Controversial Video Art Article (TEXT)
This article will be about Video Installation Art, that has caused uproar from the members of the public; making it controversial video art. The Artists that I will be focusing on in this article will be the following:
· Bill Viola
· Wolf Vostell
· David Wojnarowicz
I will be going through one of their pieces, their styles/techniques in how they present the piece and background narratives to the pieces; I will also be giving the audiences response to their art and how it was seen to be controversial.
Bill Viola
This video artist is one of the most famous/known artists in the video installation art media, he has been doing video tape recordings, architectural video installations, sound environments, electronic music performances, flat panel video pieces, and works for television broadcast for 40 years and now he is seen as one of the world’s top leading artists.
The type of video art that he produces relate/link with life and death and he has stuck to this theme throughout his video installation art, as this made him stand out from the crowd; it can rightfully be called his own style – and this is how his work has become controversial.
An example of one of his video art installation: ‘Anthem’ done at 1983, this was one of his videotape pieces which had colour and stereo sound, the length of this piece was 11:30mins.The video art starts off by showing the area and also showing ripped up parts of food; such as bread, fruits and vegetables. Another thing that came up that could relate to what happened later on the video was the insides of fruits, as this relates to the insides of a human body. There could be a narrative to this piece although I don’t have clear ideas, one thing that can be applied to this piece is Bill Viola’s very on theme which is life and death. Life in this piece can be the cities, construction work in the video and the ripe fruit; the death can link with the halved/crushed fruit and vegetable, insides of an eye lid and a opened up body with a visible beating heart. This for done for the videotape, the camera techniques used by Bill Viola in this video installation was a fixed camera that pointed at one direction – which was the focus of the scene. Viola himself described this piece as "our deepest primal fears, darkness, and the separation of body and spirit." This shows that this piece was linked to life and death; since its about the separation of the body and spirit. Another thing his quote contained was the general dark theme which is in most of his art. In my opinion i think that this piece was wrong in so many ways due to its extremely graphical content, i don’t even think that horror movies would contain this much graphical content, even though everyone knows that they’re all fake – but this was real making it more hard to look at.
Wolf Vostell
He has worked along the sides of some of the great video artists themselves such as Paik and Maciunas. He has done work with several mediums such as prints, videos, environment and installation art.
An example of Vostell’s video art: ‘Elektronischer: Happening Raum (Happening Room)’ done at 1968, this a videotape recording that had colour as well as sound, was recorded in a spaced out room with objects scattered around the room which most of them moved one way or another, the items used in the video were: Classic Televisions with weird tools attached to them which moved, old pile of clothing which looked rugged and dirty, a lot of meat on floor as well as on the pipes plus other places such as the floor, blood stained cloth, ski equipment, somewhat of a sharp weapon and other weird things that i can’t possibly name. This Video Installation art was set in this room which had things happening such as a television showing what seems to be key relevance about a past event, it has showed allot of weirdly created objects with meat attached to it; the video has been filmed by what seemed like someone holding a camera looking at the objects as this created the effect off a shaky camera. Audience responses to this video art can be simply put to “Why? What?” due to its random meat battering and the amount of blood that was contained in this art. I think that this may have been weird and disturbing but i thought ‘what was he trying to show us?’ so that made me feel uneasy when watching the video, i think overall it was interesting in a way cause this is how he expresses his views on maybe the political society.
David Wojnarowicz
Throughout David Wojnarowicz art career he was a photographer, painter, writer, filmmaker and a performance artist.
His most controversial piece was “Fire in my Belly” which was done at 1987 this has been known to be biggest uproar in terms of video art due to the fact that it seemed as if David Wojnarocwicz has put religion down by having an imagery of Jesus Christ with insects that are crawling all over the figure. The theme of the video as very dark and it also theme almost scary at times; its used dripping blood, a figurine model of Jesus Christ covered with insects, A rotting hand. The use of technology was varied as there many sudden transitions, also there was parts were he has played a bit with lighting as he made it flicker. There was use of narrative forms in this video installation piece as it has been said that he has made this video in memory of a friend that has died from AIDs, He is also suffering from the same disease when he created this video. This video was made to express his feelings; the world has abandoned him as the US did nothing about this problem for many years, he felt alone, he felt as if he was suffering the same amount of pain as Jesus Christ
The nature of the audience still stayed the same as they thought it was irrelevant to add Jesus Christ and all the other religious themes into the video as they think he his saying that religion and suffering are in equal terms.
