Fluxus Scores

Cut:

A group takes several sheets of normal or colored paper, folding it once. They pass these sheets around the group, adding more folds to it. After 5 turns per paper, the same is done while cutting out sections of it, 5 times and passed around each. Open the papers, and throw then across the room.


Clap:

The group stands up from their seats and begins an applause, adding as many whoops and hollers as they choose, and it lasts until everyone is finished clapping and has taken their seat once again.


Proper use:

The group takes several items of silverware; plates, cups, forks, knives, and uses them to both serve and eat food and drink in ways that they were not intended. A plate can be used as a cup, a knife can be used as a plate, a cup can be used as a spoon, etc. The performance ends when everyone is either full or has run out of food.

Fluxus Performances

1. var Tooth Decay = !acceptable

Making sure that your teeth are commonly cleaned is an important part of being an artist and can help prevent periodontal disease and gingivitis. It is important to get into the swing of this if you are to be successful in life. For this first performance, the performer will squeeze some toothpaste onto a normally soft-bristled toothbrush or other teeth cleansing device. The toothpaste should contain a descent amount of fluoride for extra cleanliness. Using short, back-and-forth brushing motions, the performer cleans the outside and inside surfaces of his or her teeth, as well as the chewing surfaces on the top or bottom. It's important to pay careful attention to the gum line, as most gum disease starts in this area, but do NOT scrub too hard, as it may damage your gums altogether. The performer makes sure to brush their back molars as well as the tongue to remove the hidden bacteria that commonly causes bad breath. The most critical part of this piece is the spitting out of the toothpaste and rinsing with water or mouthwash.

2. Stick Work

The second performance is somewhat musical and requires the performer to be familiar with drumsticks to a certain extent. Drumsticks are usually made of wood, often hickory, oak or hard maple, and sometimes aluminum, carbon fiber and other sort of weird plastics. Some sticks have wooden tips and others use acorn, barrel oval and rounded. The performer uses two stick in both hands and holds them almost directly in the center of each stick so that there is an even amount on both ends. The performer holds the sticks out in front of him or her and uses each end back and forth to make clicking sounds with the sticks in an almost perfect 4/4 time. To do this the performer does right hand up and down, then follows with left hand up and down. The performer will do this until such a time as his or her hands are tired or the audience just can't take it anymore because the sound it makes is so fucking annoying.

3. Stick Break

In order to merge chaos with the more artistic, this final performance will use the sticks as well and lead to their eventual downfall. The performer will twirl the sticks a number of ways using both hands and impress the audience with their agility and grace. Then, suddenly, at a moment of artistic and stick-like-athletic-climax; the performer will promptly bring both sticks together out in front of him and Karate Kid them into 4 pieces and throw them at the crowd. Applause Applause Applause, take a bow, exit stage right.

three fluxus scores

Knock Knock:

This performance score will take however many people there are in the room. They will first all lineup in a single file line in the front of the room. Next they will all walk to the door. As they come to the door, depending on what number they are in the line thats how many times they will knock. For example if you are the fourth person you will knock 4 times on the door.

Alphabet Noise:

This performance score will need at least 5 people people but the more the better. Each person will get a letter of the alphabet. Then on que each person will say there letter out load over and over for 20 seconds straight.

Stapler:

This performance score is best for a big group of people. Each person will be given a piece of paper. Then a stapler will be passed around the room, as the person gets the stapler they will be asked to staple their piece of paper to the papers from the people who already went. They can staple it however they want. The score is ended once everyone has stapled something to the stack of papers.

Three Fluxus Performance Scores

1. Emaning Names

The first part of this performance score is that the performer will take their own name and make as many words/letters as they can under 30 seconds all the while doing this orally and loudly. The second part is that the performer's name will be used again and pronounced backwards 10 times in a different voice tone each time by the performer. This score can involve as many other volunteer performers as possible.

2. Paper Angels

A volunteer or more is needed to accomplish this score. The performer takes a load of any kind of paper they can find and dump it on the floor or some place someone can lay on. The volunteer lays down on the load of paper and spreads their limbs out keeping that position locked in. Now the performer who dumped the paper can start slowly taking away paper from the pile the volunteer is laying on. The idea is to take away paper until it becomes the shape of the volunteer still laying on the paper. If the performer has made the shape they wanted, the volunteer can finally get up to show off their own angel made out of sheets of paper.

