(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.
Howdy Paige! No problem posting early. I was actually just re-reading the essay myself, trying to get at what she's talking about again. My understanding of her use of the terms "culture industry" and "consciousness industry" is that they represent, on the one hand, the broadcast-television industry, and on the other the gallery and museum systems of exhibiting art. I don't remember which term corresponds to which, (these terms are from an Adorno essay, I believe) but she is pointing out that video artists in the late 60's and early 70's were critical of both institutions, though the two "streams" within video art that she sites tend to deal with them differently. That is, the "poetic" stream (you could think of artists like Nam June Paik or Bill Viola in this camp) or the "collectivist" (video collectives and pirate tv groups like Top Value Television or VideoFreex would fall into this camp).
ReplyDeleteI think you're on to something in terms of how artists and the industry position the viewer. There are very different approaches to power in terms of what the viewer or audience is expected to see and understand. I think Rosler's claim, though I'm not sure where I stand on it, is that the artists who fall into the "poetic" camp are operating in ways similar to the industries' relationship to the viewer. That is to say, if they are operating within the museum system and asserting themselves as creative individuals who ought to express themselves through the medium of video without actively subverting those systems of power, then they are reinforcing the dominant ideology (in this case, the patriarchal bourgeois system.)
Looking forward to talking about this more in class.