they hit me with a truck

This is perhaps not terribly obscure, but I found it interesting that the Quay brothers are recorded as disliking their contributions to this video because it looked too much like Svankmajer’s work and left none of their own personal imprint on the finished product. Although the brothers have worked on music videos for several artists (something that takes me back to our very first class discussion concerning video art and artful video), I only recognize Peter Gabriel’s name among them. Is it possible to create both video art and artful video, choosing between the two concepts rather that just having your work end up as one or the other?

There is an almost direct line of descent from Warhol’s video’s of his pretty people to the reality programming of today; the discomfiting awkwardness, the beautiful but messed-up people and the short lived shots at fame are all still there.  Perhaps the only real differences that separate the Real World from Kitchen is precendent and commodification.  Some say reality TV is just the exploitation of people who are too stupid or too desperate to realize it; the people closest to Warhol often said the same of his videos and we only need to look at the implosion of many of the lives surrounding him (Edie, Valerie Solanis,  Andrea Feldman, etc) to see validity in the claim.  Current reality TV panders to viewer’s desire to witness drama in a a seemingly real environment although most of it is scripted while Warhol filmed his works in an unscripted way mostly to avoid using his weak narrative skill, but his method creates a similar sensation of being caught somewhere between reality and a production.   Warhol’s work is pioneering and borders on the mythological while the “reality” we’re stuck with now is mostly a joke.

Like most of Warhol’s work, it would seem that his magazine inter/VIEW (later changed to just “Interview“) was inspired mostly out of jealousy. According to former post-silver Factory employee Bob Colacello, Warhol saw the success of the magazines Screw (a magazine devoted to porno movies) and Rolling Stone and decided that he wanted in on the action. Following the Solanis shooting, the Factory moved to a much more office-like space, perfect for the production of such a project; this undertaking is one of the best examples of the consumerist turn the Factory took after Warhol’s attempted assassination. So, Warhol decided to put out a film magazine, a periodical devoted to the celebrities that represented the stars he used to pore over as a child and whose images he silk screened into eternity. The magazine not only revolved around Warhol’s favorite subject, it also operated in much the same way as his paintings and sculptures: it was done in the easiest, least labor-intensive way possible. All of the interviews in the magazine were direct transcriptions of tape-recorded sessions, so no original writing was required of the staff and it was printed on cheap newsprint, just like Rolling Stone and Screw. Unlike these two publications, however, Warhol’s new project did not have the overnight success he was hoping to achieve. (However, the magazine is still going today as the “crystal ball of pop” at www.interviewmagazine.com)

Despite the stand-alone nature of artistic production, we always want to see what motivates the great artists; in the case of Warhol, he was a great “star fucker” who adored being with the rich and famous and it is these superficial qualities of celebrity and fortune that drove him throughout most of his career. He became a “real” artist out of his envy of Jasper Johns and other emerging pop artists, and he became a publisher for essentially the same reason. (Info from Bob Colacello taken from his book Holy Terror: Andy Warhol Up Close)

Surrealist masterpiece. Scares me more than any mainstream horror movie ever could.

After looking into the work of pioneer video artist Nam June Paik, I was particularly struck by the intersection of various art forms  and concepts in his art.  Though probably most famous as a video artist, Paik combined the medium of video with sculpture (living and inert) and performance in works like “Cello” and “Techno Buddha.”  In contemplating video art it had not really occurred to me the level of interaction possible between an artist and video could go so far beyond the original conception and creation of the on-screen images.  His collaboration with Charlotte Moorland highlights the interaction of viewer and material as her living form was often part of the piece, to the point where she was arrested for participating in “Opera Sextronique” topless.  In his very first participation in a conceptual art show (Exposition of Music- Electronic Television)  he manipulated  images on television monitors with magnets, creating an experience in which the video was not the final product, but merely the first step in a more complex piece.  Not only is there a deeper level of participation in Paik’s videos, but the orientation and configuration of the monitors themselves is important to the whole sculptural nature of the presentation- the monitors are often arranged in specific shapes or settings that facilitates viewer interaction with the piece while simultaneously distancing the viewer from the content of the video. 

While Paik and Andy Warhol were working in video near the same time, their approaches could not have been more different.  While Paik collaborated with Moorland in a significant, lasting way, Warhol was known for his production of the “superstar” characters like Edie Sedgewick and Baby Jane Holzer, who were essentially disposable.  Also, Warhol’s films were videos presented as such, and thus relied almost exclusively on their content (and the mythos surrounding the Factory) rather than any outside participation from the artist.  In Warhol’s case, this distancing of the viewer from the artist was essential to the Pop Art concepts of superficiality and celebrity, but for Paik it is the layers he creates with multiple interactions that generates the power of his work. 

While researching and discussing video art, especially the interactive nature of works by Nam June Paik, I was reminded of a David Cronenberg film I watched a while back.  In this movie, a television executive discovers a channel where people are filmed being tortured and killed.  However, the idea is not a simple as it sounds and the movie soon moves beyond the idea of mere voyeurism and into the intersection of viewer participation and reality.  The channel soon triggers hallucinations in viewers and eventually a sort of melding of reality and video takes place.  I don’t want to say more for fear of ruining the plot, but there are some particularly haunting images in this film that are extremely interesting in the context of viewer interaction and the impact of video in everyday life.