Rosler Rosponse

I believe that one of the most important topics that Rosler touched on was the "museumization" of video art in a gallery setting. She states that "the camera and print technologies were perceived as neutral, tool-like machine to be subsumed under the superior understandings of an aesthetic elite." With this statement she hints that photography and video art were undeserving of gallery presentation because they were not in the traditional style of making art, but perceived simply as a tool that created work quickly. It would also seem that fear had a role in the museamization of video art too. The "aesthetic elite" understood the accessibility of the camera and feared the idea that anyone could now own one, shoot video, and potentially call themselves an artist. " The neutralization of the mass culture puts the pressure on to produce a history art video, or video art, that belongs in the art world and that was authored by people with definable styles and intentions, all recognizable in relations to the principle of construction of the other modern art histories." This became the line between video art and amateur film. It became more important to understand that video art wasn't something that could be presented anywhere, but specifically tailored to be viewed in a gallery setting or installation. "Museumization has heightened the importance of installations that make video into sculpture, painting, or still life, because installations can live only in museums...[and also] contains and minimizes the social negativity that was the matrix for early uses of video."

Response to Rosler

While reading Shedding the Utopian Moment, the quote by Kaprow, "non-art is more art than ART-art," caught my attention. I have always found ready-made art pieces to be insulting. The idea of someone being able to simply choose an object at random, stick it on a pedestal and declare it to be art infuriates me. I feel like the artist should be responsible in some way for the objects creation, whether it be the design or the actual process of constructing the artwork. Duchamp did not create the design for the urinal, nor did he construct one himself to be displayed as "Fountain". However, Kaprow's quote has made me realize that there is another aspect to art that, until this point, I had not accepted. Kaprow speaks of the universe, down to particles of lint and dust, as being more spectacular than anything an artist could create. I would like to think that a ready-made sculpture is a way of bringing attention to the beauty of ordinary objects, and the credit of bringing attention to the artistic nature of the objects would belong to the artist of the ready-made sculpture. Despite the fact that no physical alterations were made, the artist created an alteration in setting, taking the ordinary object out of its natural environment so that the beauty of the object could be revealed to the audience.

M. Rosler

I was interested in the 'culture vs consciousness' idea in the reading and its persistence to emerge. With dominating groups trying to exploit the good out of every possible source and the skeptics of its potential, recognizing video as an art form strengthens the individual and opposes the mainstream.
“As the examinations of the Paik myth suggests, it would be equally mistaken to think that the path of transgression is the destruction of tv as a material object.” Even with all the roadblocks towards shedding western influence changing what the tv represents should be the correct goal. Like in the past, absorb and overcome.
I too wonder who belongs in this target audience the mainstream is supposed to be appealing to. Who decides to produce shows like Jersey Shore and Jerry Springer? Its not only disappointing that such shows ignore the consciousness but represent a cultures of poor values.

Response To Rosler

Again with the art speak and notions of how the "art world" is above the rest of society with its innate ability to be there when new technologies/opportunities arise. Rosler did do a decent job covering the gamut of art/technology from the beginning. Unfortunately, my comprehension of her more elevated statements was lost among her "flowery" art speak and long sentence structure. It's a great way to keep us regular artists on the outside and the "high artists" on the inside with the rest of Post Modernism.

Shedding the Utopian Moment-response

Rosler comments that film-art experienced its height in the 1960's with the counter culture/hippy culture in which psycholdelic and fluxus movements prevailed durring this utopic moment in history. Then, before or after she gives some sort of a westernized art lecture stemming from Dada to Surrealism to Modernism. All the"art world" talk about how non-art is more art than "art-art" made me wonder first of all (and this hasn't been the first time) what and who makes up this supposed art world and how come everyone talks about it?" In my opinion there is just one world and everyone is an artist of some sort within it but that notion isn't so glamorous as Rosler's notion I guess, or maybe its the same notion since i don't fully understand the term. However, I can presume that "art world" people probably consider themselves more cultured than others.
Rosler talks a bit about redefining media from the inside out using avant-garde film to challenge television. Trying to fight against the mass media turned out a failure since the common American has little to no input and since the people that do have control of the airways make way too much money and have way too much fun with it to ever want things to change.
I did find this reading interesting in a kind of tongue and cheek way because it totally dramatizes history in a way that I can't really relate to being born so recently. Did the people really take these things so seriously in the 50's and the 80's, I know the 60s were intense but times change.

Reading Response (Martha Rosler)

So I guess this was about how technology being introduced into society affected it? I find that to be a bit presumptuous; to draw conclusions on what everyone was thinking when so-and-so happened, but lets dive in.