3. Animal Antics

This performance score can invite an entire crowd of volunteers to do. Based on the first letter of the performer's first name, the performer will become the animal with the same first letter of the kind. For example, if the performer(s) name begins with M, they can choose to be a monkey and act as one. The performer(s) will fully behave and act like their chosen animal counter part for a full minute. Afterward, they will switch to the first letter of their last name and become the animal with the same first letter they choose the same way for another full minute.

Fluxus Performance Scores

Half a Stick of Gum

The performer takes a stick of gum out of his pocket. He rips it in half, then unwraps one half and puts it in his mouth and chews it. He then places the other half in another pocket. This process continues until the performer runs out of whole sticks of gum.

Your Shoe's Untied

The performer unties one of his shoes, then proceeds to remove the lace from the shoe. He studies the shoelace to make sure it is structurally intact and then re-laces his shoe, ties it, and sits back down in his seat.

Who Wants Only Half a Stick of Gum?

This performance can only be done after already doing the Half a Stick of Gum performance.

The performer takes out the half-sticks of gum in his pocket and offers them to audience members. He pretends not to hear anyone that accepts the offer and finally unwraps the gum, puts it in his mouth and chews it loudly and obnoxiously for a few seconds. He then ferociously spits the gum into a trashcan.

FLUXUS FLUXUS

Score Pieces :

1) Cover the Rainbow :
The performer stands in front of the audience and starts to shout out random colors of the rainbow. The audience then joins in by shouting out random colors as well. This continues on for a bit of time until the performer suddenly stops.

2) Disappearing Act? :
The performer stands in front of the audience again. They count to ten very slowly and instruct the audience to count to ten just as slow with their eyes closed. The performer will then move to a random seat in the room, preferably away from the front of the audience. They will then open their eyes after they reach ten and notice that the performer is not standing in front of them any more.

3) Have a Pen?
The performer goes around the classroom several times asking every individual person if they have a pen or a pencil. If the person hands them a pen or a pencil, the performer shouts "NO! NOT THIS!" and continues asking until one person hands them a random object or a reasonable amount of time has passed. If someone hands the performer a random object they kindly say thank you to the person, if it ends with no random object then the performer simply sits in his seat.

3 Fluxus Performance Scores

Isn't that a slap to the face?

2 performers walk up to one another. One offers thier hand, the other looks down at it, back up to thier face, then slaps them across the face. < 1 minute

Stare Down.

A performer asks audience members to stand, then walks up to each member in turn, staring them in the eyes with maybe 10 inches (max) of personal space between them for 3 seconds. 1-3 minutes.

Cellular Misconduct.

Performer stands in front of audience, asking for thier attention. Performer then proceeds to take thier cellphone out of thier pocket and text, laughing periodically at the unshared interaction they are engaged in. 2-3 minutes.

Three Fluxus Performance Scores

Would you kindly…?:
Performer picks up and holds a chair, asking the audience for help until a volunteer arises. Performer asks the volunteer, “Would you kindly take this chair?” and if they agree the chair is given to them. Upon the transaction the performer promptly leaves the room.

Don’t Think Before You Leap:
Performer asks for a volunteer, performer tells the volunteer to say the first thing that pops into their head in response to a word the performer says, taking no longer than three seconds. The performer responds with the first thing that pops into their head. The cycle continues until one or the other can’t think of anything or takes longer than three seconds to respond. Alternatively this can involve the entire audience, with each one going to the next until they come back to the performer.

At a Loss for Vowels:
Performer asks the audience to choose a vowel, the chosen vowel is now forbidden. A starting volunteer is asked from the audience. The performer starts a conversation, using only one word without the forbidden vowel, the volunteer replies with a two-word response sans the vowel. The volunteer turns to the next person in the audience and starts a conversation with three words to which the audience member replies with four words. This continues throughout the audience, increasing by one word throughout. At the five word sentence and every other “multiple of five” word sentence that comes after a vowel is removed, until only one is left. The performance ends when the audience can’t think of a response or uses a forbidden vowel.

Fluxus Performances

Collaborative Count
Have the leader start by counting from one.
Leader: one
Crowd: two
leader: three
Crowd: four
Leader: five
crowd: six
Leader: seven
crowd: eight
Leader: nine
Crowd: ten
The Count is complete. Thank you

Text Message
Write a message on a piece of paper
Crumble up the piece of paper
Throw the piece of paper at a person
Have the person read the message
Text message received

The Opposite
Each time the leader says something simple like Up, or left, the audience responds with the opposite which would be down or right.

