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September 20, 2005
Week 2: Spacial Design
Bill Viola
This week's assignment is to consider perspective and to read Bill Viola. ITP is a descendant of Bill, his experimentation in the sixties with television and video is what we are doing now with new technology. Now people get video but they don't get ITP, interactive media. Viola is the grandfather of what we are doing in 'spacial design' and overall at ITP.
Forty years ago, television was a purely broadcast medium, there was no forum to react or re appropriate. Viola started by placing magnets on a television screen to manipulate the image, to make it his own. He came from an analog world and was the first to create video installation. He was one of the first to take cameras outside the studio. What was important was to create a relationship with the viewer instead of to reach a mass audience. The individual was what was most important. The viewer would be up against the television, crawling through a tunnel with televisions, a religious experience.
More importantly, Viola is an artist who writes. Reasons for knocking on an empty house. He writes texts about himself and the creative process. We must make him our Picasso (if Picasso did video).
This Week
Think about a place in terms of perspective, about what you can actually see. Consider obstacles, put your back against something and think about what you can see. Think about the physical space in between and what is around your line of sight. Turn your neck but not your body. Think about other people. The short, the tall, the fatigued, the wheel chair bound. What do they see? Think about throwing things, giving a physicality to the space. Not just a here and a there but also the in between.
Paleolithic and Magdalenian people lived thousands of years ago but we can recreate their environment by their trash cans. Their line of sight and how far they threw the bones of the animals they ate. Embrace and consider the everyday spaces you ignore.
Moments of Perspective
Link to different perspectives, especially Kieesler playing around with the concept of gallery space.
Posted by mb2811 at September 20, 2005 01:19 AM