Pipilotti Rist and Ryan Trecartin

Pipilotti Rist

"I'm Not the Girl Who Misses Much"
This video is a performance art piece enhanced by video art techniques such as the speeding and slowing down of the video and audio. The way that we perceive the video is changed by whether the performance is fast-forwarded or slowed down. When fast-forwarded, it seems manic and almost child-like. Also, when the screen slowly stops the frame from left to right as she is moving, she is creating a whole new image; she is using her own performance combined with video art techniques to use the television screen as a canvas for her art. The reveal at the end that she was referencing the well-known Beatles song "Happiness is a Warm Gun" was a surprise to me because I didn't recognize it with the audio sped up.

"Sexy Sad I"
Another reference to a Beatles song; this time it is "Sexy Sadie" and the video seems to play a cover version and transition into the original version and back again. It starts with a green and black animation and then goes into a video of a naked man frolicking in the woods without showing his complete face. Then it shows four hands making signs. Later on, it shows footage of the naked man but upside and black and white. I don't really know what to make of this piece.

"(Entlastungen) Pipilottis Fehler"
Starts with close up shots of random surroundings with a blur effect applied. Music that features ascending notes are played. We see a woman walking and then the camera starts going around and around with the blur effect, creating a swirl of red and green on the video screen. When the music stops on a note, the video frame freezes. The video goes black and a voice with echo is heard. When music comes in, there is video that is played that syncs with it. The video has lines going across it reminiscent of a VCR. Then the music keeps on playing with video of a person from head to toe, but every time the music stops, the person falls to the ground. This is done in different locations each time. This keeps on going with different images showing up when the music is playing but the consistent theme is that the person falls every time the music stops (ex. flat color, fast-forward of eating). The video is overwhelmed by lines.

"Als der Bruder meiner Mutter geboren wurde, duftete es nach wilden Birnenbluten vor dem braungebrannten Sims"
The camera is twirling around to a snowy area while a superimposed video screen is present near the bottom of the screen. The music seems upbeat but the footage playing in the tiny video screen transitions from random shots of birds to a woman giving birth.

"Pickelporno"

Utilizes close-ups a woman's feet in high heels. Music is playing and she approaches a man and they bow to each other. Where it really gets interesting is when is uses a green screen with images of blue and purple leaves on it while a camera rotates around a man; it makes it look like he is floating around in this psychedelic world. The piece continues with the extreme close-ups such as the man's finger. A bass groove is featured prominently in this section.

Ryan Trecartin

"Kitchen Girl"

A woman is heard shrieking and walking up stairs with a baby carriage/dolly. She is seen talking to her plush toys. She plugs in a microphone and claps are heard when she puts food into a pot. She throws one of the plush toys out of the window and continues to yell. I thought this video was absolutely demented.

Video Art Project

This project was inspired by David Hall's piece, "This is a Television Receiver," in which he presented a video and subsequently filmed a television screen playing the video and filmed the recording of the television screen playing that video and so on, until the image of the television screen at the end is distorted. For my project, I wanted the concept to be about the errors in recollection of events in the past. When relating events to each other, we tend to embellish or distort the events to our own liking or to how we see fit. Like in the game of telephone, events can resemble something different than it was originally with the passage of time. I wanted each video to be a little different from the one preceding it but with the core actions being performed in each to be the same. I used a recording of a video meant to be played in reverse that a friend and I made a while ago as the basis of my project. Then, I wanted us to reenact the actions but with different clothes each time. After we made videos of each reenactment, the videos were played on his laptop and I recorded that. With each consecutive video, I recorded the recording. This made it so by the fifth video, the actions on the screen are less clear and is harder to make out; this resembles how the recollection of events changes through time and from person to person and how the actual reality and origins of events become unclear.