LEFT!
audience: right
RIGHT!
audience: left
DOWN
audience: up
UP!
audience:down
STOP
audience: GO
*this is repeated until someone in the audience yells out the incorrect opposite*

Montage

In terms of abstraction, I primarily featured motion or light distortion to create the abstract aesthetic. What I was focusing on with this montage was progressive motion, beginning with a static camera and accelerating to the point that the video ends with incoherent motion as I turn and shake the camera erratically. I began with a clip of my ceiling fan, which has a lamp on it. By adjusting the exposure of my camera, I flared the lamp light and darkened my walls and ceiling, and the effect was that only the light and the spinning fan was visible. The goal was to induce the viewer to focus their eyes on the bright light, and let their peripheral vision register the subtle dashes of light created by the fan blades. This phenomenon is something I've often experienced when returning to the train station at night time. The moving cars on the street invade my vision with their headlights, and so even if I'm not directly looking at them, I am constantly aware of their presence, much like the fan blades in the clip.

The camera's motion then turns from static to slowly ascending, then to swiftly ascending before abruptly shifting axis to left and right motion. This footage was me standing in front of my blinds as I moved the camera from side to side. Interestingly, the bending and slanting of the blinds is entirely an illusion, as I ensured the camera to be as still as possible. the repetitive movement in this clip was useful for transitioning into another scene where I stand in my living room and hold the camera in front of me, spinning around as fast as I can. This causes severe motion blur which I then transferred into a new scene, consisting of the camera tumbling around through the air. So I began with no motion from the camera at all, then gradually shifted to unidirectional motion, then bidirectional, and ended with chaotic motion.

Child's History of Fluxus

In A Child’s History of Fluxus, Dick Higgins begins by telling of the movement’s inception around the year 1958, where a number of artists worldwide (including Higgins) began to take on a common desire to make art out of everyday acts and objects. One of these artists, La Monte, collaborated with his friend George Maciunas to create an anthology of his works, which later gave way to a magazine in which this art movement was given the name Fluxus. Higgins continues that to advertise the magazine, Fluxus concerts were created, thus adding the idea of performances besides static pieces of art.

Over the next few years, Higgins explains, Fluxus became popular around the art world. This lead to several members of the movement becoming famous and associating themselves with other, non-Fluxus people; this caused conflict in the group. But despite this, the artists’ passion for Fluxus allowed it to survive, and so the movement still exists today.

Reading Response: Antin

Antin begins by speaking about the history of television in the United States. He explains that the entire technical system of broadcasting television was designed by the radio networks (who essentially were appointed as a monopoly on the medium by the government) to bring themselves the largest profit. The system of broadcasting was regulated in a manner that ensured nobody except the radio companies could afford to transmit television, while many people could afford to receive it.

Antin further explains that this precedent set in early television ingrained into the public the idea that transmitting television was a professional art not to be taken lightly (due to the expensiveness of equipment), thus discouraging them from participating in interactive video. However, this seems to be the former way of things; I am unsure of how dated this article is, but things are definitely not the same now with technology such as YouTube and iPhones.

Next Antin reveals how live TV brought about the advent of video. As impressive as live broadcasting was, events films were unpredictable and—out of desire for smoother broadcasts—producers began recording well-prepared live events and then replaying them on TV, thus creating video. This is interesting because here were real-life events being treated like a movie, where all errors are removed and the illusion of smoothness is presented. What is even more fascinating, however, is when Antin says that the public actually enjoyed the unpredictability of live TV over pre-recorded, because the mistakes or surprised that occurred were more reflective of real life.

Fluxus Performances

Ready For Takeoff

1) Ensure you are at least 10 ft away from the audience, and have plenty of open space around you.

2) Hold your arms out to your side and spin in place as fast as you can, for 20 rotations.

3) On the 20th rotation, jump as high as you can and hover around the room. If unsuccessful, enjoy a moment of altered reality.

Messing with Nature

1) On a whiteboard, draw a sideways profile of a dog (the entire dog not just the head).

2) Take a coin and pass it to a member of the audience, instructing them to flip it and call the side.

3) If they get heads, draw another head on the dog. If they get tails, draw another tail.

4) Repeat until everyone in the audience has gotten a chance to flip the coin.

Ice Cold Milk with...

1) Sit before you a plate Oreo cookies and a glass of milk, as well as a garbage can at your side.

