Thanks Michael, Yes, I am thinking of the videos on the left as documentation of physical art installations, but by juxtaposing them with the pieces to the right which I see as "internet art," and then by claiming that entire web project (documentation juxtaposed with internet art) is itself be a complete work of "art," then the docuemtnation itself become something more than just documentation (although it's probably not yet, out of the context of that page, art). In other words, if you just happened to view the documentation videos at vimeo out of the context of the entire project, they themselves wouldn't be "art" at all, whereas if you view them in the context of the project page, they are reclaimed again as part of a larger work of art.
Have I ever thought of documentation videos themselves (of installations or performances) as their own kind of "video art." I have. I think video documentation of new media performances and new media installations can be their own weird kind of "documentary video" art. This is of course true with experimental "documentaries" about dance (cf: particularly Wim Wenders' "documentary" on Pina Bausch and this wonderful "faux documentary" by Charles Atlas on Michael Clark: http://ubu.com/dance/clark_hail.html . Atlas famously invents this genre in collaboration with Merce Cunningham). But "video documentation of art" is especially more likely to skew toward "video art" when it is documenting works of new media performance and installation *which themselves include* video. It's like the video in the documentation medium is somehow responding to the video in the performance/installation medium, and that connection or dialogue charges the video documentation and makes it more art-rich than if you were just videotaping a painting (although video quite actively engages with Richter paintings and Seurat paintings, because the technique of both those painters intentionally opens outward toward photographic optics). So did I intentionally edit the documentation video of this particular project? Yes, but in such a way as to give a kind of on-site experience; not in such a way as to foreground the documentation videos as art themselves per se. Could one have an art practice where the video documentation of their performances and installations was really more of the main art medium and the performances and installations themselves were mere props or set decorations for the documentary videos? Definitely. Particularly for an artist like me who doesn't live in a major art city, I am always already thinking ahead in my work toward the final "documentation" instantiation of the pieces on the internet, because that's where most people will see the work. So I have done certain kinds of in-studio performances where the video documentation of the art performance has actually been screened in film festivals as straight "video art" and has been considered on its own as art apart from the context of the original performance project. (You yourself know this, because you have featured some of my video documentation on dvblog as [a kind of] video art.) ++++++ Three examples: 1. video: http://deepyoung.org/current/breathing/documentation.html from larger project: http://deepyoung.org/current/breathing/ 2. video: http://www.transart.org/advisors/2014/05/30/curt-cloninger/ from larger project: http://deepyoung.org/current/remixthebook/ from even larger project: http://lab404.com/video/cup/ AND THIS WEIRD MASSAGING: 3. video: deepyoung.org/current/static/ from larger literary project: http://www.electronicvoicephenomena.net/index.php/curt-cloninger-static-trapped-in-mouths/ turned into net art: http://playdamage.org/104.html turned into artist book: http://www.blurb.com/b/5455837-a-playdamage-flipbook This is why when you look at http://lab404.com/dreams/library.html , some of the thumbnail images in the "art" section look like thumbnail images in the "video" and "audio" sections. They are all related. Which is why in good conscience I can apply for a job in an academic film department (assuming they have all read Youngblood's _Expanded Cinema_), even though I'm not really a "video artist." ++++++ All of this is very much related to what I am exploring in the nova scotia piece. It has to do with Derrida's idea of the frame (parergon). Dissolving the frame is not just institutional critique per se, and it's not as easy as you'd think. It's about where the "art" starts, where it ends, how it bleeds out into "the world," or remains in that space between out and in. So your comment about the net art pieces immediately letting you into the work (into the frame of these spaces so to speak) is very relevant. The net art pages are intentionally not "framed" (except by the ubiquitous browser window, which has grown increasingly thin so as to lead right up to the hardware frame of the monitor itself. And there in the barn is the frame of an apple monitor.) Also relevant is Joel's comment about my hand opening the barn door. My hand is in two of the documentary videos (barn and basement) and also in two of the embedded installation videos (the shale video in the basement and the rope video in the barn). So how does the "presence" of the artist's videotaped hand in a video installation, shown handling materials at the source site (the beach itself) alter the "nature" of the physical materials of the rope and the shale once they have been removed from the beach and transplanted into the installation space (barn and basement)? And then how does the "presence" of the same artist's hand in the documentation video of these installations alter the "nature" of the installations themselves. The same hand runs through the external meta-frame and into the embedded micro-frame. Frames within frames within frames, each in turn destabilized/destabilizing, reframed/unframed. At least that's the way I'd like to frame it here in this art critical (though no less "online") meta-meta-meta frame. (a final comment -- this project is dear to my heart and not unrelated: http://joshuacitarella.com/artifacts.html .) Rock and Roll Ain't No Pollution, Curt …. Michael S. wrote: I can see what Annie means about the web versions - there's something more contained and controlled about them which makes them more digestible ( I don't mean "easier", I mean more of a piece, more something that feels like a controlled emanation from an artist. With the others? -yes, we are seeing documentation ( it that how you see it Curt? -if it is I would have been very interested in how you might have set about making videos that were intended as artworks in themselves rather than the kind of "analogical" thing going on with the web versions)..but..there's something quite enchanting about the sense of specific locations conjured in those videos ( particularly the climb to the tree house, though they all have it). The doll piece is wonderfully *dark*; it might seem less so to you as you have the timeline of participants and their feelings and intentions presumably pretty rehearsed in your head but to someone coming to it fresh it evokes a genuine unease ( and a poetry too). Your son makes a neat stop motion video.( BTW I initially read the tag attached to the doll as a religious reference) I found the compartmentalised box with the stones and *that noise*, somehow very moving and I haven't the faintest idea why except perhaps the suspicion that it might bring childhood memories of handling and sorting found things back to the surface. It's evocative and humane work but it's also knotty and thorny and requires some commitment from the viewer..good things in my view. Thanks for sharing these - I look forward to the book. best wishes michael ... Hi all, Here is some work I made during a recent artist residency in Nova Scotia: http://deepyoung.org/current/nova/index.html Here is an artist book I made: http://www.blurb.com/b/5455837-a-playdamage-flipbook And here is a collection of essays coming out next month: http://linkeditions.tumblr.com/upcoming Best, Curt _______________________________________________ NetBehaviour mailing list [email protected] http://www.netbehaviour.org/mailman/listinfo/netbehaviour
