New Media Production 2 MUMT 303 Week 3 Sven-Amin Lembke
What is new in 20th century art? Picasso, 1938: Maya with Doll Calder, 1967: Man
What is new in 20th century art? • In painting and sculpture: extended palette of materials and technique of plastic creation. ‣ instead of molding or carving, assemblage of objects ‣ instead of exclusive use of brush and paint, mixture of materials • collage technique Picasso, 1914: Guitar
What is new in 20th century art? • radical change of notion of art • Dadaism after World War I • Marcel Duchamp (1887-1968) ‣ readymades ‣ shift of focus from art object to concept Duchamp, 1917: Fountain
What is new in 20th century art? “Whether Mr. Mutt with his own hands made the fountain or not has no importance. He CHOSE it. He took an ordinary article of life, placed it so that its useful significance disappeared under the new title and point of view – created a new thought for that object.” - Marcel Duchamp
Photography • For many centuries knowledge on visual projection: • Alhacen in medieval Middle East ... ‣ Book of Optics 1021 ‣ used and studied camera obscura
Photography • For many centuries knowledge on visual projection: • Alhacen in medieval Middle East ... ‣ Book of Optics 1021 ‣ used and studied camera obscura • whereas, capturing the image achieved much later: • Joseph Nicéphore Niépce ‣ photo-sensitive emulsion ‣ first photograph in 1826
Photographic image and motion • Photographic medium and motion ... • experimenting with technological limitations Lartigue, 1912
Photographic image and motion • Photographic medium and motion ... • experimenting with technological limitations
Photographic image and motion • Discovery of photography initiated extensive experimentation with the new medium ... • chronophotography : images of objects in motion captured in succession • at around the same time in America and Europe ... • Eadweard Muybridge ‣ studied animal locomotion • Étienne-Jules Marey ‣ first use in medical applications
Photographic image and motion • Muybridge ‣ Studies in Animal Locomotion 1888
Photographic image and motion • Muybridge ‣ Galloping Horse 1878
Photographic image and motion • Marey ‣ Fusil de Marey / Marey’s photographic gun 1882
Photographic image and motion Marey, c. 1887: Flying pelican Marey, 1887: Saut de l'homme en blanc
Photographic image and motion • viewing devices: ‣ phenakistoscope 1832 ‣ zoetrope 1834
Film and cinematography • Thomas Edison ‣ take phonograph as model to develop a visual analog ‣ kinetograph 1890 ‣ kinetoscope 1892 • Lumière brothers ‣ film projections in 1895 • George Mélies ‣ “the first screen artist” - Rush (2005) ‣ video: A Trip to the Moon 1902
Film and cinematography • after pioneers’ achievement, development of a cinematic language: • Russian director Sergey Eisenstein ‣ “technological artist” - Rush (2005) ‣ renowned for his montage technique ‣ The Battleship Potemkin 1925 • other early directors: • Friedrich W. Murnau, Fritz Lang, Charlie Chaplin, Louis Feuillade, Abel Gance
Film and cinematography • at the same time, film’s avant-garde • Man Ray ‣ experimented with the medium itself ‣ Rayograph ‣ video: Return to Reason 1923 • Whitney brothers ‣ John Whitney Sr., father of computer animation ‣ video: Five Film Exercises 1940-45 • other avant-gardists: Fernand Léger, Luis Buñuel, Robert Wiene
Video enters the scene • widespread introduction in 1960s • medium video’s capabilities not fundamentally different from medium film • to understand video and video art necessary to look at historical context: • artist movements of the time • television as medium of the mass culture ‣ by 1953 two-thirds, by 1960 90% of US households owned a TV • media theory discussion of art and technology
Video and media theory • Walter Benjamin ‣ The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction 1936 ‣ critical position towards ‘aura’ surrounding art object "For the first time in world history, mechanical reproduction emancipates the work of art from its parasitical dependence on ritual. To an ever-greater degree the work of art reproduced becomes the work of art designed for reproducibility."