2) Take a cookie, and dip it in the milk, preparing it any additional way you like (splitting it in two, etc.) but do not eat the cookie.

3) Hold the cookie to your mouth as if about to eat it, then throw it into the garbage can and take a drink of milk.

4) Repeat until there are no more cookies, and drink any remaining milk.

Reminder: Performance Scores Due

Hope you had a satisfying spring break! Your Fluxus-inspired Performance Scores are due before class Wednesday, March 30. Please post all three scores as one blog post. The homework description is on our class Oasis page in the handouts section. This is the same as the sheet you received in class. Please be prepared to share one of your performances in class.

Performance Scores

1. Ruined Ending

Grab a book and turn it to the back. After you have done that you would open the pages and flip through the pages backwards. When done, turn it back around and close the book.

2. Outcast

Get three markers. Two of them will have similar colors and the other will be of a different color. Hold the markers together for a moment and then separate the different color from the rest.

3. Drawing a Conclusion

Have a piece of paper with a road and a chicken drawn on it. On the bottom it reads, “Draw A Conclusion...”. You will then give the piece of paper to someone else and see what they do. Then pass the paper to one more person and see the conclusion.

Fluxus Performance Scores

Lila Chiu
Fluxus Performance Scores


Sharp Pen(cil))> Pal
Take a pencil and a sharpener and hand it to someone at one end.  Ask him/her to sharpen the pencil then pass it to the next person to do the same.
Take a pen and a sharpener and hand it to someone at the opposite end.  Ask him/her to sharpen the pen then pass it to the next person to do the same. 
When everyone has sharpened both objects, have someone write “THE END” with the sharpened pencil and pen in an alternating pattern.  (For example, if “T” is written in pencil, “H” will be written with pen, “E” pencil, “E” pen, and so on so forth).


Beauty Stage
Put on make-up with the back of the mirror facing you (mirror facing the audience).
As you are doing your make-up act as though you are checking your progress in the mirror.  In other words, look at the back of the mirror as though you actually see your reflection.   


A Bread Statement 
Get a slice of bread out.
Eat from the center, leaving the bread crust uneaten.
Wear the remaining piece (the bread crust) as a bracelet.  

Flux pieces

1. balled up paper will be thrown to each person in the class, each person will then
say the first letter that comes to mind and others will follow to spell-out a complete
word or compound word.

2. a line or a full sheet of paper will be on the floor and a person will jump back and forth
4 times over it.

3. A pen will be passed around and you must compliment it as you do a person.

Surfaces

Surfaces

This essay is an accompaniment to the footage I shot of surfaces and how they can be perceived by looking at them, walking on them, running on them, and possibly falling on them.


I shot several different surfaces to show their similarities and differences in texture, construction, meanings, and purpose. Out of all the different surfaces I shot they made me think that they can be identical for example the crack I found in one surface can also been seen on the other surfaces I shot if they received that kind of damage. All of the surfaces tell a story about a building, street, neighborhood, transportation etc. I bet if they could talk, they would talk about the when they became surfaces, and all the people and things that came in contact with them such as weather, or coffee being spilled.

I showed one surface in the smoothness of it as on an upscale building wall made of marble, another surface with grips as on a bus that makes you wonder how many people slipped walking on it. Another surface rough and smooth as I did with a rug, and the rest were in different ways of concrete surfaces that can be seen as person sees it running forward or backwards, falling in a spiral, different angles etc. all to show how the surface stays the same what we do with it changes.

I wish however that I was able to get shots of temporary surfaces such as snow, or rain and how it becomes the surface, and how the original surface depending strength of it stays the same after the rain dries up, and the snow melts. The surfaces all tell a story, and that story can be yours.

erik andersons abstract video

Pattern Distortion

For my video, I did something I call pattern distortion which I tried to based the video off of. There are several different shots of different patterns all conceived as an actual montage theme. The keywords here are, "pattern" and "motion" in this video I showcase. What's really happening in the video is me taking several different abstract patterns and then infusing motion based on the pattern like design of what's viewed. The structure goes along with motion moving along with the pattern as a unison except of bit of the last two shots I did. There's a very black pattern and a white pattern as the last two shots using contracting motion signals to end the video with. There's hardly any motion applied on the shot of the black pattern abstract while I tried to make the white pattern motion as chaotic as it could get moving all directions. There's also another chaotic object in motion pattern shot I did to demonstrate more motion and pattern unison.

