Nam June Paik

 

Nam June Paik, born June 20, 1932 in Seoul, Korea is considered to be the artist who started it all with video art.  Nam started mixing his video and sound on his work.  He was experimenting with different media forms.  He was the first artist to use the first portable camera by Sony in 1965.  Most of todays' video artists started thanks to Paik, who revolutionized the way art was done.  Most of his work revolves around the aesthetics of paradox, enlightenment, and delight.  One of my favorite pieces of Paik is the wall full of screens.  Each screen has its own image, once all of them are put together, a full image appears.  This is very impressive in my opinion considering the technology that was available during his generation. Nam June Paik will live on as the creator of video art in the minds of all his peers.   

Bruce Nauman

Bruce Nauman born December 6, 1941 in Indiana is considered to be one of the most important contemporary American artist of his time.  His work included many forms of art media such as; video, neon lights, sculpture, drawing, and performances.  The use of language in his neon art pieces distort logic to provoke thought on the viewers.  Also, his work has been criticized as being provocative because of the certain sculptures and what they depict.  One of his sculptures that I really enjoyed was the "One Hundred Fish Fountain."  He used many fish made out of bronze that were perforated so that water would come out of the fish from all places.  Although he did use many different forms of art media, I believe that his strongest use was of the neon lights. 

Joan Jonas

Joan Jonas, born 1936, in New York.  One of the most important female contemporary artist of her generation.  Her work consists of video and art performances.  During the 60's and 70's, she became involved in the new media form of art.  Joan's work was a mix of video and performance art that depicted various forms of real versus non real, the body, as well as self portraits.  Videos like "Mirage" I think its very interesting how she portrayed the "there is and then there isn't" kind of idea.  She would draw and erase constantly on chalk boards, as well as not showing any form of life on the performance was kind of interesting to me, since most of her performances involve some type of act involving a person.

Gary Hill

Gary Hill, born 1951, in Santa Monica, CA.  Another contemporary video artist that has revolutionized the way video art has been produced.  His work is based on video, audio and text.  Combining all these elements made his videos unique and different from all the other video artist of his time.  After looking at his videos, I was very impressed by how he used the sound to incorporate with his visual from the video.  It was just amazing.  Although I also had trouble understanding his point of view through his videos.  I still enjoyed viewing how he crafted his ideas through the media.

Bill Viola

Bill Viola

Bill Viola is a contemporary video artist, which specialicializes on electronic video and new media art.  He was born on the 25th of January, 1951.  Viola's work was ment to connect with the viewer on a deeper level, as his work was done in slow motion.  His art portrayed what in his own eyes saw as birth, death, love, emotion, and espiriuality.  Although I've seen many of his videos online, it's really hard for me to interpret the message he is trying to send.  It's somewhat annoying that I can't really connect to his videos in a personal level.  I had to read other peoples' own representation of what his work ment to them for me to start getting my own meaning of his videos. The usage of water for me had a meaning of giving birth.  Nontheless, his work was very interesting and very abstract from what other media artist where doing.

Beall Center For Art and Technology

Well this was not what I expeted at all when I walked in. I know Glenn said this was small, but that was an understatement. When I walked in there was no one present inside the center. It was dark and very quiet, then everything came to live. I would be lying if I said I wasn't a little creeped out by the whole inflating life-like figures. As I walked around they started inflating and moving. I'm sure there were sensors somewhere because they would inlfate as you would walk by them. I was a bit bummed that the second part of the center was closed. They had a big blanket on the entrence of it so I figured they were doing something in there. Nevertheless, this was a good experiece.

Art VIdeo #2!!

Ok, so I decided to make two videos instead of one!....cause two is always better then one right?? Anyhow, hope you enjoy!
THANKS