Television Delivers People

Richard Serra's video art piece "Television Delivers People" really does deliver its message in a clear and direct way. It is presented in the form of a harmless television announcement and its peppy music also helps reinforce the way that it parodies infomercials and public service announcements. The points that the piece brings up is one that should seem obvious but is commonly forgotten; that television exists solely for the advertising and the money made from them and for them. It really did provide a revelation though in its simple statement that "In commercial broadcasting the viewer pays for the privilege of having himself sold." The use of the word "himself" in this statement speaks volumes due to the fact that it is often cited that the most valued demographic that advertisements are targeting are 18-35 year old males. Television programming exists as bait for people to be exposed to advertisements. The statement that "You are the product of TV" is very powerful; the way it describes how advertisers are the customers for our loyalty and currency to their brands by buying space for commercials and sponsoring television programming is very true. This piece has the ability to show something that is commonplace in a completely new light by stating simple messages is something that I applaud. Also the "Propaganda for Profit" line is a truth about television that still has not lost its relevancy with the existence and popularity of corporation-owned news outlets such as Fox News. The way in which broadcasting can dictate what people think and in essence, decides what they should and shouldn't know, is a scary thought.

Nam June Paik/The Residents

Nam June Paik was a true purveyor of originality. His avant-garde leanings and privileged upbringing that allowed him to play pianos by banging nails with a hammer and play violins by dragging them on the ground made for a lot of interesting imagery and concepts to how music is played. In his obituary in the New York Times, it was said that he grew up studying classical piano and more traditional music composition. It is truly fascinating to see how someone goes from interest in classical musical composition to the avant-garde. Also, his video installation of a giant magnet attached to the top of a television set was great in how it turned the television screen itself into a canvas for his art. In the video we saw in class, it was shown that he incorporated his discoveries in experimenting with the television into his video art; I remember seeing a video in which a woman is playing an instrument with the background consisting of jagged yellow lines.
I really enjoyed the works of the Residents that we saw in class. I thought "Harry the Head" was a very catchy little number and the accompanying video, which was said was part of a video game that the Residents were involved in, was fun to watch. The "One-Minute Videos" that we also saw was a clever spin on the pop song. It is true that the "ideal pop song" length is about 2 minutes and 50 seconds in length. Since most pop songs just repeat the proven formula of verse and chorus repeated ad nauseum, why not cut the fat and leave the core of it intact? It reminds me of the album "Pink Flag" by Wire, which also kept the songs at a short length with the intention of only keeping what is necessary for the song. It was also cool to see how the Residents embraced digital art in their work. The man with the crazy facial expressions having glowing tubes sticking out from him was an example of this and jump started the ubiquity of digital art in music videos for decades to come.

Performance Art Video

"Some at MoMA Show Forget ‘Look but Don’t Touch’ "

The instances of spectators inappropriately touching the performers participating in a Marina Abramovic retrospective at the Museum of Modern Art can be traced to the idea that in performance art, the performer's own body acts as the object of the art piece. Due to the context of a museum gallery and the disconnect that people feel toward objects, some spectators seem to feel that their participation in the form of cat-calling and uncomfortable touching is fair play. The performers have also recalled fun, but unusual moments with spectators in the form of dancing, "thank you's," and innocent touching of bare skin. The pros and cons of interaction in these specific performance art pieces are all a result of how people view other people when they are redefined as an object in their performance art pieces.

The Post-Modern Crisis

The ways in which modern musicians try to crack new ground was very inventive as seen in Monday's class. Iannis Xenakis' "Mycenae Alpha" was a great example of this; a machine that interprets his drawings into sound is such a forward thinking idea. Another invention along the same lines was the scoreLight which used laser beams, as dictated by a drawing's shape, to make interesting sounds. To see and hear these inventions work prove that a dead end in the post-modern crisis is not soon approaching.
Stockhausen's "Helicopter String Quartet" was fascinating in that it played with the usual conventions in how music is played and how musicians interact with each other to produce music. Since each violinist was wearing headphones, they were able to capably interact with each other in their playing. I liked how the music echoed the drama of flying in a helicopter itself.