Huyghe dwells on a botched bank robbery in ways in his split-screen video The Third Memory. He juxtaposes the real life event and the event's fictionalization in the film Dog Day Afternoon with a reconstruction featuring the actual perpetrator describing it.
Aernout Mik discusses his exhibition at MoMA.
Like all important art, vidding speaks not only to the present but also to the future, which I think will recognize it as a part of the fundamental quest of the arts throughout history to extend the boundaries of human perception, feeling, and thought and to express humanity's deepest wishes and most powerful dreams. "A great 'utopia' of the unification of mankind probably can never exist in our reality, but it is going to be fully realized in the art world," according to Wenda Gu. There's a large sector of vidding that strives to create just that in vid form.
Pierre Huyghe, The Third Memory.
When I say that I consider vidding to be art, that doesn't mean everyone else has to think the same thing. Everyone is entitled to their own opinion and this is the internet, so everyone is also able to give their opinion. Sometimes loudly. My saying that vidding is art doesn't mean that people have to agree and it doesn't mean that every vid ever made is now declared art because I say so. I mean that my vids are art because I proclaim them to be.
Another reason I felt compelled to write about my feelings on vidding comes from comments I've been reading. A few of them have stood out for me, such as, to paraphrase, the claim that vidding is not art because art is something that requires training. A child who draws a picture of her family with crayons is an artist. Art doesn't require training beyond the motor skills and the notion to do it. Other comments suggest that vidding can't be art because vids don't belong in the art world. Since when? In addition to several decades of video art, there is a wide variety of art created with the help of digital computer technology is known as digital art.
When I was considering art as a profession, I felt like I was learning the rules only to break them. Many people view the art world as SRS BSNS (serious business), but it doesn't have to be. I've had the great pleasure of knowing many artists. The vast majority of them refused to take themselves too seriously, keeping the childlike glee of the process alive within them. The flaws are what make most art beautiful and memorable. Art as a fun activity? Who would have thought?
Nam June Paik, Global Goove.
There's a question as to whether the art world itself would accept vidding as art. I can't pretend to know the answer to that question, but I can theorize. Some factions would fully embrace a new form of artistic expression, while others would reject it on the grounds that it lacks something necessary. That's what usually happens with all emerging art forms. Art is a vast and broad category that isn't exclusionary. Art doesn't have simple borders or a simple definition. It's basically an umbrella term with subdivisions held within it.
I've always thought of my vidding as an extension of my traditional artwork. I came into vidding with that goal in mind, and that is how I have vidded. I never considered that people would be adamantly opposed to vidding as art. It's so different from my approach that I'm taken aback by the strength of their feelings that go completely against what my feelings have always been, which is that vidding is art. I'd never questioned my view until I read other people's comments rejecting the notion so fully and strongly. Reading these comments about how vidding can't be art, it was like someone has taken what I do and stomped on it. It's extremely disheartening to claims that the art community is elitist and entirely serious. While that may be part of the art world, it is certainly not all of it in my experience.
I think a lot of the rejection of vidding as art comes from an emotional reaction. My own thoughts on the subject are emotional too.
Marcel Duchamp, Mona Lisa parody "LHOOQ".
As with Duchamp's readymades, the object is the same; it's just the view of the object that changes when it is recontextualized. In that way, the vid is the same whether you call it an artwork or not, it's just our views of it that may have changed. Take it or leave it, vidding as art is there if you want it. In the end, art is only a label. I want to label my vids as art, but I'm not requiring others to do so.
The only essays I write are for my college classes, which consist of early childhood education theorists and methods. I'm not an academic by any means of the word. Generally, I'm not good with words, hence vidding. When I have something to say, I usually produce a vid instead of saying something. This is not a professional essay or a work of literature. Most of the thoughts are my own, but nearly all my thoughts have been synthesized from somewhere else. I had originally intended to be an artist, but then I decided I liked having money to eat and went with a more stable career choice. I've had a few art courses in the past, but nothing advanced. I've only had one art gallery opening, which was in high school and I think it was only because I'd participated in an art internship program. This is my disclaimer of trying to not come off as a stuck up vidding expert snob.
