When the Artwork Moves: How Video Is Changing the Way We Experience Contemporary Art
Walk into a contemporary gallery today and you may find yourself doing something that would have seemed rather strange a century ago: standing in front of a screen and waiting for the artwork to do something.
It may flicker, talk, move into another shape or display an entirely unrelated image. But, to experiment with this sort of moving image, you don't have to have a film studio. Artists and creatives, whose focus is not on video creation, are finding the creation of basic videos easily accessible through online tools. Clideo video maker is one of them. Easy to use, no technical knowledge is needed, and it even has an iOS app that makes editing and posting a promotional video to your exhibition, for example, that much easier.
However, video used in modern art is not just the art of hanging a film on a gallery wall. Once an artwork starts moving, something fundamental changes. The artist is no longer restricted to working in colour, shape or space. Time becomes a part of the artwork.
From the static image to the moving image
There is a painting for you.
The duration of viewing can be 5 seconds, 5 minutes or half an hour. You can set your own boundaries for how long and how much you will watch. A sculpture works in a similar way, although it adds another dimension: you can walk around it and discover it from different angles.
Video introduces a different relationship.
The artist can choose to have an item show up at just the right moment. They may be unable to hold a shot for an uncomfortable amount of time, they may abruptly end a shot or they may have you repeat a shot over and over.
But there is still some control as a viewer, of course. You can walk away. However, the artwork has a clock of its own while you are watching.
Time becomes part of the artwork
It is one of the most intriguing aspects of video to the modern art world.
There's something to pause for. So can repetition. Ten seconds of action that take a minute to perform are completely different from a ten seconds of action performed at normal speed.
This potential has been utilized for decades by artists. For instance, Bill Viola's video installations are characterized by their very slow movement, sometimes making everyday human gestures into meditations on birth, death, suffering and transformation.
Later, artists have continued to experiment with the interplay of time and sensation. Video can make ordinary moments feel strange simply by asking us to stay with them longer than we normally would.
In a world where most videos are designed to keep us scrolling, that can feel almost rebellious.
When the viewer becomes part of the experience
Video also has a habit of escaping the screen.
Nowadays, artists are increasingly using moving images, projections, sound, lighting, and physical installations all in one. Visitors might find themselves strolling about a place that is not rectangular, but rather a place where images surround them.
TeamLab's immersive digital installations are perhaps one of the best-known examples of this approach. They are works which react to visitors and the changing environments, so the presence of the visitor is part of what they experience.
The important distinction is that you're no longer simply *watching* the artwork.
You're inside it.
Your perspective can alter your experience based on your location, time and observations. Two people can walk through the same installation and have two different impressions afterwards.
Video can tell stories differently
There are also stories that become more powerful when they can move.
Your photo can depict a moment on the move. A painting can be a memory. A sculpture can suggest a body or a place. These can be combined with voices, movement, music, archival footage and text in video.
This is especially beneficial to artists looking to express themes like identity, memory, politics, changes in the environment, and people's history.
Discuss the work of South African artist William Kentridge, working in drawing, animation, theatre and film. His drawings are animated, not only telling a story, but actually erasing and redrawing the story.
Video is one of the good features of an art form. The technique doesn't have to be in the background. The process of change in an image can actually be a part of what the image says.
What happens when everyone can make moving images?
In modern art, another reason for the fascination with video is that nearly everyone can create it.
High-quality footage can be captured using a cell phone. It can be edited using a laptop. Trimming clips, adding text, or cutting together various clips is not really hard using online tools.
That accessibility has lowered the barrier for artists who want to experiment. There's no need to hire a production company, to have a cinema camera or to have a room full of expensive equipment to begin exploring moving images.
However, this is a tricky situation when production is easier.
There is a lot of video around us. We read it on the bus, at breakfast and get it in text messages from friends. We&'ve got pretty good at tuning out all of it.
What is it that will make an artistic video worth watching?
Not a master class, most likely.
A well produced video may communicate nothing, or a poorly done, bordering on awkward, may leave an impression on the viewer for days. It's the concept behind the move that is important – why does this picture have to move? Why must it have to last half a minute (30 seconds) instead of three (300 seconds)? Why does the artist want us to hear this voice or see this particular sequence?
These questions are more important than the tools that are used to answer them.
Learning to look differently
Video is not the end of painting, photography or sculpture. It has expanded on the possibilities open to artists, if anything.
The moving image provides another material for the artist – time itself.
Which is why video can be so different in a gallery, perhaps. We have come to expect that moving images are consumed rapidly, and with little attention. Contemporary art can turn that habit upside down. It can compel us to slow down, to stay longer and be aware of what happens between one frame and the next.
The thing that is interesting for the most part is not just that art can move, however that it can move in another way.
Now, artists can use movement as a means to change our perspective on how we look.