Panel Discussion: Moving the Moving Image
I attended "Moving the Moving Image," a panel discussion on 3/13 at the Walker Art Center. The event brought together Steina Vasulka, Christianne Robbins, and Amy Youngs -- three artists who work with video.
Steina Vasulka showed one of her pieces that combined black and white footage of violinists with footage of a "concert" in which a violinist controls an animation on a screen by moving the bow and the instrument in different ways. I thought that the first segment of the piece was particularly jarring. The way that Vasulka warped the sounds and the images was disorienting. It was strange to see a bow, always stick-straight in the real world, waver back and forth like Jell-O. The part with the electronic violin was very interesting. I kept thinking to myself "I wish I could try that!" I'm a string musician, so I thought it would be fun to manipulate the images on the screen like the performer was doing.
Next was Amy Youngs. One of the pieces she discussed was the one of the ones at the Nash Gallery. In that piece, she combines webcams of peoples pets into a montage. The video is then projected on the floor, and visitors to the word take furry platters and try to "catch" the images on their platter to see them better.
Last was Christianne Robbins. She read a very long paper she wrought about ideas of time and space. Even though it was maybe too long for a panel discussion, I found some of the things she mentioned to be very interesting. She talked about how nowadays people can be completely immersed in their cars as they drive to work. Their cars become alternate realities where they have their music, their cell phones, and their coffee. Her work involved setting up a camera on a California highway and taping the cars as they drove past.
The three artists took very different approaches to using video. Vasulka's was highly interactive; the user could directly manipulate the video. Furthermore, in the black and white segments, Vasulka deliberately altered the image and the sound to create something completely different. Youngs work involved simply capturing others' videos and then interpreting them in new ways by making a moving collage. The audience could interact with the video after it was displayed. Robbins's approach was very different. She simply pointed the camera and something at let the film roll. There were no actors. There was no commentary. It was simply a means of capturing real life.
I enjoyed seeing the artists and listening to them talk about their work. It was cool to actually be able to hear them explain their thought processes and the creativity that drives their work.