Coming from my perspective as a vidder, I see vidding as fitting into a wide variety of artistic movements and historical trends. I look at art history and see the course leading up to, circling around, continuing with, and following after vidding. I'm going to briefly touch on the pieces that come together as portents of vidding within art. Let's talk art. What is art? The word itself comes from the Latin word for skill, ars. The Greek word for art is tekne, which is the source for the term technique in English. The determination for artistic value used to be made in terms of a physical perfection in idealistic form. There has been debate over the label of art for a long time.
Marcel Duchamp, Fountain (second version).
One of the better known disputes is of the artistic validity of Marcel Duchamp's Fountain (second version), which is currently on display at the Philadelphia Museum of Art under the Modernism to Postmodernism period with the medium listed as porcelain plumbing fixture and enamel print. It's essentially a urinal signed with “R. Mutt” and it is art. It's a readymade piece of art, which is an ordinary manufactured object that is transformed into art through the decision of the artist. Readymades demonstrate the choice of creating a new way of viewing an object by changing the perception of it. As long as I'm getting historical, Alexander Calder's kinetic works and mobiles were among the first works of art to incorporate physical movement, whereas most previous works were still and unmoving.
Alexander Calder, Circus.
The rejections of artwork as being a portable object has been noted, but some contemporary artists make installations, which are tied to a location either temporarily or permanently. These and other compositions often experiment with light, sound, video, and/or digital computer technology. Those working with video either incorporate video monitor(s) into their creations or project video onto walls, screens, or other surfaces. Video artist Nam June Paik said, "as collage technique replaced oil paint, the cathode ray tube will replace the canvas." I see vidding as adding to that tradition in the 21st century.
Action painting, or gesturalism, is another precursor to vidding. The term was coined by Harold Rosenberg, an art critic, who wrote that "at a certain moment the canvas began to appear to one American Painter after another as an arena in which to act - rather than a space in which to reproduce, redesign, analyze, or 'express' an object, actual or imagined. What was to go on the canvas was not a picture, but an event." By contrast, Marcel Duchamp believed making art should be a mental activity and not a physical one. Following in his footsteps, the Conceptualists deemphasized the art object, pushing Minimalism to the extreme. Conceptualists produced a physical product that was secondary to the idea behind the work: often printed statements, directions, or documentary photographs. Conceptual artist Joseph Kosuth believed the use of language would direct art away from aesthetic concerns and toward philosophical speculation.
Nam June Paik, In-Flux House.
Vidding may not be considered a part of the mainstream art world, which is merely a centralized conviction of artists, critics, and art historians that some works of art are more important than others because they participate in the progressive unfolding of some larger historical purpose, not necessarily a judgement of their aesthetic quality. But more and more this concept is considered to be a myth of Modernism. Until recently, the history of modern art was thought of as a linear progression of movements that followed each other one by one. Minimalism and Pop Art were the beginnings of undoing the notion that art developments were journeying toward a penultimate art. The art world of today generally accepts the pluralism within which vidding can be held as an artistic practice.
Robert Rauschenberg, Retroactive I.
Vidding generally draws from film and television sources using appropriation, which I see as the representation or re-presentation of a preexisting image as one's own. In this vein, Marcel Duchamp insisted that the quality of an artwork depends not on formal invention but on the ideas that stand behind it. For example, Sigmar Polke, Julian Schnabel, and Robert Rauschenberg are considered "collage appropriators." Artists like Sherrie Levine are known as "straight appropriators," repainting or rephotographing imagery from commerce or the history of art. Much like artists' readymades, appropriators work more through the artistic idea than the physical skill (or tekne) of creating a pleasing object.
Sherrie Levine, Fountain (after Marcel Duchamp: A.P.).
Postmodernism is something of a catchall term for art approaches, including those I've discussed, that sprang from the remains of Modernism after World War II. It does involve the notion of artistic pluralism, the acceptance of a variety of artistic intentions and styles. It sounds a lot like vidding would fit into postmodern art well.
