Homework #4

I became interested in experimenting with infinity video art when I saw Ryan Gosling and Macaulay Culkin t-shirt follow-ups. My friend, Paisley, was working with the "Angry Ginger" video below, and I wanted to explore the aspects of cloning technologies by giving ethical and social associations that we deal in society. Rats, hamsters, and other rodent creatures has been, and are still being used for genetic experimentation for all kind of purposes, and I wanted to think about different ways to think about these issues through creating a video within a video, where I interact with the actual screen-- attempting to bring reality closer.

From collaborative video project, I learned about teamwork that works out itself through technology. Technology provides so much tools for us to experiment. While I had no experience with Final Cut Pro, one of our team member (Lina) was well-equipped to teach us the basics to try things on our own. Technology seems to bring autonomy to our personal tasks, but if it used creatively, it brings so much possibilities for communities outside classrooms. I used the Final Cut, and then experimented with Premiere Pro to create this short segment. 

One could be that students could create media content such as video or digital paintings in classrooms and share them at a shared community spaces, such as the library while using the online platform to reach global audience. Another could be that communities could use the media to create educational content specialized for the specific community members regarding an issue that they are dealing with collectively. Finally, it could be that students could take a stance on an issue independently outside classrooms using social media... there are endless possibilities. However, I feel that the most important aspect of using technology is creating relationships that can be forged for the social good.

Pipilotti Rist and Nam June Paik are two of my favorite video artists. Rist is well known for her large psychedelic and surrealist projections, and Paik was a pioneer in the field of video art. I am not too familiar with video art, but they seem to be the most well-known in this genre. For Rist, I think it is her way of selecting sometimes microscopic close-ups of objects and creating repetition and variation within that to create a world of its own that makes interesting. 

In an interview with the SFMOMA (http://www.sfmoma.org/explore/multimedia/videos/204), Rist describes her filming process as making brushstrokes. She says that she takes a lot of footage. Having a solid reference/ source materials is definitely a plus when you have a specific theme to work from. I especially love the way she juxtaposes seemingly different objects and subjects and mesh them together during filming, and using the site specificity to enhance the user or the viewing experience.

For Paik, I find humor. I was at the Asia Society last semester to check out his New York retrospective. He creatively used the video machine-- the television as a vessel to embed and encapsulate a scene in a loop to create specific visual effects that shaped his world of art. I was especially interested in his idea of robotics... robots giving birth to a set of robots, and so on. In a way, I feel like I am seeing this trend with technology expanding. He was a true pioneer. By taking footage from popular media, and creating video paintings, he transformed the way how people see the world and shaped how moving images can be manipulated in the form of sculpture, installation, and art in general.