In my opinion, i would have to agree with the other audiences views, I think that it was irrelevant to add the imagery of Jesus Christ in such disturbing scenario, to me it showed that David Wojnarowicz, even though he is going through this pain, he has shown ignorance by putting ‘Hope’ with ‘Evil’ (suffering).
Conclusion
To conclude, I think that these artists have showed their uniqueness and deserve to be getting praise as well as disgust
The works that i have discussed all had one thing in common; which was that dark graphical mood/tone as it had common characteristics such as blood and the use of the human body (mainly corpse) but they all had there own unique touch of story into in for example Bill Viola had the theme of ‘life and death’, Wolf Vostell having his own political interpretations as his theme and David Wojnarowicz linking his own personal life/experience into the overall theme to his art.
Over the years video art has evolved, as now it is less graphical then the old video arts, in terms of narrative it has also become more complex yet more clearer; by it being complex means that it can have many interpretations, more diverse and simplistic. Another thing is that technology has improved, common camera effects in an old video installation piece would be the standard low quality fixed camera also with simple effects, to this day we use camera equipment but now its more advanced, most recent video art are found in 1080p – 720p HD. Over the years video art has become more varied as better software programs are out allowing people to use better effects for example in some of the recent video arts that i have seen there were; use of blur, change of saturation, change of brightness/contrast as these effects can make dramatic changes to a piece setting the whole mood/tone just by one effect.
These Video artists have become an influence to the next piece that I will be producing; I’ve learned that by putting emotion into a piece of art, the work will be become more solid in a sense. What all these artist have shown me is that the best way to make an installation art piece is by adding full passion and emotion to a piece and then jumbling it, leaving the viewer to figure it out is the best way.
This article will be about Video Installation Art, that has caused uproar from the members of the public; making it controversial video art. The Artists that I will be focusing on in this article will be the following:
· Bill Viola
· Wolf Vostell
· David Wojnarowicz
I will be going through one of their pieces, their styles/techniques in how they present the piece and background narratives to the pieces; I will also be giving the audiences response to their art and how it was seen to be controversial.
Bill Viola
This video artist is one of the most famous/known artists in the video installation art media, he has been doing video tape recordings, architectural video installations, sound environments, electronic music performances, flat panel video pieces, and works for television broadcast for 40 years and now he is seen as one of the world’s top leading artists.
The type of video art that he produces relate/link with life and death and he has stuck to this theme throughout his video installation art, as this made him stand out from the crowd; it can rightfully be called his own style – and this is how his work has become controversial.
An example of one of his video art installation: ‘Anthem’ done at 1983, this was one of his videotape pieces which had colour and stereo sound, the length of this piece was 11:30mins.The video art starts off by showing the area and also showing ripped up parts of food; such as bread, fruits and vegetables. Another thing that came up that could relate to what happened later on the video was the insides of fruits, as this relates to the insides of a human body. There could be a narrative to this piece although I don’t have clear ideas, one thing that can be applied to this piece is Bill Viola’s very on theme which is life and death. Life in this piece can be the cities, construction work in the video and the ripe fruit; the death can link with the halved/crushed fruit and vegetable, insides of an eye lid and a opened up body with a visible beating heart. This for done for the videotape, the camera techniques used by Bill Viola in this video installation was a fixed camera that pointed at one direction – which was the focus of the scene. Viola himself described this piece as "our deepest primal fears, darkness, and the separation of body and spirit." This shows that this piece was linked to life and death; since its about the separation of the body and spirit. Another thing his quote contained was the general dark theme which is in most of his art. In my opinion i think that this piece was wrong in so many ways due to its extremely graphical content, i don’t even think that horror movies would contain this much graphical content, even though everyone knows that they’re all fake – but this was real making it more hard to look at.