As for me, I like to crawl inside things like source, characters, and subject matter to get to swim in the pieces, parts and guts. That's an awkward and creepy metaphor, but it's all I have. I'm certainly not making an effort to tarnish the source. I consider it to be more like adding to it by constructing my own meaning and comprehension, which can't damage the original. I always laugh when people say that a movie ruined the book it was based on. Nothing about the actual book is different -- the movie has done nothing to it because it's still sitting on the shelf same as the day it was printed.
Is This Art? - Volume 17: Race, Politics and Dispossession - New Media in Film Screener DVD.
I believe in the idea of "l'art pour l'art" ("art for art's sake") in my own vidding, focusing on the aesthetics rather than the narrative, which seems to be a minority approach. My vids have defined themes and stories, but these are secondary to the visuals I want to produce. A high number of vids focus on narrative, which is a strong form of human expression. Similarly, some of Isaac Julien's artwork consists of narrative films that combine fictionalized scenes and documentary footage, referencing movies and genres from mainstream Hollywood. There are many interpretations of Julien's work because he intentionally leaves things up to viewer interpretation. The allusions in his film The Long Road to Mazatlán, a homoerotic tribute to the American Southwest, include Andy Warhol, the film Taxi Driver, and the paintings of David Hockney. Aernout Mik, another video artist, often projects repeated television news segments onto multiple viewing screens. Telephones, a work by Christian Marclay, takes clips from movies to recreate the process of a phone call. Rodney Graham loops videos, which he calls "circular featurettes." Pierre Huyghe dwells on a botched bank robbery in ways in his split-screen video The Third Memory. He juxtaposes the real life event and the event's fictionalization in the film Dog Day Afternoon with a reconstruction featuring the actual perpetrator describing it.
Aernout Mik discusses his exhibition at MoMA.
Like all important art, vidding speaks not only to the present but also to the future, which I think will recognize it as a part of the fundamental quest of the arts throughout history to extend the boundaries of human perception, feeling, and thought and to express humanity's deepest wishes and most powerful dreams. "A great 'utopia' of the unification of mankind probably can never exist in our reality, but it is going to be fully realized in the art world," according to Wenda Gu. There's a large sector of vidding that strives to create just that in vid form.
Pierre Huyghe, The Third Memory.
When I say that I consider vidding to be art, that doesn't mean everyone else has to think the same thing. Everyone is entitled to their own opinion and this is the internet, so everyone is also able to give their opinion. Sometimes loudly. My saying that vidding is art doesn't mean that people have to agree and it doesn't mean that every vid ever made is now declared art because I say so. I mean that my vids are art because I proclaim them to be.
Another reason I felt compelled to write about my feelings on vidding comes from comments I've been reading. A few of them have stood out for me, such as, to paraphrase, the claim that vidding is not art because art is something that requires training. A child who draws a picture of her family with crayons is an artist. Art doesn't require training beyond the motor skills and the notion to do it. Other comments suggest that vidding can't be art because vids don't belong in the art world. Since when? In addition to several decades of video art, there is a wide variety of art created with the help of digital computer technology is known as digital art.
When I was considering art as a profession, I felt like I was learning the rules only to break them. Many people view the art world as SRS BSNS (serious business), but it doesn't have to be. I've had the great pleasure of knowing many artists. The vast majority of them refused to take themselves too seriously, keeping the childlike glee of the process alive within them. The flaws are what make most art beautiful and memorable. Art as a fun activity? Who would have thought?
Nam June Paik, Global Goove.
There's a question as to whether the art world itself would accept vidding as art. I can't pretend to know the answer to that question, but I can theorize. Some factions would fully embrace a new form of artistic expression, while others would reject it on the grounds that it lacks something necessary. That's what usually happens with all emerging art forms. Art is a vast and broad category that isn't exclusionary. Art doesn't have simple borders or a simple definition. It's basically an umbrella term with subdivisions held within it.
