Art by the Masses?
Okay, so I’ve got this questions that has been nibbling at me for the past week or so. It doesn’t really have any “should we or shouldn’t we” vein in it at all. Just inneresting, s’all.
I was telling a friend about an exhibit I saw at SF MOMA in the mid-90’s. An entire floor was given over to video installation artist Bill Viola (who, I learned from the book I bought in the gift shop on the way out, graduated from my alma mater, Syracuse University), and every inch was essentially part of the exhibit. There was pointedly no map or signs. One long hallway was painted entirely black; midway down that hallway, another very narrow and also black hallway split off, such that you wouldn’t notice it was there if you didn’t look directly at it, and opened up into another piece in the exhibit. You had to explore, take chances, to see everything that was there.
And, the individual pieces were incredibly immersive. Entering one area through a narrow passage, you first see an assemblage of copper pipes and an old faucet directly in front of you. Turning right, you find a gigantic video screen showing the view of a live camera focused down the narrow passageway through the drip hanging precariously from the faucet; seconds earlier, you were the subject of the piece you are now viewing. There were giant video screen cubes to walk through, and an electric chair to sit in while watching a video of the artist sitting in that same chair trying to stay awake for 48 hours straight and occasionally being whacked in the head with a giant mallet that cues a deafening crash in the speakers mounted to the chair.
Just fucking fantastic stuff. I sat in the café after and wrote for a couple of hours trying to capture as much of my reaction as possible.
So, I’m telling my friend about it, and he notes that there was a time when there was a lot of this type of work going on, but not anymore. We kind of decided in this case that it had to do with the greater availability of the equipment needed to produce the work – hack artists teched out dulled the audiences receptivity for the style of work. Viola’s work was in a way more visionary because it was so difficult to pull off, much like Steven Reich’s early work with phase-splicing audio tapes was revolutionary because of the precision of the execution, but might not be so today when I can mimic the effect on a PC in less than an hour.
This had led me to this series of questions – Is the impact of a work of art with a medium diminished by the availability and ease of use of the tools of the medium? Is there an exchange between art and democracy when a process is made easier and the product more accessible? Does art have a necessary component in process? Is that which is too easily produced less for the fact it therefore had less time to evolve?
When I’m thinking about these questions of process and product, what I’m talking about is a kind of literacy – the basic knowledge of a medium that allows one to both consume and produce that medium. And, I’m all for democratization of literacy. The Canon is filled with dead white guys that lived at times when chicks and non-whites had less access to the literacy of the printed word – expanding written/read literacy is an important empowering move. And clearly one I support in every way. But, I’m just curious if there is a cost involved. I mean, is the spread of literacy partially to blame for Danielle Steele having a marketplace?
Really, the question becomes most interesting for me when we invoke technological literacy. Is there a higher percentage of bullshit online now than in 1994 because so many more people have access to and facility with various authoring tools? Aren’t there a lot more crappy short films now than there were in the mid-70s, before the personal video revolution?
Like I said, I’m not advocating for anything here, but am interested in establishing just what the negotiation is, though I’m wondering if there isn’t just a bit of elitism for artists at work, too.
Chewing…. chewing…. Chew along if you’d like.
I was telling a friend about an exhibit I saw at SF MOMA in the mid-90’s. An entire floor was given over to video installation artist Bill Viola (who, I learned from the book I bought in the gift shop on the way out, graduated from my alma mater, Syracuse University), and every inch was essentially part of the exhibit. There was pointedly no map or signs. One long hallway was painted entirely black; midway down that hallway, another very narrow and also black hallway split off, such that you wouldn’t notice it was there if you didn’t look directly at it, and opened up into another piece in the exhibit. You had to explore, take chances, to see everything that was there.
And, the individual pieces were incredibly immersive. Entering one area through a narrow passage, you first see an assemblage of copper pipes and an old faucet directly in front of you. Turning right, you find a gigantic video screen showing the view of a live camera focused down the narrow passageway through the drip hanging precariously from the faucet; seconds earlier, you were the subject of the piece you are now viewing. There were giant video screen cubes to walk through, and an electric chair to sit in while watching a video of the artist sitting in that same chair trying to stay awake for 48 hours straight and occasionally being whacked in the head with a giant mallet that cues a deafening crash in the speakers mounted to the chair.
Just fucking fantastic stuff. I sat in the café after and wrote for a couple of hours trying to capture as much of my reaction as possible.
So, I’m telling my friend about it, and he notes that there was a time when there was a lot of this type of work going on, but not anymore. We kind of decided in this case that it had to do with the greater availability of the equipment needed to produce the work – hack artists teched out dulled the audiences receptivity for the style of work. Viola’s work was in a way more visionary because it was so difficult to pull off, much like Steven Reich’s early work with phase-splicing audio tapes was revolutionary because of the precision of the execution, but might not be so today when I can mimic the effect on a PC in less than an hour.
This had led me to this series of questions – Is the impact of a work of art with a medium diminished by the availability and ease of use of the tools of the medium? Is there an exchange between art and democracy when a process is made easier and the product more accessible? Does art have a necessary component in process? Is that which is too easily produced less for the fact it therefore had less time to evolve?
When I’m thinking about these questions of process and product, what I’m talking about is a kind of literacy – the basic knowledge of a medium that allows one to both consume and produce that medium. And, I’m all for democratization of literacy. The Canon is filled with dead white guys that lived at times when chicks and non-whites had less access to the literacy of the printed word – expanding written/read literacy is an important empowering move. And clearly one I support in every way. But, I’m just curious if there is a cost involved. I mean, is the spread of literacy partially to blame for Danielle Steele having a marketplace?
Really, the question becomes most interesting for me when we invoke technological literacy. Is there a higher percentage of bullshit online now than in 1994 because so many more people have access to and facility with various authoring tools? Aren’t there a lot more crappy short films now than there were in the mid-70s, before the personal video revolution?
Like I said, I’m not advocating for anything here, but am interested in establishing just what the negotiation is, though I’m wondering if there isn’t just a bit of elitism for artists at work, too.
Chewing…. chewing…. Chew along if you’d like.
posted by JJisafool at 5:45 PM
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