Look at three different video artists -
Critically evaluate:
- Who are they?
- What work have they done?
- How have they used the space?
- Analyse their work and identify what message they are communicating? how have you interpreted their work vs how it is meant to be interpreted?
- Who is the target audience? how do you know?SOLUTION
Three contemporary video artists I have chosen for this task are:
Bill Viola, Eija-Liisa Ahtila and Peggy Ahwesh. The reason I have chose these three to critically evaluate in particular is because I have heard of them in the past for their unique productions.
Bill Viola is a contemporary video artist that was born in Queens, New York in the year 1951. Viola's artistic expression varies depending on sound, electronic and image technology in Modern day media. Viola has done a lot of work but is most known for his extreme use of slow motion, this is what stood out for him and it was simplicity at its finest. Bill worked on several video installations such as; Ocean without a Shore, The Quintet Series (which was put together by four separate videos), Reverse Television which was based on a 15 minute collection of people watching cameras as though they were televisions, this caused much more effect than the public thought it could ever have caused. In the 'Reverse Television' video installation, Bill was able to set up a video camera in the same position as a television in several different houses, this is how Bill used the space by getting a different person to sit in a chair in different living rooms whilst they done nothing but watch the camera record themselves, he done this and created a 15 minute montage of all the different people in different houses/rooms watching the camera as if they were televisions. I have analysed the work of the video artist Bill Viola and what i've come across is that he likes capturing human body and facial expressions, for example; in the Observance video project it contains footage of people with a wide age variety showing the their reactions to the September 11, 2001 (9/11)Terrorrist attacks, one by one and walking away in such disgust (walking to the back of the line), where as in real life people would just walk away. When i first viewed his work I interpreted it as him always being in point of view of the subject. Lastly, i'd like to speak about the target audience that Bill Viola attracts, which is a good question because what came to mind whilst analysing his work was the specific groups of people who feel inspired and attracted to/by his work and these groups are; the general public, artists (people who aspiring to be just like him and/or better) and foreign visiting people.
Eija-Liisa Ahtila is a video artist and also a photographer, she was born in Hämeenlinna, Finland in 1959. Her first concept works were motivated by art philosophy, by a evaluation of art institutions. Athena has done a number of films that are well-known by the public, she created films such as; Where is where?, Love Is a Treasure, The Annunciation and many more. Most of her works were majorly focused on women going through disturbing/distressing experiences, most of the works display numbers of screens and position points of the story, at the same time. Athena films a number of shots around the subject, this may include the local surroundings she may be around or whatever may be in the subjects atmosphere. This creates a repetitive effect which is surely simple however, effective. She also uses the effect it in order to capture more in her shots. For example in the video installation that goes by the name of 'If 6 was 9', they are sitting at a table in a particular scene where, instead of the picture being three different 16mm shots, they have used it to capture the whole table and everyone sitting around it or however, it's made to look like that. I've managed to analyse Eija-Liisa's work and I am really inspired by it because it creates such an impact with the perfect timing subtitles that make you feel much more interacted with the video, this is such a major key. Not only do the subtitles make the video more interactive but, as said at the beginning, most of her work shows women that are going through distressing experiences it is made to overwhelm and flood the viewers senses, depending on the viewers intelligence it can cause confusion on the ability to understand the narrative thread and this is done in order to produce a strong impact. When I first started my research on Eija-Liisa Ahtila, i was confused because there was so much going on but, later, when I actually begun to understand what she was interpreting I started to understand most of her other video arts as she follows her own unique pattern of creating video installations. Lastly, including her target audience - I think her target audience is based on the female gender from teenagers to the elderly, the reason I thought this at an instance was because as stated through out my solution I explained what she interprets through out her video installations and it's based on female agonising experiences. However, this doesn't mean males were not interested (diversity).Peggy Ahwesh is an American filmmaker, born in 1954, Pennsylvania, United States. Peggy is well known as a video artist and was educated at Antioch College during the 70's.