A particular passage took my interest as I found it to be a bit obvious, which was jarring considering the piece I was reading. When referring to the affects of new video technology on society, Rosler says, "Commentators on both left and right looked on the centrality of the machine as meaning the decline of cultural values in the West." I think a lot people's first instinct when something new comes out is to exploit it. It didn't take publicly accessible TV channels long to start producing smut for the masses. I could site examples all day.

I also enjoyed Rosler's conclusion about Jane Livingston's except. Livingston basically says artist style is non-existent in video art, which of course is bogus. I suppose in 1974 no one could have guessed what forms video would take on in the near future.

Overall, the reading was a bit flowery in the wording, and Rosler's sentences sometimes drag on for six lines, but it wasn't bad. I just hope I can think about this critically at 8am tomorrow... See you then!

Jon Cates Glitch Presentation

Hey everyone. I'm not exactly sure how this video corresponds to the talk Jon gave at Centraltrak Saturday since I wasn't able to make it, but you should definitely take a look at this. It touches on several themes we've been talking about in class, including discussion of cyber-psychedelia, live glitch-based video performance, and thinking about technology as performing a "magical" function. This should provide an interesting counterpoint to the Rosler essay you are all reading for Monday and her discussion of the mystical/poetic strain of early video artists. Enjoy!

!NV0(ɔ)4XXX!0N555 PTI - jonCates (2011) from joncates on Vimeo.

Reading Response

(I believe I'm posting this a bit early, but I didn't realize that until half way thru writing it, so I'll post it anyway, ha ha.)

I found a particular statement in Martha Rosler's Shedding The Utopian Moment kind of interesting and would like to expand upon it. She was basically describing how one was not supposed to "enter the system, but to transform every aspect of it and ... to redefine the system out of existence by merging art with social life and making audience and producer interchangeable." After reading more thoughts on this issue, and with a bit of translating on my part so that I could easily understand what was being said, it seems Rosler came to the conclusion that video art creates its message or whatever image it portrays through the audience that's viewing it as opposed to industries or institutions that common broadcasting try to target. You're able to interact with video art through your own consciousness, which is what makes these videos, and the bond between art and technology, work in the first place. We don't usually feel much for normal, daily broadcasting on television because we've been inclined to think that it's always trying to sell or suggest that we do something that will benefit them, thus we lose whatever real connection we could have with those videos. Simply knowing that a video was made and meant for us to watch , that wants us to use our own interpretations, opinions, and "sensibility" to help birth the artist's AND the viewer's vision, is the difference between the "culture industry VS consciousness industry" Rosler mentions earlier.

Oops...

Hi everyone. As Andrew pointed out in his response, I botched the acronym that represents the course when making the blog. Sorry for any confusion (probably only my own.) As you can see, I've changed the title at the top of the blog, but the domain will remain the same. Also, I wanted to say that you each made some great observations on the readings for this last week and I'm looking forward to your responses in the coming weeks. That said, if it's possible to make everyone's response an independent post, this will be easier for navigating. Then, if you feel compelled, you can respond to the observations of your peers in the comment section. I'm sorry I didn't mention this the first day. See you in the morning.

Mike

response to readings

From reading the preface to Expanded Cinema I was then inspired to read the introduction which gave me a greater sense of what this book was about. From a philosophical standpoint I took from it that people need to start working together to make the world a more sustainable and practical place to live for everyone rather than getting all worked up over money and other short term goals which don't matter in the long run. Because the Universe is our home and it is a place that is constantly changing and moving and we know almost nothing about it. This seems like a really positive notion to me.

Kino Eye and Metaphors on vision seem to question human perception and suggests that we try to see without thinking or editing what we see, but to picture our eye as a camera and to observe what we see as real- "allow so called hallucination to enter the realm of perception"..."accept day dreams or night dreams, as you would so-called real scenes, even allowing that the abstractions which move so dynamically when closed eyelids are pressed are actually perceived."

Readings Posted

Hello everyone. In case I didn't have the right e-mail address for you, here is the link to the class readings:

http://michaelalexandermorris.com/readings.html

See you Monday.

Mike

Welcome to ATSU 4450 New Media Topics course on Expanded Cinema.

Hello and welcome to the course blog for ATSU 4450 New Media Topics at UNT. As we will discuss in class, "Expanded Cinema" is an approach to thinking about image making and media that can be interpreted liberally. We will be considering the historical and contemporary contexts of avant-garde film and video art and how they have informed and are informed by this particular perspective. Much of this will revolve around Gene Youngblood's text, "Expanded Cinema", but will include other writings as well. This blog will be a forum for us to discuss readings, projects, and works viewed in class. While this is a studio course, there will be readings assigned on a weekly basis, and you will be required to post a substantial response on the blog before the following class meeting and be ready to discuss. Readings will be assigned in class, but will also be denoted on the syllabus.

I'm excited to get to know you all and look forward to seeing the work you produce!


Here's a little something to whet your Expanded Cinema whistle.



Mike Morris