Does video art have a future?

Does video art have a future? This is the question I am posing, and you must be thinking, “What, are you crazy, of course it does?” You must be thinking why am I asking a question like this in a technologically advanced time in the 21st century. I mean after all look where we are in history. Video is bigger than ever, with the birth of digital video cameras, video capability on our cell phones, and online powerhouses like YouTube, MySpace, Facebook, HULU, and Netflix’s instant watch - and lets not forget our online video news networks such as CNN.com, NYTime.com, and MSNBC.com. We are texting, emailing, sending pictures, videos, watching podcasts, uploading, downloading, oh my!

So why in 2010, do I pose the question, “Does video art have a future?” We are at a point in history where we are at the peak of a bell curve on its way straight down. We are at the end of a decade of greed and wasteful energy use, and at the birth of a green revolution and a shift towards energy conservation, sustainability, and independence.

In the 1960s and 70s during the birth of video introduced into the art world – did anyone question that this could only last about 50 years? Probably not, technology will inevitably progress.

Sure, we have gone wireless, sure we are using less “physical material’ right? I mean we download songs, videos, movies; it’s all electronic data. We are wasting less, right? Less plastic CDs, DVDs, less plastic cases. It’s all a digital network of data now, so we are totally on our way to green technology.

Not necessarily the case. We are at point where we may very well run out of oil in our lifetime due to its versatile nature. All of our digital cameras, computers, servers, any of our electronic gizmos that make many of the music and videos we listen to, watch and enjoy are all primarily plastic petroleum based products, such as the computer I type this text on. We are creating more and more physical servers and networks that are made of many petroleum based materials, and with the oil supply on its decent down the bell curve – so goes with it our future use of technology production.

Energy use is at an all time high. Much electricity is produced and stored from natural gas, even coal, what happens when we use that up as well? We have been producing so much ‘disposable short-term use’ stuff that the long-term energy use is astronomical. I mean how man carcinogenic plastic products do we import from China on a daily basis? Cell phones are out of date after two years. Computers and cameras are the same. We are a consumer culture that wants more and more. We are going to use up our fossil fuels that produce energy and will at some point halt production of new technological devices.

The Sony plant in Youngwood, PA had major layoffs and has since closed at the end of 2009. Is the machine dying? We are producing less and less barrels of oil year after year. So sure we will certainly find a way to survive for years to come after the shortage of production and the decline of energy. The last several years have lead us into a terrifying ‘age of anxiety’.

However, there is a ray of hope for the future, if we allow the paradigm shift to move towards a conscious choice to use less of what we don’t need. We are making smaller and smaller products. A majority of our information is now data on the Internet. The days of gigantic bulky equipment is no longer needed to present video work. I will site the notice of the art world using more projections rather than televisions or monitors to present video work. Or if monitors are used they are low energy LCD flat screens.

Since 2007, the development of ‘mini pocket projectors’ has become more and more reliable and exciting. We are nearing the point to install these devices into iPhones, iPods, mobile phones, and other small hand held devices. This is a step in the right direction, less and less physical ‘stuff’ and more and more data exchange.

In fearing of being a hypocrite, I will not that I am predominately a sculptor, a maker of large useless stuff to add the problems of the world and environment. I have not made any ‘video art’ for about 3 years, however tend to use video and audio with my objects and installations for conceptual reasons. Having said that, my only concern and struggle as an artist for the past few years has been my consumption of electricity to power my absurd experiential creations.

This year, I have made peace with that. For one, I am only one person using an extremely small percentage of energy to temporarily run an artwork for the duration of an exhibition. I am not a giant corporate office building running lights 24/7, constantly sucking up the juice from the grid. Although according the government that corporation has the same rights as an individual human being such as my self. (That is an issue for another time.)

Second, I have learned the energy draw from many recent devices is so low the energy impact is minimal. It is cheaper to run fluorescent lights non-stop rather than to turn them on and off, because once they are running they draw so little energy. Mini pocket projectors contain small LED light bulbs, creating to heat, drawing extremely low amounts energy, not to mention the fact that the LED bulb lasts about 70 years, so I’ll probably die before the bulb in my mini pocket projector.