I've always thought of my vidding as an extension of my traditional artwork. I came into vidding with that goal in mind, and that is how I have vidded. I never considered that people would be adamantly opposed to vidding as art. It's so different from my approach that I'm taken aback by the strength of their feelings that go completely against what my feelings have always been, which is that vidding is art. I'd never questioned my view until I read other people's comments rejecting the notion so fully and strongly. Reading these comments about how vidding can't be art, it was like someone has taken what I do and stomped on it. It's extremely disheartening to claims that the art community is elitist and entirely serious. While that may be part of the art world, it is certainly not all of it in my experience.
I think a lot of the rejection of vidding as art comes from an emotional reaction. My own thoughts on the subject are emotional too.
Marcel Duchamp, Mona Lisa parody "LHOOQ".
As with Duchamp's readymades, the object is the same; it's just the view of the object that changes when it is recontextualized. In that way, the vid is the same whether you call it an artwork or not, it's just our views of it that may have changed. Take it or leave it, vidding as art is there if you want it. In the end, art is only a label. I want to label my vids as art, but I'm not requiring others to do so.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2010-03-07 10:30 pm (UTC)This is basically what I think art is, and I definitely think vidding falls into that category. So many fanvids - yours included - have served to me as extra-textual commentary - essentially essays on the show in vid form. I don't actually know whether that puts them more as "meta" or "art," but given their format, I think a bit of both.
I love this essay. A+++!
no subject
Date: 2010-03-07 10:49 pm (UTC):)
no subject
Date: 2010-03-07 10:32 pm (UTC)(Okay, I'll totally stop begging you to come after this, I swear.)
no subject
Date: 2010-03-07 10:50 pm (UTC)I feel all warm inside. :)
no subject
Date: 2010-03-08 12:10 am (UTC)This is a much broader look at vidding than I think I’ve ever seen. I love the step back you’ve taken from the history of vidding in and of itself to place it within larger artistic trends. I love many of the points you make (appropriation as art, art as changing the perception of something, art as ideas vs. objects), but my favorite is that art doesn’t have to be serious business. I would never say that my idle drawings aren’t art, even though I’d never claim that they are serious work, and why should vidding be any different? I’d just never considered it like that before. I also think this point opens up your essay to account for all sorts of vids with all sorts of different intents, which resolves some conflict I personally had about the question. Upon initially asking myself the question, it felt like saying that vidding is art meant that all vids should strive to be Important or significant in some way, visually or narratively or whatever, which is just not how I personally approach it (though sometimes I try, and always admire vids with big ambitions). Yet that conflicted with my other kneejerk reaction that of course vids can be art for all the other reasons you say.
I’m also struck by how some of the points you’re making about whether vidding is art map onto questions the vidding community writ large seems to ask about itself (or, at least, questions which seem to me personally to swirl around vidding, especially as the platforms and technology to both show and make vids becomes so much more easily accessible). For example, your points about “mainstream” art world acceptance or belonging seem to me to map onto questions about vidding for cons, or vidding for audiences of other vidders. vs. primarily making “living room” vids to premiere on the internet with different audiences in mind. And your point about training seems to map onto similar questions about self-taught vidders who learn as they go vs. vidders who learn(ed) primarily from other vidders they have personal relationships with (not that we don't all learn from each other). Um, not to hijack your awesome essay with vidding definition politics but the similarities in the questions really, really struck me.
In conclusion, bravo, this is awesome!
no subject
Date: 2010-03-08 12:34 am (UTC)I had always thought of my vids as art in my head, so it was strange to read comments so strongly against vids being art at all.
<>This is a much broader look at vidding than I think I’ve ever seen. I love the step back you’ve taken from the history of vidding in and of itself to place it within larger artistic trends.
I hope it didn't get boring. I'm sure some people were bored or won't be interested in the historical part.
I love many of the points you make (appropriation as art, art as changing the perception of something, art as ideas vs. objects)
I see vidding fitting in so well, especially in those.
my favorite is that art doesn’t have to be serious business.
I've never thought of art as something that had to be serious all the time. My art internship is one of the most fun and enjoyable things I've done in my entire life.
account for all sorts of vids with all sorts of different intents
I find many definitions of vidding to be narrow. I'm not trying to define the term vidding because I don't think there's a way to write one without leaving something out or pissing someone off.