The focus of what I did was try to create motion for particular patterns we tend to see. Trying to make the biggest variety out of them as much as I could with limited time. Also I kept most of the motion in control slowly as the video works its way up the more chaotic patterns and motions to come.

Ron Sershon
Montage
MTD2

My montage is basically a representation using light and different objects around my house to show a version of motion. I started out using a big metal pot and a flash light and moved the light around in fast motion. This showed the movement of the light in the pan but also how it reflected off of the metal. I then turned on a fan and turned it on high speed and recorded that. The fan was going fast enough where you could not exactly tell what it was. I then taped the sick in my laundry room as I was washing clothes and recorded the drip from the sink along with the water coming from the washer. The drip of the water left a cool shadow in the background so I decided to leave the shot how it was. After that I video tapped the sink as it filled up with bubbles from the soap in the washer. I also took the flashlight and moved it around the bubbles in different motions. When I edited this part of the video I speed up the video speed to four hundred and fifty percent to make it quicker and look as if it were going down a drain. For the next part of my montage I video tapped myself walking back and forth in my room with the camera pointed at the ground. I also speed this part of my montage up to one hundred and fifty percent. In doing this it gave it a quicker look instead of just showing a slow back and forth sequence. For the last part of my montage I took some of my dogs food and put it in a bowl, I then shook the bowl. As I did that I video tapped the food moving up and down in the bowl. I speed this part up to five hundred percent so that the food would move a lot faster than it was and give the effect of a fast motion.

MovementEXE

For this project on movement, I decided to keep a high emphasis on rhythm. Also, I wanted to see how much variety can be obtained from a single shot abstract scene. For this project, I took a close up video of my feet and legs walking to the train after class. I also took some videos of some cars as they drove and got some really nice video of the movement of their lights. However, I felt that the video wouldn't really feel like a whole with these two different types of movement going on within it. So I stuck with the clips of my feet moving. In the beginning, I felt as it if the videos of my feet weren't as abstract as were required. This was a worry until there was a nice error with the encoding and converting from a .3gp file to a .mpeg file. Somehow through out the conversion the over all clip got sped up. This made the feet as they were moving very abstract and hard to distinguish. This was also great because the movement of the legs and feet created an abstract shape within themselves. As the legs and feet move up and then quickly back, there is a swirl of light that follows behind it that creates the nice abstract shape.

Rhythm also played a big role in this movement video. I thought of many ways to create rhythm and tried to implement them within the video. The repeating movements of the legs and feet, or rather the shapes they create in their sped up shape, nicely add the video's rhythm. Repetition was also used within the video. The overall clip was very long. I chopped it up and repeated several of the clips and placed them next to each other. When played out, this gave a nice feeling to the movie. Even when the repeating clips stop, the change to the next scene is not too abrupt. So the whole video flows nicely from start to stop.

Abstract Montage

I started this project by taking short videos of various objects. I used close-up shots to keep with the idea of abstraction. I zoomed in on the objects and then used back-and-forth and up-and-down motions.
I used Premiere to edit the videos. I ended up cutting some of the clips up into a lot of different scenes and then putting them together out of order. I think this gave some of those clips a violent feeling. I then put some of the slower-moving clips in between those violent cut-up clips to separate them a little bit. I think this helped to take away any rhythm it would have had. I just think it works better if the viewer can't establish any kind of rhythm with the video.
I left out audio because I though it would take away from the abstract feel of it. I know that if I would have tried audio I would have ended up placing some sort of meaning into the piece and I wanted to stay away from that.
I videotaped objects that were void of bright colors. I did use a blue object to break up the scenes a little bit. Looking back I think I should have used at least one really brightly colored object in a short scene to add contrast to the piece.
I'm not a huge fan of abstract art. A lot of times I just don't understand. Sometimes it seems tough to even put my own meanings into people's abstract art. This project was interesting though. Editing the video to take out any meaning or objects that could have been identified was fun and different from the art I usually make. I'm still not a big fan of abstract art after doing this project, but I am starting to enjoy making montages.

Antin

Antin brought up a lot of interesting points on this article. He compared what film is to commercial television. According to him film is "boring" because it cannot live up to the what television is. Sure, television is more popular and many people prefer to watch it, but film is the more complete artwork and more elements of creativity and from are present in film. In commercial television, it is all production and more emphasis is put on the technical aspect of video, than the art aspect of it. When it comes to TV, there is this theory of transmission and reception. With transmission, the corporate companies edit, produce, and compose many types of genres of videos. What they produce is then communicated and it is received by us, the viewers. Film is very natural, very free flowing, and very simple. It doesn't cost much to create a very simple film. To create a television production, like a TV show costs thousands and thousands of dollars. First of all to edit together all the video shot takes time and it costs a lot of money. The equipment is very expensive and extensive. There are also a number of people working on certain aspects to edit it all together and produce it.