So let me get back on point. Does video art have a future? Yes. Not only do I think video art will have a future, it is the future. As we move away from physical stuff, towards information exchange via the Internet and wireless networks, the use of video will become the dominant art medium. We may have to re-title “new media” very soon. Video is here to stay, but those of use who still make physical objects may be in jeopardy. As everything becomes a virtual space on the Internet, why still have physical libraries, museums, and art exhibits? My answer to that is we still need the physical experience to enjoy and understand the world. And we need to realize that film, video, and photography are still just documentation mediums. If we deny reality, we are nothing but electrical impulses of thought and information.

Back in action.

So I have been on hiatus for quite a while. I've been trying to do the be an artist/curator thing. Time to get back to writing, complaining and send my opinionated attitude out into the blog-sphere. Back in the early 2009, I start thinking a lot about the future of video art and use of energy to power art. The whole energy crisis and environmental green revolution shook me up a bit. So very very shortly, I will be posting my rants about the topic of video art, energy, and the shift of art.

For now feast your eyes on a new work I made this March using a mini pocket proctor to project images.


Ron Longsdorf, Drain, 2010, mini projector, tripod, wood, digital image, computer, dimensions variable.

RECTIFIED, Saturday, May 9th, 5 - 10 pm

RECTIFIED

May 9th - June 13th, 2009

OPENING RECEPTION:
Saturday, May 9th, 5 - 10 pm

GALLERY FOUR

H & H Building
405 W. Franklin St. 4th Floor
Baltimore, MD 21201

www.galleryfour.net

Art About Art: Pretencious Clicks, One Liners, Or Reflections of the Times

So what is going on with art about art. Sure it has existed for quite some time. Artists have been apprenticing and referencing artists before them for years throughout history. Even in the sixties and seventies with conceptualism, situationism, fluxus and many other movements artists seem to be referencing other artists before them or even artists of the same time.

So what does this all mean? Why it started I'm not really sure. Why it still exists I'm not really sure. I am so interested in it because I am able to connect to contemporary art that references, pokes fun at, or just plain works off of other contemporary artists and recent art history. If i have formally educated myself for six straight years in Fine Arts, so i can comfortably state i have build quite a vast knowledge of contemporary art and a solid art historical context of the past one hundred years or so. What conflicts me is, the notion that a plethora of the public viewers will not understand the references, then not fully understanding the work. Does this help contemporary art's cause, or hinder it? It's going to hurt it.

Unless you art about art references include Andy Warhol, Picasso, or even the super contemporary bad boys like Jeff Koons or Damien Hirst, I don't the the public understand or know the reference. I state my case by citing a visit to PS1, the wonderful space in Long Island City, NY, now operated in conjunction with MOMA. The summer of 2007, i happened upon Jim Shaw's "The Donner Party". The piece is comprised of a series of wagons are dinner place settings arranged in a circle. The piece is a reference to "the Donner Party's ill-fated 1846 journey across the Sierra Nevada mountains in which they were caught in a blizzard and resorted to cannibalism" (a direct quote from the PS1 website). So for the general viewer perhaps you'll see the bizarre weird reference, perhaps. Ok, probably, not likely, but that is fine. I probably wouldn't have gotten that, you have to know a sense of history and that is fine. It is in a way a very smart reference, perhaps in some ways literal and in other ways more abstract.

To get to my point, here is the reference that bothers me. Jim Shaw's piece is also a direct reference to Judy Chicago's 1979 installation "The Dinner Party". Chicago's piece was a series of dinner place settings at the triangular shaped table. Each place setting was a reference to an individual woman in history. In Jim Shaw's piece each place setting is a direct reference to an individual artist throughout history. Great reference, right? Sure, if you have studied art for years. One specific example in Shaw's piece, is the place setting of a furry bowl, plate, and utensil - this is a direct reference to Merit Oppenheim's "fur Covered Cup, Saucer, and Spoon" from 1936. For myself, this was wonderful to see, i get the reference, i have heard of and seen the image of Merit Oppenheim's 1936 exploration of objects and texture shift. Yet, how does this reference help the Jim Shaw piece. Well, he is referencing the history of the Donner party in 1846, then referencing artists like Merit Oppenheim in 1936, and the most recent historical reference of Judy Chicago's 1979 installation. Smart, but not accessible. Why do the constant historical references have to be so direct from art history? Not only is Jim Shaw referencing Judy Chicago, but also at least a dozen more artists with each place setting. Is this necessary. Are we truly cannibals of the art world. Do we have to stay in out pretentious art clicks? Are the art references so direct the become on liners? "Hey, a furry bowl! Great Merit Oppenheim reference!" I think to myself. Yet does it end there. Well not for myself, i have made many historical connections, but is it to obscure for the overall viewing population.