Upon initially asking myself the question, it felt like saying that vidding is art meant that all vids should strive to be Important or significant in some way, visually or narratively or whatever, which is just not how I personally approach it (though sometimes I try, and always admire vids with big ambitions)
Warhol, I think, played with making art "not important". It didn't have to be something earthshattering and life changing. It could just be.
Um, not to hijack your awesome essay with vidding definition politics but the similarities in the questions really, really struck me.
Hijack away!
no subject
Date: 2010-03-08 01:04 am (UTC)I will have more to say -- have to have a think first. But mostly I just wanted to drop a big bucket of squee all over you.
::eeeee::this post::eeeee:::
no subject
Date: 2010-03-08 01:34 am (UTC)Okay, finally a real response!
Date: 2010-03-14 05:42 pm (UTC)It's also great to get your personal take on "vidding as art". Most vidders wouldn't approach the subject at all, and any of us who would is likely to have had a different take on it. I appreciated reading about the way you think about art as well as the way you approach vidding as an artist.
For myself, I love vids that are about pure aesthetics but I don't have an "art for art's sake" approach to my own work -- I always have something to say (usually several things, too many for one vid but I try to cram them all in anyway). I have noticed a shift, though, since becoming exposed to work like yours; I've definitely been paying a lot more attention to aesthetics and less attention to lyrics and narrative than when I started out. From my corner of fandom it feels like vidding in general is shifting that way, due to a number of cultural and technological factors. I'm curious whether you see that happening too.
One thing that occurs to me is how the cultures of fine arts and vidding communities are different. What got me on this whole "but is it art?" kick in the first place was the differing attitudes toward criticism: discussing the work, who's part of that discussion, who benefits from that discussion, who's allowed to participate, and especially what kinds of things are we "allowed" to say within the frameworks of each culture.
I feel like in the art world there's a lot more freedom to criticize work publicly, and an understanding that such criticism isn't intended for the artist. But the criticism does tend to be restricted to "Art Critics", academics, and the like where fandom is more egalitarian.
I think, too, that fandom lays certain expectations on vidders that fine artists, especially modern artists, don't necessarily have to deal with. I mean, over the centuries there have been lots of people who very passionately tried to define and restrict what "Art" was, but from my POV (admittedly outside that world), that seems to be over. In contrast, I think there's a lot of anxiety in some corners of fandom about what vidding is, how it should be defined and limited, that mostly has to do with people not wanting to lose the things they like. And it feels a lot more personal.
Personally, I'd love to see us adopt more of the fine arts perspective on (not) defining or limiting the work, and on how criticism works, without losing what makes us special. But in order to do that, do we have to get more fans to view vidding as art?
In addition to the obstacles to that that you've identified, I think there's a lot of resistance to viewing fannish "hobbies" as making art because of the way women have always been sidelined (the old "art" vs. "craft" argument -- like painting vs. quilting) but also the way we sideline ourselves: as women, as fans. We're somehow less important than Artists. The true Artists are the people who are paid to make TV shows, and we're lower in the hierarchy. Our work couldn't possibly be art, it's just little doodles in the margins. I hate that attitude but I can't think of an effective way to challenge it.
Re: Okay, finally a real response! p1
Date: 2010-03-18 11:35 pm (UTC)I like working from a "Ronon is kick ass," or "gee, this episode was cool" standpoint in terms of "vid for vid's sake." It doesn't always have to be an epic and noteworthy concept. Sometimes I make a vid because I feel like making one and I choose the source based on what's available and what I'm interested in at that point in time.
I see more and more vidders that vid for the visuals first and foremost, but there are still a lot that go lyrical primarily. I wish there was a trend toward vidding what people want to vid instead of playing so much mind to how the vid will be received and what the audience would want. I'd like to see a lot of passionately created vids that are what the vidder wants.
One thing that occurs to me is how the cultures of fine arts and vidding communities are different. What got me on this whole "but is it art?" kick in the first place was the differing attitudes toward criticism: discussing the work, who's part of that discussion, who benefits from that discussion, who's allowed to participate, and especially what kinds of things are we "allowed" to say within the frameworks of each culture.