That's why artist stick to film. It costs less money, and takes less time and man power. They don't have to worry about things like color, software, and tv production elements. TV is a big business and it is very large scale. It is designed to make money first and then all of the elements after are just an after thought. Commercials dominate television and are an integral part of it. You may see 15 minutes of commercials in an hour program. It's what keeps TV running and it's also what takes away it away from being art. In film you just have what you are trying to portray and that's it. It may take you 10 minutes or 2 minutes, but the message is pure. You don't have that in TV, you have to have sponsors to pay for the production of the show because it just costs too much to produce. As long as TV exists, it will always be more popular than film, but it will never take away the integrity, honesty and purity that film will always continue to posses.

Montage Project

I call this piece Flow-finite. I tried to focus more on the color and sound aspect of the piece with motion tied in. The way that I had planned to shoot this ended up changing because I could not use motion in the same way that I wanted to. I used my turntable midi controller for this piece because it means a lot to me and the turntable is such an awesome instrument to play around with because it is motion inspired. I wanted to show that without motion the instrument is thus useless. I like this piece because it is a piece that requires an object and user to be fully implemented. I decided to cut out sound on certain clips and leave sound in on others. Any time the viewer sees the color blue go to red there is a corresponding sound that draws attention to the piece. I used the idea of soft calm, even complete silence to a harsh, louder sound because I think a piece is more memorable when the artist takes the viewer on a journey. I find that symbolic because that is a d.j.'s job in the first place. I am a huge fan of color so I had to figure out how I could show that to the viewer in my piece without adding anything else that would seem out of place. I liked this piece overall because it focuses on so many different things that it’s really hard for me as the artist to explain the thought process behind it. Many of the ideas that I originally came up with referenced each other then started to branch out into other categories, which made me happy because when I was editing the piece together I wanted to have the viewer look at my piece and think about what it ties into in their own minds. I enjoy creating work that sparks ideas in other people.

Antin - VVVVVVideo

David Antin shares his thoughts of video, artistic video, and television. He begins his writing with talking about the early age of video and also about how "discourse has already arisen to greet [video]." The first of these discourses deals more with a discussion on technology on society (McLuhan) and the second deals with "the issues that pass for 'formalism' in the art world..." This too discourses seemed to be early thoughts on video, and it would be interesting to see what these discourses would evolve into in today's world. With such advances in technology and availability, I wonder if these opinions on video would still be as they are now.

With the "age" of this article other ideas are also brought to mind. Antin talks about how video and television was mainly reserved for those with money. The new technology, as he puts it, "...was priced out of the reach of anything but corporate ownership." This could, at that time, severely limit the artistic value of video. If only corporations and those with a large amount of money were able to have access to this new and budding technology, an artist was more then likely not going to have the opportunity to explore new advances with it. But, once again, the idea of the new age that we live in today comes to mind. Though he talks about artists over coming the short comings of the new video technology at the time, I wonder what he would write about today's culture in regards to art and video.

Video cameras are becoming more and more available to the consumer with every passing day. Cameras can be found in the form of camcorders, tiny devices such as "flip" video recorders, and even on something as small as a person's phone. The option of video is quickly becoming an easy to use resource. Where once people did not have access to even the most simple or video recorders, they now have easy access to cameras that are leagues above those that were hard to get to a couple of years ago. This also means that video is available to artists as well. And that can be seen everywhere. More and more "artistic videos" arise every day and they each bring their own sense of identity with themselves. This technological advancement is something that should be taken into consideration when discussing artistic video.

Video Montage Project

Motion, isn't it great? Yeah, it is. I tried to capture the art of motion in my montage piece. First of all what I did in my video was zoom into my radiator in my room and went left or right, or up and down, depending on what way you want to look at. I started off slow and then went super fast because I wanted to start off with real slow motion and movement. As the video progresses, the motion picks up and the movement is real fast. I chose my radiator because I saw that it had spaces in it and I figured if I zoom in enough and go fast enough it would look as if it is moving and omitting visions of movement. I think abstraction works to my advantage, because you can't necessarily see what my thing is, you can only see the movement that it is going through. Towards the end of the video, you can notice that along with the up and down movement, there is circular motion going and and there is complete chaos at the end of the video. This type of motion reminds of the motion that goes on when you look out the window while taking the train. Things just bounce off the window and keep moving from left to right, like a very fast slide show. I wanted to work with this idea, but I didn't want to give it any meaning. I just wanted to motion to be omitted and the movement to have form.