Wolf Vostell
He has worked along the sides of some of the great video artists themselves such as Paik and Maciunas. He has done work with several mediums such as prints, videos, environment and installation art.
An example of Vostell’s video art: ‘Elektronischer: Happening Raum (Happening Room)’ done at 1968, this a videotape recording that had colour as well as sound, was recorded in a spaced out room with objects scattered around the room which most of them moved one way or another, the items used in the video were: Classic Televisions with weird tools attached to them which moved, old pile of clothing which looked rugged and dirty, a lot of meat on floor as well as on the pipes plus other places such as the floor, blood stained cloth, ski equipment, somewhat of a sharp weapon and other weird things that i can’t possibly name. This Video Installation art was set in this room which had things happening such as a television showing what seems to be key relevance about a past event, it has showed allot of weirdly created objects with meat attached to it; the video has been filmed by what seemed like someone holding a camera looking at the objects as this created the effect off a shaky camera. Audience responses to this video art can be simply put to “Why? What?” due to its random meat battering and the amount of blood that was contained in this art. I think that this may have been weird and disturbing but i thought ‘what was he trying to show us?’ so that made me feel uneasy when watching the video, i think overall it was interesting in a way cause this is how he expresses his views on maybe the political society.
David Wojnarowicz
Throughout David Wojnarowicz art career he was a photographer, painter, writer, filmmaker and a performance artist.
His most controversial piece was “Fire in my Belly” which was done at 1987 this has been known to be biggest uproar in terms of video art due to the fact that it seemed as if David Wojnarocwicz has put religion down by having an imagery of Jesus Christ with insects that are crawling all over the figure. The theme of the video as very dark and it also theme almost scary at times; its used dripping blood, a figurine model of Jesus Christ covered with insects, A rotting hand. The use of technology was varied as there many sudden transitions, also there was parts were he has played a bit with lighting as he made it flicker. There was use of narrative forms in this video installation piece as it has been said that he has made this video in memory of a friend that has died from AIDs, He is also suffering from the same disease when he created this video. This video was made to express his feelings; the world has abandoned him as the US did nothing about this problem for many years, he felt alone, he felt as if he was suffering the same amount of pain as Jesus Christ
The nature of the audience still stayed the same as they thought it was irrelevant to add Jesus Christ and all the other religious themes into the video as they think he his saying that religion and suffering are in equal terms.
In my opinion, i would have to agree with the other audiences views, I think that it was irrelevant to add the imagery of Jesus Christ in such disturbing scenario, to me it showed that David Wojnarowicz, even though he is going through this pain, he has shown ignorance by putting ‘Hope’ with ‘Evil’ (suffering).
Conclusion
To conclude, I think that these artists have showed their uniqueness and deserve to be getting praise as well as disgust
The works that i have discussed all had one thing in common; which was that dark graphical mood/tone as it had common characteristics such as blood and the use of the human body (mainly corpse) but they all had there own unique touch of story into in for example Bill Viola had the theme of ‘life and death’, Wolf Vostell having his own political interpretations as his theme and David Wojnarowicz linking his own personal life/experience into the overall theme to his art.
Over the years video art has evolved, as now it is less graphical then the old video arts, in terms of narrative it has also become more complex yet more clearer; by it being complex means that it can have many interpretations, more diverse and simplistic. Another thing is that technology has improved, common camera effects in an old video installation piece would be the standard low quality fixed camera also with simple effects, to this day we use camera equipment but now its more advanced, most recent video art are found in 1080p – 720p HD. Over the years video art has become more varied as better software programs are out allowing people to use better effects for example in some of the recent video arts that i have seen there were; use of blur, change of saturation, change of brightness/contrast as these effects can make dramatic changes to a piece setting the whole mood/tone just by one effect.
These Video artists have become an influence to the next piece that I will be producing; I’ve learned that by putting emotion into a piece of art, the work will be become more solid in a sense. What all these artist have shown me is that the best way to make an installation art piece is by adding full passion and emotion to a piece and then jumbling it, leaving the viewer to figure it out is the best way.