week 9

25/11/11. Visual emotions.

This week we started by looking at some of Christian Marclay’s experiments between audio and visual. Christian gained his reputation as a visual artist and composer while exploring and creating sound collages, video art and sculptures. We looked at his turntables performances and how he used them controversially. The way he cut parts of some records and replaces them with pieces from other ones remind me a lot of the more recent ‘cut and paste’ technique for sampling sound. We noticed that even if some of his pieces were, in my view, unpleasant to the ear, it was innovative and unintentionally very much influenced the scratching techniques that DJ’s use today. Christian also constructed many instruments that were impossible to play like the twenty-foot long accordion or the rubber Fender bass guitar.

We then pointed out a few factors that we felt a video art production should provide:

1. It is important to keep in mind that the story does not have to be obvious; it is not always required to have narrative. Once a piece of art is presented the author’s opinion and description has less impact and influence. It is left to the audience to understand the meaning of the piece, recalling Barthes’ Death of the Author. The viewer is required to work harder to comprehend the message presented.

2.It should be aesthetic - pleasing to the eyes - but that very much depends on personal tastes. As an example we were shown a video production from a student, similar to drum compositions by Steve Reich. The piece contains sampled and modified audio from this artist. This 12 week video production shows different shots of the drum kit; they were blurry at times and lit with blue spots. The student communicates the connection and relation he has with his instrument, and there is also a certain feeling of intimacy. He expresses the affection and care he has for his drum kit in a very unusual way.

3. It should be emotionally crippling and the audience should in some way get attached or identify with it. The production should have an emotional response whether the impact is positive or negative, which also depends on the personal experience of the audience. This relates to some visual work we observed by Willy Doherty. He presents a particular visual journey on ‘unapproved roads’ - small roads located near border between the Irish Free State and Northern Ireland, the frontiers of which traffic was not permitted to cross by these roads. We also looked at a video from Bill Viola called ‘the passing’ which is a mix of very personal footage like the birth of his child and the death of his mother. These were edited along with some staged video clips. It is an entirely visceral and purely emotional piece with slightly off speed footage and sound that also helps to give the production a more affective result.