Faculty Research Award Application: Project Description
Principle Investigator: Leslie Raymond
Assistant Professor, Digital Media, UTSA Department of Art & Art History
A. Project Title
Site Specificity and Video Projection
B. Conceptual Background
1. Experimental Video Defined
Most movies and all broadcast television are businesses whose purpose is entertainment within a commercial environment. Television has only one goal: to sell you stuff; and the shows are there to get you to stay until an ad comes on and the ad is there to sell you something. Experimental media exists outside of those commercial constraints. This is what it isn't.
What it is, is more difficult to describe. The number of different types of creative visions that have been manifest in experimental media is incredible. There is experimental documentary, abstract video, experiments in new forms of narrative, humor, pathos, and every human emotion you can imagine. It is an art form that truly can move or disturb or excite you in all the ways that commercial media cannot.
- George Fifield, Director of the Boston Cyberarts Festival and Curator of New Media at the DeCordova Museum
2. Video as Painting
Perhaps the most common misconception is that [video art] is boring. This probably came about because some of it is quite boring. More often it appears boring because we are use to broadcast 'TV time,' which is short bursts of choppy entertainment. When we bring that same sense of time to video art, which is sometimes paced slowly and elegantly, we become impatient. That is when we must remind ourselves that all video is not TV and need not conform to its rigid structures. 'TV time' has become much more frantic in the last decades and this problem has increased.
Some video art needs to be watched in an entirely different way. You cannot watch an abstract video like a narrative video. It needs to be looked at like a moving painting. We are not use to this and it causes stress.
- George Fifield, Director of the Boston Cyberarts Festival and Curator of New Media at the DeCordova Museum
3. Public Nature of the Work
a. Mural Art
Human beings’ endeavor to visually interpret the world and re-present it for others is a major characteristic of the development of culture. Mural art, a very public form of art making, can be traced back 15,000 years to the cave paintings of Altamira and Lascaux. Today, mural painting remains an extremely viable form of enhancing community, stating social concerns, and beautifying neighborhoods.
b. Video Projection as Public Art
The precedent for site-specific projections has been set by such artists as Krzysztof Wodiczko, Professor of Visual Arts at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, who “creates art by projecting images upon the monumental architecture found in large cities. His ephemeral projection pieces last only a night or two, but they reclaim the city streets as places for discussion and heated debate” (Mark Vallen “Krzysztof Wodiczko: Illuminating Contradictions”).
4. Some Themes for Exploration
a. Introduction of images from the natural world into manmade environments
b. Site-reflexivity of data and images gathered from the site, digitally processed, and reintroduced to the site
C. Research Approach
1. Experimental - studio work conducted in order to develop a methodology for
Working within the designated constraints of equipment and site.
2. As defined by NASAD standards outlined in "Studio Art and Design Research: Multiple Relationships and Possibilities" paper presented at NASAD Annual Meeting, October 2005:
Art as Process - compilation, integration, and synthesis of
a. Medium
b. Technical, historical, and analytical knowledge and skills
c. Inspiration and aspiration
d. Ideas and investigations that result in a work of art
3. “The nature of experimental media is to investigate the formal structure of the medium and expand and explore its edges,” (Fifield) in this case the formal structure is the interaction between moving image and site.
D. Long-Term Effects on Research Program
The nature of this research will bring about an overall development of both technical methodology and aesthetic substance.
This public characteristic of the project is geared to create more civic awareness and interest in contemporary art.
Establishment of a portfolio in this sphere will extend the reach of work, notably of a highly-visible nature, creating viable options for inclusion in national and international exhibitions
After the research period, the equipment will be released to the Art & Art History Department for pedagogical purposes in the advanced video courses, as well as for graduate student research.
E. Budget Justification:
A portable generator and high-powered video projector are essential for the realization of the project. Acquisition of this equipment will allow for unlimited site consideration, enabling a full range of possibilities for public exposure as well as subject development in relation to situational concerns.
Fifield quoted from
Patrick, Tiffany “Moving Paintings,” Boston University Center for Digital Imaging Arts
http://www.newenglandfilm.com/news/archives/01august/fifield.htm
Vallen cited from
http://www.art-for-a-change.com/Krzysztof/krzy.htm