Video and media theory • Walter Benjamin ‣ increasing quality of media copies liberates art works from being held and controlled by an elite ‣ through technology artist less dependent on physical skills, the artist's role becoming more functional and less privileged ‣ "[N]ew and developing technologies were free of traditional ideas about the hierarchical divisions between technique and craftsmanship." - Meigh-Andrews (2006)
Video and media theory • Norbert Wiener ‣ Cybernetics - Control and Communication in the Animal and the Machine 1948 ‣ Kybernetes - ancient Greek for “steerman” ‣ interdisciplinary approach to study languages and messages ‣ analysis of communication and relationship between technology and human communication ‣ important role of feedback in this relationship
Video and media theory • Norbert Wiener ‣ Cybernetics "paradigm shift away from the Newtonian model of the universe, with its emphasis on energy and matter, to a model based on notions of information" - Meigh-Andrews (2006) • Claude Shannon ‣ Information Theory 1948 ‣ concerning art: explains how culture is affected by ways of technological communication
Video and media theory • Marshall McLuhan ‣ Understanding Media 1964 ‣ The Medium is the Message: An Inventory of Effects 1967 ‣ coined the term global village in reference to development of electronic communication networks ‣ new role and responsibility for artists: "[T]he artist tends now to move from the ivory tower to the control tower of society."
Video and media theory • Marshall McLuhan ‣ television holds important communicative and perceptual potential ‣ communicating information, without emphasizing any single modality ‣ seen even as a ‘tactile extension’ of the body ‣ yet, criticizes practice of advertising and commercials in television for its trivialization
Video and Fluxus • 1960s characterized by Fluxus ‣ (anti-)arts movement ‣ “Neo-dada in music, theater, poetry, art” - George Maciunas ‣ Fluxus artists embraced film and especially video as new media ‣ Fluxus itself influenced by Duchamp, Cage and La Monte Young Maciunas, 1962: Fluxus Manifesto
Video and Fluxus • Fluxus ideals ‣ growing importance of performance ‣ participatory actions, as in happenings ‣ mixed-media / intermedia ‣ minimalist aesthetics: simple set of instructions / event scores ‣ ‘art attitude’ applied to anything rather than the notion of high-art
Video and Fluxus "Marcel Duchamp has declared readymade objects as art, and the Futurists declared noises as art - it is an important characteristic of my efforts and those of my colleagues to declare as art the total event , comprising noise/object/movement/ color/&psychology - a merging of elements, so that life (man) can be art." - Wolf Vostell
Video art • What makes video art? ‣ first video works happened to be filmed by established artists ‣ “art” vs. “artful” "Art lies in the intentionality of the artist: to make or conceive of something without the constraint of some other purpose." - Rush (2005) ‣ complex problem studying relationship between art and technology
Video art • Themes: ‣ critique of prevalent television usage as a mass- culture medium ‣ "Now that the television medium had been liberated, so to speak, from the control of the commercial producers, artists could explore what to put on it in place of mostly commercial-driven content." - Rush (2005) ‣ "Video's ease, simultaneity, and immateriality snugly fit with performance art and happenings, Conceptual, kinetic, and Pop art." - Mellencamp (1995)
Video art "Video was the solution because it had no tradition. It was the precise opposite of painting. It had no formal burdens at all." - David A. Ross
Video art • Technology: ‣ video became increasingly popular through its growing accessibility ‣ "Its seeming endless possibilities and relative affordability make it increasingly attractive to young artists who have been raised in an era of media saturation." - Rush (2005) ‣ Sony Portapak 1967-68
Portrait: Nam June Paik (1932-2006)
Nam June Paik • Korean video artist • video art pioneer • came from the center of Fluxus movement • wide breadth of works ‣ "As collage technique replaced oil paint, so the cathode-ray tube will replace the canvas."
Nam June Paik • background in music: ‣ studied musical composition in Germany ‣ in 1959 worked at WDR studio for electronic music in Cologne, Germany ‣ strong influence of John Cage ‣ rejection of past musical tradition • first works with visual media: ‣ Zen for Film 1962-64 ‣ media sculpture at Galerie Parnass , Wuppertal, 1963
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