This vidding community and the arts community are very different and I think it's due in part to the make up of the community. Ages, genders, locations, etc.
I think, too, that fandom lays certain expectations on vidders that fine artists, especially modern artists, don't necessarily have to deal with. I mean, over the centuries there have been lots of people who very passionately tried to define and restrict what "Art" was, but from my POV (admittedly outside that world), that seems to be over.
There's usually someone to say something isn't art, even now. There are things like outsider art and such. It's as public as it used to be.
Re: Okay, finally a real response! p1
Date: 2010-03-19 11:36 pm (UTC)Oh, I agree, definitely. I have had loads of fun making vids that didn't have super-deep concepts. In the end, though, I seem to return to Big Ideas.
I wish there was a trend toward vidding what people want to vid instead of playing so much mind to how the vid will be received and what the audience would want.
Yeah, I know what you mean. Mostly I wish more vidders just did as they pleased, because I think there's sort of a plague of insecurity affecting my corner of vidding fandom and it makes me sad.
At the same time, though, I wouldn't want to lose the sense of shared experience and shared delights that are a huge benefit of fandom. In the conversations about defining vids, I think so much of the anxiety is about keeping vids fannish -- for whatever values of that word we're currently using.
There's usually someone to say something isn't art, even now. There are things like outsider art and such.
I didn't realize, though I suppose I should have. (:
Re: Okay, finally a real response! p1
Date: 2010-03-20 04:11 pm (UTC)That's interesting because I feel it's almost the opposite for me. I have tons of Big Idea vids, but I usually push them aside for something simple and more visually interesting to me. I think part of it is the time that it takes for me to do a Big Idea vid. I let those rest in my brain for a long time before I even attempt to make them.
A lot of vidders are insecure. :(
Re: Okay, finally a real response! p1
Date: 2010-03-21 04:55 pm (UTC)A lot of vidders are insecure. :(
It's the one thing I would change about us if I could.
edited to add appropriate icon
Re: Okay, finally a real response! p1
Date: 2010-03-21 05:36 pm (UTC)Re: Okay, finally a real response! p1
Date: 2010-03-21 05:52 pm (UTC)Re: Okay, finally a real response! p1
Date: 2010-04-04 02:24 am (UTC)Re: Okay, finally a real response! p2
Date: 2010-03-18 11:35 pm (UTC)In contrast, I think there's a lot of anxiety in some corners of fandom about what vidding is, how it should be defined and limited, that mostly has to do with people not wanting to lose the things they like. And it feels a lot more personal.
It's going to be personal for the people involved. There are artists that will go on and on about how there are gatekeepers to the art world that declare things to be important pieces of art and say other artists and artworks as fleeting garbage and not art.
Personally, I'd love to see us adopt more of the fine arts perspective on (not) defining or limiting the work, and on how criticism works, without losing what makes us special. But in order to do that, do we have to get more fans to view vidding as art?
I guess I don't see vidding as art changing anything for me because I've always thought of it that way. Not everyone is going to think vidding is art and I'm not going to convince them it is. I wanted to put it out there that I think it is. I don't understand why people want to limit what a vid is. Who wants to be the one telling someone else what they should and shouldn't see as a vid or as art?
In addition to the obstacles to that that you've identified, I think there's a lot of resistance to viewing fannish "hobbies" as making art because of the way women have always been sidelined (the old "art" vs. "craft" argument -- like painting vs. quilting) but also the way we sideline ourselves: as women, as fans. We're somehow less important than Artists. The true Artists are the people who are paid to make TV shows, and we're lower in the hierarchy. Our work couldn't possibly be art, it's just little doodles in the margins. I hate that attitude but I can't think of an effective way to challenge it.
I don't see art as being gendered. While a lot of vidders in this vidding community are women, I don't see vidders are only female either. I don't care very much about how other people see it in the end. Originally, I wrote this to respond to people saying that vidding can't be art beause I wanted to throw my own view of there in opposition. I'd read posts and comments in opposition to vidding as art, but none that supported it. I don't want to change someone else's mind per se, but to offer my own view for those willing to read it.