All of this brings me to a major point to make. Who is the audience here? We simply have to question who is the audience, and for what artwork. PS1 is in Long Island City, right out of Manhatten, so perhaps the location will carry a different audience than showing at the Lexington Art League in Lexington, Kentucky. As artists, we have to be aware of who are audience is, not only aware but responsible. There is a fine line between the art about art references in the New York art scene context and the lesser known "art scenes". Is Jim Shaw's work shown and noticed in the New York area simply because it is the location of the highest concentration of art galleries, art historians, curators, and artists? Perhaps, but art about art exists everywhere.

Art about even exists in Wilmington, Delaware. The 2007 MFA Biennial at the Delaware Center for the Contemporary Arts was the main catalyst in sparking my distaste for art about art in the major public art forum. The piece in particular is a multi channel audio piece by John Henry Blatter and Derek Cote two graduates of Virginia Commonwealth University. The artists installed onsite at the DCCA several speakers and audio equipment for the piece. It was inside and outside. Inside, the many layers of audio echoed and boomed city names. "New York, Berlin, Dresden, d-resden..." it would play, bounce and echo in the cavern of the DCCA lobby. Funny, witty, city names of major players in the art world. I can see that working, i have heard the city names before, most everyone has. Ok, it is still an art reference but it is accessible. The outdoor portion of audio, has a series of mock loud speaker announcements referencing artists. The only accessible name mentioned is probably Andy Warhol. "Matthew Barney you are wanted in the screening room, Matthew Barney...Roxy Paine you are needed in the sculpture garden, Roxy Paine." the audio calls out. References to Andy Warhol is one thing, but when the artists start getting less know to people in reference to the comments, it looses accessibility. Do most viewers know Barney makes epic art films and or known about the steel tree forms of Roxy Paine to get the reference. Probably not.

So who is at fault here. The city, the museum, the public. None of the above. The artist is at fault for these references. The artist must not only be aware and responsible for who their audience is in terms of accessibility. What is the point of your pretencious art references as an artist? So you and your art friends, and the museum curators will get it and no one else? An even if that is your target audience, it still becomes a quick on liner reference for us artists, art historians and curators. Even if we get it, it lacks substance.

Substance - this is my final point. I leave my self questioning if these few examples and the many many more I have stumbled upon the last few years are simply reflections of the times. I would simply say yes. We as a culture in the new century have become more and more people of immediacy. We get our information quickly on the web, we can snap a picture on our cell phones without batting and eye or even framing up a shot, and we still want it faster. I think because of this immediacy we have forgotten about substance. Books used to be sacred bodies of information, not only in substance, but in artistic calligraphy. Now, the one liner of knowledge is all we need, even as educated artists. As long as you get the reference and laugh that is enough. Well not for me, i need that reference that makes me laugh to continue to think, and hopefully get our culture back to substance.


Ron Longsdorf, October 2008

Art About Art: Pretencious Clicks, One Liners, Or Reflections of the Times

So what is going on with art about art. Sure it has existed for quite some time. Artists have been apprenticing and referencing artists before them for years throughout history. Even in the sixties and seventies with conceptualism, situationism, fluxus and many other movements artists seem to be referencing other artists before them or even artists of the same time.

So what does this all mean? Why it started I'm not really sure. Why it still exists I'm not really sure. I am so interested in it because I am able to connect to contemporary art that references, pokes fun at, or just plain works off of other contemporary artists and recent art history. If i have formally educated myself for six straight years in Fine Arts, so i can comfortably state i have build quite a vast knowledge of contemporary art and a solid art historical context of the past one hundred years or so. What conflicts me is, the notion that a plethora of the public viewers will not understand the references, then not fully understanding the work. Does this help contemporary art's cause, or hinder it? It's going to hurt it.

(This is what i began in summer of 2007)