Pipilotti Rist

One day I took some time to look around the galleries in Chelsea and saw Pipilotti's show at Luhring Augustine gallery. Among all the art works I saw that day, her show was my favorite. I saw Pipilotti's video installation at MOMA once but was not impressed by her work then. However, this time, I was intrigued by one of her installation work. She had three works. The first one in the entrance room has sculptures of everyday objects and a video triptych made out of filmed body parts. The second work in a big middle room was an installation with videos projected through layers of translucent fabrics(I cannot distinguish what the fabric actually is...) You can walk through the layers of the fabrics hanging down from the ceiling. Just walking through the fabrics and seeing the video projected through the layers of the translucent fabrics create a whole new experience...I felt like I could just stay there the whole day! In the last room, she made a chandelier out of underwears and a video is projected on the chandelier. The wallpapers which were patterns made out of her video still complement the the whole installation.

When I left the gallery, I felt like I just came back to reality from a remote place where time is suspended. To fully appreciate her works, one must experience being in the space. I was fascinated by how Pipilotti was able to use the whole space in the gallery and transform that space to such a bizarre, engaging place.

jeesu

Marcel Broodthaers

Today I went to see the Marcel Broodthaers show and it was really interesting. I initially was unsure of what to look for or what to expect when entering the gallery but i was instantly drawn to the projections on the wall. There were two different films projected on the wall, one was a black and white image i believe projected against a map. The other was a film projected on a wall of white, with black writing in boxes that said 'fig 12', 'fig 1', 'fig 3' and so on. From there i was confused, i was trying to imagine what his methodology was and what was the message being conveyed.  Even though i was trying to figure out, what his work was really about; the setting of the gallery was very engaging , some walls were black, some where white and the floor was like grey/tannish. When i say engaging, i felt very comfortable looking at his work in the space it was in, which is important i believe. Art in any medium is about presentation and the environment its placed in. For example, something good may be projected but if the environment isn't supportive of the essence in what is being displayed, the content of work, looses an important quality and aesthetic. I think the experience i had was interesting and important, because in this culture today, we are so used to knowing what a show or movie is about before even visually seeing it we may bring pre-judgements or ideas, which isn't necessarily a bad thing but sometimes being thrown into a story or narrative in the mist of it all, activates other tools within ourselves. Without much insight on Broodthaers history, i just had to use my own senses to interpret what i saw and take as much of it as i could, and even use what i saw as inspiration for myself. I went on to another part of the exhibit where there were about four projectors that you individually turn on and the film projected on the wall. The first one i saw was clips of maps, followed by dates, followed by words, then followed again by close up shots of maps and other shots. I was trying to understand maybe the dates correlate to the locations on the map that were being shown, then words would follow such as mystery, death, shark, cook, knife.... I then began to think when the clip of the map was shown again right after those last three words( shark, cook, knife) that maybe Broodthaers found some really good shark in that region of the world, but then thought no there has to be something more behind all of this... I then went to another projector and started that film, which was different content, there were mechanical structures which it appeared like tools and shelves, that over a period of time became clearer and clearer as the shot was really beautifully done to gradually form the object. Unfortunately the show was ending, but i really enjoyed the experience. As i left the gallery, i felt like i was thrown into another world when walking  back amongst the busy streets of nyc. It felt like while being in the gallery, was another world, very surreal like. Now when im recalling the feeling of being in the gallery, it didn't even feel like i was in Ny anymore or the U.S for that matter, i guess because of the content of Broodthaers films which projected maps and imagery not seen everyday in the nyc lifestyle. I just thought the aura and sensuality that film can bring upon us, just by environment and how we relate to it visually and with our senses is really amazing. It takes us out of the context which we are really in, and when a film or visual is strong enough to make us forget where we really are, i think it has accomplished something whether or not we understand what really happened or not. There are so many levels to film and video that its like diving in the depths of understanding, and Broodthaers work is one of those depths, i'd like to understand and hopefully visit his work again.

Marcel Broodthaers

This past Friday I traveled to the Marian Goodman Gallery for the Marcel Broodthaers Show. 

Upon entrance into the gallery I thought of this specific Video class. 

Marcel Broodthaers combines still and fixed images, often textual pieces, with video. His still imagery is fixed to a wall, hung on a canvas or painted flat on the wall, while moving projected video overlay the piece- creating these intriguing layers and relationships between the fixed visual and the moving, rhythmic video.

One of his pieces that caught my attention was an traditional flat map of the world hung on the wall, with video playing over the map as its projector screen. The map imagery layered with the moving images was mesmerizing. There was something so familiar about the map, that the moving people in the video became familiar as well. 

The transposing of imagery challenges the eye to work in more than one way. We are looking at a still image under a moving image. The still image may even appear to move because of this illusion Marcel Broothaers has created. Broothaers' videos play with the viewer's point of view and led me to question the subjects' place in their own space. Other works overlaid video on fixed text. One piece consists of a wall with the words fig.1, fig.2, fig.3 etc. and then videos of people in odd situations with relationships to other objects in their space and the scene. 

I was inspired by his concept of combining fixed imagery with video work. I've always enjoyed working in layers, whether it be in drawing, painting, collage, mixed media etc., but I haven't yet thought of exploring layering in this kind of way. Its a whole new way of looking at fixed art or text, and video as partners. The relationships Broothaer's created were clever and minimalist. I enjoyed the show but I even more appreciate what I walked away with: the idea to use this combination of media in my own work.  

I recommend checking it out!

 (The image above is one I snapped on my phone at the gallery.)

-Nicole Muller

Video is not optical ......

Students:
  Hi - welcome to the blog.  I was reviewing my notes from Paul Ryan's lecture and found this comment which I think will be helpful when we shift from analyzing film form to understanding video as a different medium from film.  He stated that video is not optical but instead it is kinesthetic movement. (This idea may be helpful when you're practicing shooting and focusing on movement.  We'll look at Dziga Vertov's film work in contrast to Eisenstein's methods of filming which will help you to see the roots of using a time based medium which is oriented to kinesthetic movement rather than the optical. Vertov's films are from the same period as Eisenstein's films and Vertov's method of filming is more similar to the medium of video. )  
  CREOD!!! Two sources regarding creods....the first description seems related to shooting and the second description has to do with patterns of behavior - this could relate to developing a subject about relationships for a video, similar to the videos such as "Triad" .
     A general description of a creod that Flora had cited from Principia Cybernetica Web: "A creod is derived from the Greek words for "necessity" and "a path." A term coined by D.S. Waddington who says a creod is a "time trajectory of developmental change (arising) from the characteristics of the closed circular causal organization of the system of genes and cytoplasm. Creods are a type of phenomena which occurs in many other fields also." (http://pespmc1.vub.ac.be/ASC/Creod.html)
    A more specific type of creod: "Behavioral creods are essentially similar to Piaget's notion of schemes, organized patterns of behavior that develop in characteristic ways.  They represent the bias the organism has toward acquiring some rather than other forms of behavior. " (From Synthesizing Nature-Nurture: Prenatal Roots of Instinctive Behavior" by Gilbert Gottlieb.) In a few weeks, we'll view videos from the 70's and 90's which have relevance to behavioral creods.
  For now you may find these ideas abstract but in a few weeks, I think you'll shift into playing with these ideas and explore new experiences with the medium.