Task 1: Understand the potential of video in an exhibition space as an art form

Understanding the potential of video in an exhibition space as an art form

Sam Taylor-Wood

Born: 4 March 1967, Croydon

Sam Taylor-Wood OBE (born Sam Taylor-Johnson) is a British filmmaker, photographer and visual artist. Her work focuses on using film and photographer to draw out and examine our social and psychological conditions as humans. An example of one of her pieces of work is her exhibition at the White Cube called Sigh (2008).

Sigh is an 8 minute long film projected onto 8 different surfaces that examines the split/difference between individuals personalities and appearances. Each projection focuses on a different part of the orchestra that made the score by the Academy-Award winning Anne Dudley as part of the BBC Concert Orchestra but in her piece, none of the members of the orchestra are using instruments, and are instead miming as if the instruments are imaginary. As you move around the room, different screens display different parts of the orchestra and you are able to experience different perspectives of the sound of the orchestra depending on where you stand – a masterfully conducted soundscape. The aim of this piece was to give the audience a sense of loss as they witness the members of the orchestra play without instruments whilst also allowing them to stroll through a soundscape.

This work also contributed to my idea development as I thought about the ways you could manipulate video and spacing to alter a person’s perception based on what angle they witness the piece from. I decided for my social media idea that I would use lighting to my advantage to help change perception which is similar to the soundscape effect that she has created in this piece. This piece was highly renowned for its innovation and creativity.

Peter Greenaway

Born: 5 April 1942, Newport

Peter Greenaway is a British film director and artist. His work takes a lot of influence from the Renaissance, Flemish and Baroque painting style. Greenaway is known for his films containing a lot of contrasting and composed imagery containing nudity, nature, sexual pleasure and painful death. He is most well-known for directing the crime film The Cook, the Thief, His Wife & Her Lover (1989).

This film is about a mobster who acquires a French restaurant in London and every night scares off potential customers with his rude attitude. Eventually this mobster’s wife becomes disgusted by him also and decides to have an affair with a restaurant guest. They attempt to keep their affair a secret but her husband finds out and decides to plot his revenge. The film is especially noted for the graphic violence and nudity. This film has received high critic ratings with a 7.6/10 on IMDb and 89% on rotten tomatoes, which for a film is a very good rating.

Greenaway is also known for his ongoing video installation series called Ten Classic Paintings Revisited in which he attempts to create a comparison “between 8,000 years of art and 112 years of cinema.” One example of this is when he revisited the painting Leonardo’s Last Supper in a large full-scale replica of the dome of the Refectory of Santa Maria Delle Grazie in Milan, Italy (where the original painting was originally housed). Most critics have claimed his work is utterly distinctive, one of the most amazing experiences and he that has a bold vision with his work.

Audience Comparison

Taylor-Wood's audience would likely consist of people who look to be inspired by art through the medium of film as that is what she specialises in. Her work consists of a lot of artistically charged film so it's no surprise that the audience she appeals to differs greatly from Peter Greenaway's work which focuses more so on the video installation set up itself. Taylor-Wood prefers a style of work that allows the audience to reflect upon what she has produced whereas Greenaway has a more gritty and visceral feel to his work. The audiences are likely to be drastically different in terms of the genres they're searching for. That's not to say that Taylor-Wood's work doesn't include video installation, or that Peter Greenaway's work doesn't include film, simply that that isn't her only venture in art and media, whereas Greenaway would attract more art enthusiasts and critics who are interested in a Renaissance-esque installation instead of film enthusiasts and critics who are interested in art that allows you to reflect upon it. They've both had their fair share of work in both film and art installations. 

Gillian Wearing

Born: 1963, Birmingham

Gillian Wearing OBE RA is an English Conceptual artist and one of the Young British Artists. She won a Turner Prize in 1997. Her work involves the use of a lot of photography and video to help document everyday life in public spaces as she tries to blur the lines between reality and fiction. One example of her pieces named Signs that say what you want them to say and not Signs that say what someone else wants you to say, (1992-1993) involved getting random members of the public to write down what was on their mind on a piece of paper then she would take a picture of them with their permission as they held that sign up to the camera. She did this in an attempt to challenge the people she stopped into challenging their perception of themselves. Her work is critically acclaimed and has won her multiple awards across the span of her career.

Georgina Starr

Born: 1968, Leeds

Georgina Starr is an English artist and one of the Young British Artists most well known for her video, sound and performance installation works. Her work focuses on creating strong narratives that the audience have to explore and create “something magically complex, layered and densely referential out of virtually nothing but its own ‘stuff’”. Her work focuses on a culmination of the topics of dream, fiction and memory. Many publications have noted her work for being forward thinking and influential as well as tear jerking and euphoric.

Rachel Maclean

Born: 1987, Edinburgh

Rachel Maclean is a multi-media artist who has a strange and abstract approach to her installations. She usually takes the main role in her videos and puts on a lot of colourful costumes and make-up and uses CGI to create the backgrounds that the videos are set in. She uses a lot of archived audio from old television/cinema to help construct the narrative of her abstract videos whilst also trying to keep a comedic tone to it. She has received a lot of positive reviews about her work, though some have noted that her work make them feel uneasy whilst waking them up to the narratives she has constructed.

Jeff Keen

Born: 1923, Wiltshire

Jeff Keen was a film-maker, poet and artist who sadly died at the age of 88 in 2012. He was known for his extremely original and vast bodies of paintings, drawings and sculptures. Keen loved to use various techniques such as editing and superimposition. A lot of his pieces include subliminal messaging and he touched upon a lot of topics such as race and homosexuality. He included a lot of collage, archival footage, animation and live action footage in his films to help carry the narratives. His work was highly regarded by critics as it drew out a lot of emotional responses from the audiences.

Steve McQueen

Born: 9^th October 1969, London

Steven Rodney McQueen CBE is an English film director, producer and video artist. His work is valued by millions and is regarded as incredibly thought provoking. He was included in the TIME 100 2014 edition as one of the “Most Influential People in the World” and was granted the BFI (British Film Industry)’s highest honour, the BFI Fellowship, so it is safe to say his work is hugely successful. His most successful project in recent years would be the 2013 film, 12 Years a Slave which one multiple awards across many different awarding bodies. A lot of his work touches upon harsh and marginal subject matter such as racism, sexuality and addiction.

Norman McLaren

Born: 11^th April 1914, Stirling

Norman McLaren CC CQ was a Scottish director and animator who favoured the method of animation to create his artistic films. His films were an amalgamation of hand drawn animation, pixilation, graphical sound and visual music. One unique technique he used was to scratch directly onto the film  stock itself to create imagery on top of already filmed footage. His work left a legacy for filmmakers to experiment with working with imagery in animation and many workshops have been opened up to teach younger artists in his style of art and teach people how to blend animation with music. His work has won him multiple awards across many Canadian and British film bodies.