Most important of all, I wanted the motion to be visible to my viewers. I think the way I shot this from an overhand point of view with very fast shots and an unstable camera, it gave out the right motion and movement. I wanted to do a 360 shot with more angles and different types of movements, but my radiator is small, so I only had so much room to work with. Motion is a great thing to capture on video just because how interesting it can be. It can also be captured on the most simplest things and it's interesting taking an everyday object, making it abstract and seeing what type of motion it has and what kind of movement you can get from it. Sometimes, you'll be surprised what a thing looks like when it is sped up and it is shown in movement,in time. Motion is great, it's beautfiul and it's a great form of art and I hope you all see and enjoy the motion that is portrayed in my video.

Montage Assignment

For my montage video I wanted to create something that had a bit of structure to it. I started off with the idea of the countdown, which is present in my montage as each scene lasts 10 seconds, 9 seconds, 8 seconds, all the way down to 1 second respectively with a rough total of fifty-five seconds all together. I also structured the movement portrayed in my images, they arranged in a certain balanced way. I originally started off with a depiction of leftward movement and ended with its opposite a rightward movement. In between these two opposites I added a series of pairs; first I included a pair of upward movements and a pair of upward-downward movements, in between these two pairs I added another pair of “stationary” circular movement, that is movement that wasn’t really “going” anywhere as opposed to the upward and upward-downward movements. As I was planning this arrangement the lack of pairs in at the beginning and end, seemed to unbalance the composition, so I decided to add one more pair to go with the leftward and rightward pair. I arranged this pair like the L+R pair, with each one of the pair on either side of the montage and I decided to make them “stationary” movement images similar to but not circular like the stationary movements in the middle of the montage.

In terms of content I decided that it would contrast with the structure of the timing and arrangement of the various movements. I decided to record a general of seemingly random forms of movement that I found around my home. All my images generally do not have much correlation with each other, even the pairs generally have very different types of content depicted although they share a correlation of the movement depicted. As I was editing my captured motions, I found that I accidently captured some footage of television static and its accompanying sound, I liked the way it looked and sounded but I couldn’t really find a way for it to fit it into my montage. In the end I decided to plop each one at each end of my montage, keeping with the structured yet random nature it had taken on.

Antin - Video

In Video: The Distinctive Features of the Medium, Antin discusses “video art” and it’s difficulties due to the established standards of broadcast television. One example of this is the limited choice and interactivity of television in regards to the receiver, all lies within the transmitter or sender. Schneider and Gillette’s 1969 Wipe Cycle, which attempted to turn the “receivers into transmitters” by repeatedly recording the audience and immediately playing it on a single screen of a series, allowing viewers to literally “watch” themselves and eventually attempt to interactive with this cycle. Yet this piece resulted in a failure because it intimidated an unprepared audience which was used to another standard of television, preparedness/professionalism. Monetary difficulties were also brought up, with equipment used for broadcasting and transmitting video being expensive because the primary clients were professional television broadcasters, the result of artist’s attempting to make do by using lower quality or black and white video, resulting in a dissonance to viewers used to the professionalism of television.

This overall sense of professionalism and preparedness seems to clash with television’s attempts to adequately represent reality. Antin writes that the television industry “wishes, or feels obligated, to maintain the illusion of immediacy…what one sees on the TV screen is living and actual reality…” due to the audience’s enjoyment of production errors and other mishaps that add a degree on spontaneity and naturalness. I can personally attest to this in a recent viewing of the Daily Show, wherein host Jon Stewart accidentally bungled a skit, the result was unintentionally funny and showed the humanity that lies under the general preparedness of television.

Considering that this article was published in the mid 1970s, I wonder how relevant some of this is today. There are many forms of transmitting video that are available to the public, such as handheld cameras and online video-broadcasting services. This ease of access combined with people’s greater familiarity with non-professional recordings and their generally unprepared natures, would remove some of the former difficulties that video art previously faced from comparisons to professionally broadcast video that were given to it.