Re: Okay, finally a real response! p2
Date: 2010-03-19 11:45 pm (UTC)Yes, but nobody invites them to parties. (:
Not everyone is going to think vidding is art and I'm not going to convince them it is. I wanted to put it out there that I think it is.
I think you're a lot more realistic than I am. I'm always about trying to reframe controversial issues to change the way people think, but it's pretty damned hard to do.
I'm glad you've put out your position on it. I think it's really powerful.
I don't understand why people want to limit what a vid is. Who wants to be the one telling someone else what they should and shouldn't see as a vid or as art?
Not me! But I wonder if reframing the fannish perspective on vids (acknowledging that they are art, for example) would help more vidders feel free to do what you suggest: make whatever they want to make, without worrying about what other people think.
I don't see art as being gendered.
It needn't be, but until the revolution comes, it's going to exist in a gendered context.
While a lot of vidders in this vidding community are women, I don't see vidders are only female either.
Of course not; I'm sorry I implied otherwise. The majority in my vidding community are women and I do think that has influenced the way we think about our work -- not biologically, but culturally.
I don't care very much about how other people see it in the end.
That's remarkable. I mean, I think I care less than a lot of fans do about policing boundaries and the like. But I'm still fascinated by how the culture around fannish works is shaped and shapes the works themselves.
Originally, I wrote this to respond to people saying that vidding can't be art beause I wanted to throw my own view of there in opposition. I'd read posts and comments in opposition to vidding as art, but none that supported it.
That's interesting -- I'd love to read those posts. I've not read any, myself; yours is the first "vidding as art" post I've seen.
I don't want to change someone else's mind per se, but to offer my own view for those willing to read it.
I'm so glad you did. I really enjoyed reading it (in case that's not totally obvious!).
Re: Okay, finally a real response! p2
Date: 2010-03-20 04:24 pm (UTC)LOL, it's usually their party.
But I wonder if reframing the fannish perspective on vids (acknowledging that they are art, for example) would help more vidders feel free to do what you suggest: make whatever they want to make, without worrying about what other people think.
It might, but then it might make them feel less free too. It all depends on how they think of art and how they think of their vidding.
That's interesting -- I'd love to read those posts. I've not read any, myself; yours is the first "vidding as art" post I've seen.
I've never noticed another vidding as art post either. I'll shuffle some posts and comments about vidding not being art when I can find them. The links are two computers in the past. I should have favorited link to keep them. Oops.
Thanks!
Re: Okay, finally a real response! p2
Date: 2010-03-21 05:51 pm (UTC)An excellent point.
I'll shuffle some posts and comments about vidding not being art when I can find them.
I'd appreciate that if you can manage it, but don't drive yourself crazy. (:
And thank *you*!
no subject
Date: 2012-02-25 11:35 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-02-25 11:55 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-02-26 04:08 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-02-26 03:57 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-03-08 02:32 am (UTC)I'm certainly not making an effort to tarnish the source. I consider it to be more like adding to it by constructing my own meaning and comprehension, which can't damage the original.
This this this. There's something to be said for a source that's capable of sparking a creative response in someone--a lot of things to be said for it, actually, and against it, and *about* it. Which is usually *why* it's capable of sparking that creative response in the first place. (Art begets art!)
To my mind, whether "art" is judged by technique, intention, aesthetic, or whatever, vidding is *100%* art. I think your essay's done a good job of addressing that. Thank you for putting it all together!
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Date: 2010-03-08 11:59 pm (UTC)I lol when people complain about remakes and sequels ruining the original. I don't think vids can ruin a tv show or movie. The source is still the same, you just might notice other things.
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Date: 2010-03-08 12:43 pm (UTC)To, like you, give my own subjective, emotional reaction, one thing I loved about this essay was not only how you placed vidding in the context of art history, but how you did so clearly, concisely and interestingly. I know almost nothing about art history, so this essay was, for me, extremely educational and interesting. I feel...smarter now and more secure in my opinions, even though I'd struggle to articulate them. Though basically they come down to what you said. Vidding is just as much art as anything else, and just as flexible in terms of stated goals. It can be as unimportant and unintended to be "art" as a casual drawing room scribble, or it can be Big, Important, Thinky art, and anything in between. The intention of the vidder is paramount, except when it isn't and someone else finds something artistic in it anyway. The intention of the vidder is never important, except when it is.
