9/14 Blog Evaluation

Paul Thulin has read your blog up to this point/entry. Your blog is currently incomplete.

Missing 4 entries

8/31m Missing
9/3t Missing
9/7m Paik Late
9/10t What does TV Late
9/14m Missing

Artist Review: Dan Graham 9/16

In my search for more and more video artists one of the names that is seemingly impossible to skip over or not mention is Dan Graham. It seems any and every book I've checked out from the library in relation to media art mentions or cites Graham. So whats all the fuss about?

As I struggle with my own feelings of how surveillance and performance within my own work, it seems I have looked up Dan Graham at just the right time. No matter what medium he chooses to work with Grahams use of the audience and viewer interaction is the central theme that runs through all his work.

Graham is known for both his architectural, video and performance works, but I found that I was most intrigued by one of his video works. In 1978 Graham set up a projection screen or "picture window" that broadcast outside of the house what it was that the family inside was viewing. By being able to see what it is exactly the house was watching you might get a sense of who the family is and what there interests are. You might also might get a peek into their social life, or how much time they spend watching TV.

Television programs are often short stories and sneak peaks into the outside world, and to other peoples way of life. whether it is in the evening news or your afternoon soup opera. But as a viewer watching these in the comfort of your own home you are relatively unaware of the premeditated voyeurism that is the back bone of these programs. With Grahams piece, the viewer is given an window on the front lawn of the house, a window that is not quite so obvious as to who these people are or what there doing, but its the step under knowing that you are the "Peeping Tom" of the neighborhood.

This piece is interesting because it takes everything you think you know about what TV is and kind of spins it on its head. It is more than just informant news, or amusing sitcoms. It is a place where real families are transported and transformed for a certain period of time into something or somewhere else. TV is the peeking through someone's window, or the fly on the wall.

Video Projection Outside Home, (1978)

"TV might be metaphorically visualized as a mirror in which the viewing family sees an idealized, ideologically distorted reflection of themselves represented in typical genres of TV.." Dan Graham

Nam June Paik 9/9

Nam June Paik was part of the neo-dada movement also known as fluxus (artists preferred to work with whatever materials were at hand, and either created their own work or collaborated in the creation process with their colleagues). He is considered to be the first video artist.

Video Tape Study No.3, Nam June Paik; Jud Yalkut 1967-69

In 1965 Paik met another working video artist Jud Yalkut and together they began to collaborate in the electronic manipulation of appropriated imagery and sound. The jump cutting of popular news imagery mixed with slowed, reversed, and repeated actions essentially denies the symbolic nature of the classic imagery. The deconstruction and abstraction of the pre-taped press conference by President Lyndon Johnson and the NYC mayor John Linsay makes a mockery of the authority that they stand for. The work that Paik and Yalkut did inspired an increase in use of "sampling" imagery and audio sources, and influenced artists at the time like Dara Birnbaum, and Marcel Odenbach as well as more contemporary artists such as Candice Breitz.

One of the publishing goals of the project was "the transmutation of popular cliche images familiar to any contemporary consciousness, reiterated and metamorphosed beyond their popular meanings into abstraction"

Paik is probably most widely know for his elaborate sculptures using televisions and radios. And for his use of sound. As a trained classical pianist and music theorist Paik used experimental sound juxtaposed with performance and video.

TV Cello, 1964

Some of his work, reminds myself of my own concepts piece completed last fall.Without even knowing it my work was very much if not completely influenced by all the work that Paik had doen previous to me.

"What's TV got to do with it?" Idea blog 9/7

When starting my research, it is hard not to feel overwhelmed by all the information out there. At the same time as there are an underwhelming amount of artists at first glance I feel a particular connection with. So im going to stop, well at least with the internet for awhile. In protest I took a trip to the fourth floor in the library. It is amazing going in with no computer, and just a notepad how much you can accomplish.

That's when I really sat and tried to contemplate what it I am really trying to accomplish with my work. And why it is i choose the subjects i do. When i venture out into making work, usually the first thing I do is photograph a TV. Even if my work does not end up having one in it. But I do think they are all connected.

I've been going things over and over in my head. and i think its time i venture out of my safe zone. I've decided for this next im going to really push the performance side of my work. For all the research I've been doing on video art and artists, I believe the time has come for me to just do it. For my first video im going to be taking apart a TV. The deconstruction in someway of the soul foundation of which my work relies.

Things I'm not sure of.
1. What tools should I use, should there be limitations?
2. There is that very dangerous vacuum inside...how should i deal with that.
3.The background of the piece. Studio, outside, domestic setting?
4. Just one, or many (as many of you know I have quite the collection)

With this work I also want to demonstrate the struggle I have with these objects, as well as getting closer to the core of my work.