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}
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)