In other words, it's big and messy, just like the rest of the art world because it's all about defining something that is...undefinable.
One thing that really struck me here was your discussions of both art for art's sake and also when what art tries to do is shift the perception of an existing object/idea/thing and that is more the focus than the technique/skill in the creation of the artwork.
This strikes me as very apt in terms of vidding because I think vidding encompasses both. Obviously, you have already posted about the way you vid, primarily for the visual aesthetics in an art for art's sake. And it's a strong argument that vidding can compete with art as judged on a purely aesthetic level.
But, while I haven't seen as many anti-art arguments as you have, the few I have seen have tended more towards, "vidding isn't art because it's commentary" end of the spectrum, separating "meta" from "art". But I think your essay has a really insightful point that there are entire schools of art that are based on providing "meta commentary" on real things, like the various appropriators you mentioned.
So like...on all counts, vidding becomes something that is certainly definable as art, and barriers to doing so can only - to my mind - ever be based on personal choices for one's own art, or the same barriers that are thrown up to every new type of art, not anything inherently lacking in vidding that is present in another type of art?
Anyway, super essay. Thanks for posting it.
no subject
Date: 2010-03-08 11:55 pm (UTC)I was going to post it sooner, but the timing was usually wrong. I didn't want to post it after VVC because it would have looked like shit stirring.
Vidding is just as much art as anything else, and just as flexible in terms of stated goals.
Word. I could drop an egg from a 4th floor window and it's art.
In other words, it's big and messy, just like the rest of the art world because it's all about defining something that is...undefinable.
There will be something to disprove it as soon as something is defined.
But, while I haven't seen as many anti-art arguments as you have, the few I have seen have tended more towards, "vidding isn't art because it's commentary" end of the spectrum, separating "meta" from "art".
For a few months it seemed liked every 15th thing I looked at online was something about how vidding can't be art.
But I think your essay has a really insightful point that there are entire schools of art that are based on providing "meta commentary" on real things, like the various appropriators you mentioned.
Yes, I see a lot of artistic works as commenting on others in a meta way. Fountain (after Marcel Duchamp: A.P.) and LHOOQ are two shown here that can work on the same level as a vid in terms of meta commentary.
no subject
Date: 2010-03-08 03:50 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-03-08 11:57 pm (UTC)That's assuming you meant "vidding" as in fanmade video editing because I know some people around these parts like to use this word only to describe their exclusive clubs.
My loose definition of vidding emcompasses a lot of video editing that others don't include.
no subject
Date: 2010-03-10 01:24 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-03-18 11:36 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-08-27 10:22 pm (UTC)In my experience, the term "art" often serves the gatekeeping function of determining contextually what cultural labor is valued. That is, it's works positioned with the snooty SRS BSNS art work of which you speak are considered legitimate while works very similar in style/content that aren't part of this world are considered worthless. I have a strong reaction against that attitude, and I think that's where a lot of vidders who reject the term "art" may be coming from as well.
But you are able to articulate very convincingly why an attitude of inclusiveness enriches both vidding and art much more than a kind of reverse gatekeeping that tries to police what vidding is NOT. Art may sometimes function as an exclusionary category, but your historical tour reminds us that art at its best can be just as rebellious, suspect, joyful, and self-aware as pop culture at its best. You have personally influenced my perspective on art for the better, and YOUR art is some of my favorite!
Can I assign your essay in my remix class?? See, my beta is self-interested, LOL :). I'm also mining it for video art to screen in Intro to TV -- this is so full of rich examples! <#
no subject
Date: 2010-09-02 12:04 am (UTC)I am shitty with words, so I'm glad I was able to concincingly articulate my thoughts on vidding and art
Can I assign your essay in my remix class?? See, my beta is self-interested, LOL :). I'm also mining it for video art to screen in Intro to TV -- this is so full of rich examples! <#
OF COURSE!