Experimental Media Blog 2 - Carol Bales
In discussing the qualities of various media and how they facilitate expression and interactivity, this post will be focusing upon film, video and online media.
Film is a plastic visual medium that allows the capture of scripted
drama, scripted or unscripted events and visual effects. A story, idea or event can be recorded,
edited to provide either narrative flow or context, then projected to a wide
audience. Early film enthusiasts took
advantage of the fact that regardless of the amount of effort that was put into
the filming and editing process, to show a film only required a screen and a
projector. For this reason, film has
been a form of popular entertainment and information for the past century. The Italian Futurists (1916), identifying
film as a means of “breaking” the book and thwarting drama, outlined several
experimental tactics that could be accomplished with film that till then could
not be presented before.[1]
Because of the power of the medium, it quickly became a tool for communicating
ideas in the form of propaganda. Much
later in the century, with politics still at the center of the urge to create,
artists creating “invisible” art works such as Crossroads Community (1974-80) that
can only be appreciated as art works when they are recorded and shown as a
documentary or in the context of a gallery use film to capture the work.[2]
Similar to film in its ability to capture content, video has additional conveniences that have allowed it to be used by more people in more situations. Because the recording technology and tape are less expensive than film, video is in the hands of more people.
Because video doesn’t require film processing, video can be recorded and viewed immediately, or used to set up real-time video viewing. Myron Kreuger’s responsive environments are an early use of the ability to use video capture and layering techniques to create interactions and visualizations that were not possible before.[3] Marta Minujin’s Minucode mixes information exchange, participation, augmented virtual spaces in a cocktail party setting using film and video.[4] The technology for digital video makes it even more accessible because the step between video tape and digital file is eliminated, and the digital file is that much more easily manipulated using computer software, or shared using media networking sites such as YouTube.
Where film and video imply the mechanism of recording the images, television is more of a delivery mechanism for viewing the video. The medium is powerful because of the vast penetration of television sets, stations, networks and content into culture. Another aspect of television to consider, as with Nam June Paik’s work, television is a somewhat large electronic device that resides in the home. The electronic nature of the device can be manipulated, along with artistic experimentation with the content that is shown via television. [5], [6] In Paik’s Magnet TV (1965), a magnet placed on top of the television enacts with the cathode ray tube inside the television to produce strange visualizations, reminding the viewer that they are interacting with a piece of technology, not just the content they are watching.
Another medium heavily embraced by the public at large, computer access to the Internet facilitates collaboration in ways that bring to mind Vannevar Bush’s and Douglas Englebart’s visions for information exchange. Web 2.0 social networking technology has created an environment of art exploration online. Social networking is a rich medium to support several innovative techniques in the creation of art such as the open model of participation, instruction in the artistic context, openness and indeterminacy in art work, open work, and dialogical art.[7] Where participants are actively creating content, collaborating, viewing, commenting, and discussing content, there is no single creator, and the artist directing the work slips to the background. In The File Room, Muntadas explores issues of censorship through the medium of a social networking site utilizing a database. By setting the piece on the Internet, it is accessible by millions of people who can share documentation about instances of censorship. In this piece, history is re-assembled through mass collaboration. The Internet itself is a pipeline – granted, a highly sophisticated technological pipeline, but its purpose is to connect people and computers for the exchange of information and interaction. The nature of the technology we use to interact with the information – from hardware devices to software applications is in a constant state of flux, constantly improving, capable of handling more data faster, of being located anywhere in the world. The public audience of “pro-sumers”,[8] people who both view and produce content is an ever growing entity made of people who are now in the habit of embracing new technology. This audience of participants, eager to embrace new technologies represents a rich environment for continued art exploration.
Technology however, is not necessarily always hospitable to art exploration. Invention of new technologies requires understanding of deeply specialized knowledge in electronics, computer science, physics and materials. Using newly invented technologies often requires nearly as much familiarity with these subjects as with the act of invention, a body of knowledge unknown to many who would consider themselves artists. In this sense, collaboration between artist and engineer in exploration of cutting edge technologies is almost a requirement, since most engineers are not trained in art theory, and most artists are not trained in electronics. This interdependency is largely a good thing, but the artist is limited by their familiarity with technology. Another difficulty presented by new technologies is that they are often very expensive, far, far outside the budget of an individual artist, or even an art collective. Technological innovation happens largely in research laboratories where art collaboration is the exception rather than the rule. Creation of a large-scale art installation realized using technology, such as Billy Kluver’s The Pavilion (1970) required corporate financial backing to be realized.
Technology has strong positive affordances as well. Modern life in developed nations is so fully
supported by technology that it is hard to imagine life without it. As Marshall McLuhan pointed out, society has
and can be transformed by technology.
And yet, new technology can still fill us with wonder, and provide
experiences that were not possible before.
The wonder and promise of new technology is a strong enticement for artists
to continue to experiment in the medium.
And, because of its incredibly rapid advancement and change, there seems
to always be a new technology to experiment with, to examine, to
contextualize.
[1]
Packer, R. and K. Jordan, Multimedia :
from Wagner to virtual reality. 1st ed. 2001,
New York
: Norton. xxi, 394 p., pp. 10-15[2]
Frieling, R. and San Francisco Museum of Modern Art., The art of participation : 1950 to now. 2008,
New York
: Thames & Hudson. 212 p., pp. 50-65[3] [3]Packer, pp. 104-120
[4] Frieling, pp. 32-29
[5] Packer, pp. 36-43
[6] Frieling, 97-98
[7] Frieling, 32-49
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