A2 Task Video Paintings

VIDEO PAINTINGS/ ART VIDEO/ Listen to the track by Brian Eno An Ending – An Ascent http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hMXaE9NtQgg

The track is taken from Eno’s album Apollo: Atmospheres and Soundtracks (19 83) This music was originally recorded in 1983 for a documentary called For All Mankind, about the Apollo rocket space launches in America in the 1960’s directed by Al Reinert.

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Do you think the music is inherently cinematic.?

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This music is often called ambient music. Can you think what ’ambient means?

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Do you think moving images can be ‘ambient?

Music from the album has also appeared in the films 28 Days Later,

Traffic and Trainspotting 

so it appears to have a lasting appeal.

How do the qualities of the music seem to fit so many different types of film?

Brian Eno is an English musician, artist, composer, record producer, music theorist and singer, who, as a solo artist, is best known as one of the principal innovators of ambient music. Eno studied at art school, taking inspiration from minimalist painting.

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Minimalism describes movements in various forms of art and design, especially visual art and music, where the work is stripped down to its most fundamental features. As a specific movement in the arts it is identified with developments in post-World War II Western Art, most strongly with American visual arts in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Prominent artists associated with this movement include Donald Judd, Agnes Martin, Robert Morris, and Frank Stella. It is rooted in the reductive aspects of Modernism, and is often interpreted as a reaction against Abstract Expressionism and a bridge to Postmodern art practices.

Agnes Martin Stars 1963

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Agnes Martin Untitled (Pencil and ink)

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Donald Judd Untitled 1990’s

Donald Judd Untitled 1990 The term minimalism has expanded to encompass a movement in music which features repetition and iteration, as in the compositions of Steve Reich, LaMonte Young, Philip Glass, John Adams, and Terry Riley. The term " minimalist" is often also applied colloquially to designate anything which is spare or stripped to its essentials. It has also been used to describe the plays and novels of Samuel Beckett, the films of Robert Bresson, the stories of Raymond Carver, and even the automobile designs of Colin Chapman. Have a look at this clip from Bresson’s Pickpocket

(1959)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DIPiRPk0VzI 

In what ways do you think the clip can be determined as minimalist?

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77 Million Paintings In 2006 Eno created and released

a software/DVD combination

software that creates randomized music and images that emulate a single screen of one of Eno's video installation pieces. Works such as this are often called Video Paintings. Here Eno talks about the project. http:// www. youtube. com/ watch? v= VRkNrWp6 tLg The title is derived from the possible number of combinations of video and music which can be generated by the software, effectively ensuring that the same image/soundscape is never played twice. Video paintings Video paintings are a form of ambient video art presented via projectors, LCD or other flat panel display and wall-mounted in the same manner as traditional paintings. Content in this emergent form is designed to work at all times as either a highly aware foreground

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experience, or as passive background pieces of art. There is no sound accompaniment, it is only video. The concept of video paintings borrows from Brian Eno's idea of ambient music in works “ must be able to accommodate many levels of listening attention without enforcing one in particular; it must be as ignorable as it is interesting." Like traditional paintings, video paintings hang on the wall to be viewed or passed over - depending on individual viewer preference in the moment. HERE ARE SOME GUIDELINES •

it should be visually engaging the first time you view it

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it shouldn't require your attention at any time

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it should renew its engagement at whatever moment you choose to return to viewing

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it should sustain visual pleasure over a great number of repeated viewing

Look at the Open Gallery site http://www.opengallery.co.uk/ Open is a London gallery dedicated to the video painting: a new form of video art developed by the Artscape Project. The origins of the Artscape Project can be found in 2001 when the first video paintings were shot by Hilary Lawson, a philosopher and documentary film maker, in an attempt to escape the limitations of the traditional video narrative. Subsequently, a collective of artists, including William Raban, Sanchita Islam, Nina Danino, Tina Keane, and Isabelle Inghilieri, was formed to develop the video painting medium.

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Video paintings are filmed in a single take with a stationary camera. They contain no edits or subsequent manipulation. Video paintings show the world in real time. The video painting is non-narrative. There is no dialogue, no sound. In contrast to the film and video tradition which has been dominated by the provision of meaning and understanding, the video painting aims to escape our cultural and perceptual closures, freeing the viewer to play in the openness of the image. Video Painting has become increasingly popular and there is now a channel on Vimeo. http://www.vimeo.com/channels/videopainting TASK: Using the rules of Videopainting (5 mins in length, no cuts, stationary camera on tripod) Create at least two video paintings. Try to think about your framing. 

Make sure your framing is level.

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Work slowly and

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Try to get into the rhythm of what you are filming.

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Is there depth, foreground images and background images.

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Is there natural movement – clouds – light

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Capture the footage, edit, title, save and export.

methodically.

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