Video Art Trends

 1. Nam June Paik's 17 minute video was sort of a joy to watch. Sure, after a while it got a little boring to look at since it was a lot of the same thing. But it was a portrayal of art, whether dance or music, and that's never something dreadful to sit through. It felt a lot like a music video, as in it doesn't beg much of your brain muscles to be put to work. All you gotta do is aimlessly watch. The audio being of low quality was frustrating as I knew I'd enjoy it more with more clarity, but the quick pace of the editing and visuals made up for it.

2. When looking at Gary Hill's piece, I am again astounded at the things we call "art." This was definitely not a piece I enjoyed in any way. I think it was rather annoying, actually, which is difficult for me to say because I know someone put in time and effort into this. Or maybe they didn't and this was just something thrown together, which I wouldn't be surprised about either. I always am curious with pieces of work like this about whether there was any pre-production or if it's just something you go ahead and get started with. It seems hard to have planned for beeping and flashing and little bursts of white spots on the screen. I'm really curious as to whether there was an intended meaning behind this one.

3. My favorite of all the films was Peter Campus's. It's brilliant what people like him were able to come up with with only the technology they had compared to what we have now. And considering this, it's still difficult for me to wrap my head around how these visual illusions were happening even being almost 50 years ahead of that film's release. The second "transition" reminded me a lot of Hito Steyerl's use of the green screen when painting her face with green paint. What Peter did in his piece is what people do with post-production, but he was able to capture it all in on go. This was the only piece I was actually intrigued to keep watching and was excited to see what else he would do.