Unit 35 : Task 1

Unit 35 : Task 1

Norman McLaren:

Past Practise:

Norman McLaren is a past practitioner in the art world, who was born in Scotland in 1914 and died in Canada in 1987. Although Norman never actually worked on a video installation himself, after he died people who enjoyed his work adapted it into video installations for his fans and the public to enjoy. Norman created in his time live action experimental films, art work, and documentaries, in which one of short documentaries won an Oscar in 1953. Norman had a very clever and different way of recording the sound in some of his videos, instead of having diegetic or non-diegetic sounds he would scratch into the film itself to get the sound that is known to him. A famous piece that features this type of sound was "Dots", this is also a different piece of art because it doesn't feature any filmed footage. What you see in the video is what Norman McLaren has drawn onto the film itself.

Technologies and Techniques:

Norman McLaren's most common form of video art was animation, in the 1930s Norman's way of animating was revolutionary at the time. The way in which he would animate was by taking a blank film, and hand drawing or painting the frames. If he wanted a title screen of around 10 seconds. He would have to hand draw the same title on each frame, it would be 24 frames for 1 second so he would have had to draw 240 exact frames for the opening sequence. The animation limits where very minimal depending on how well you could draw on such a small frame size. However, it was the first big step in the animation industry, and was soon used by huge corporations like Disney. You can clearly see this style of animation in his short animation called "Hen Hop".

Styles:

Norman's first style as a film maker and video artist was his famous animation of drawing on the frames, he was very well known for using this style. Although the animations had no story to it, it was still very abstract and it was left to the audience to build the narrative in their head. His style then changed to creating video form animation which featured real life people and was much easier for the audience to interpret the story.

Narrative and Non Narrative Forms:

In Norman's early work many of his shorts would be considered as a non narrative form because it would just feature different colours popping onto the screen and moving around the frame. The audience would struggle to try and find some sort of narrative in his early videos, a bit later on in his career he then started producing animations that would show two objects moving in the frame as if they where chasing one another. This could be considered a narrative depending on the audiences interpretation of the video. Towards the end of his career his work then progressed into real life photography, with videos that could be seen as having a narrative. One piece in particular shows dancers being layered on top of one another to give a more dramatic effect, this style has been used in modern day videos such as Adele's music video for "Send My Love".

Use of Exhibition Space:

Norman McLaren's work was never intended to be created for installation form, and he never worked to creating his work in a way that it could be used in an installation. However, when he unfortunately died people decided to take his work and project it on the side of buildings. This would give the bland building side a much more vibrant and colourful look, as well as giving it more character with the moving images that Norman had created when he was alive. This effect on the side of the building would be created by having a projector hooked up in a certain location to project the videos onto the side of the buildings. Here is a video showing just that.

https://vimeo.com/97673093

Rachel MacLean:

Current Practise:

Rachel MacLean is a current practitioner who was also born in Scotland but in 1987. Rachel is well known for her creepy costumes, makeup, and settings to her videos. She uses a lot of green screen in studios to get the background effect and odd looking costumes to add a unique touch to her video art. The audio used in her videos are taken from past TV programs and adverts which gives an even more unique touch to her work. Her first piece of video installation was featured in 2014 and has work being shown around the world, the most recent one was a few weeks ago in Venice. Rachel can also be seen staring in everyone of her videos, here is a good example of the kind of style she uses in her videos.

Techniques and Technologies:

The main technique that Rachel uses that is featured in everyone of her videos is green screening, this allows her production to have an endless limit to what they can create and what the final outcome of the video will look like. Green screening allows Rachel to create anything she wants in which ever way she wants, even in the video above creating little creatures that she can interact with. Rachel also uses heavy makeup to enhance the look of the characters as well as funky and quite over exaggerated costumes and outfits. All the colours in the videos are very vibrant and colourful to try and keep the attention drawn in and to make a light look to the videos. Here is a video of Rachel being interviewed about her work, which also gives an excellent view of the behind the scenes of her work.

Styles:

Rachel has a very common theme and style that runs through all of her videos, she creates a fantasy and a non-real world that is all very similar in each one of her videos. The characters and places she creates in her videos aren't real and made up by her imagination. The narrative in each video does change however, she has a very common and hidden meaning behind each video that tries to take the mick out of the mass media in our day and age. An excellent example of this would be "Eyes".

Narrative and Non Narrative Forms:

As said above all of her videos have a narrative, as well as the hidden meaning she tries to get across. The narrative changes depending on the video, but the hidden meaning of the mass media doesn't. Each one of her videos also has a common theme of the "God Like Voice" narrating or talking to the character. This kind of gives a link between each video in a way because it is all very similar. In this interview with Rachel she is talking about her new video installation of "Wot U Smiling About" which is all about social media and how it has effected our lives as young people.

Use of Exhibition Space:

Rachel's work is mainly shown in galleries where she would need a installation to show piece her work, her work can also be shown at film festivals as well. With her installations they typically have a large projection of her installation video being projected onto a blank wall, and then with different large art forms around the room that have links with what is in the video. In the video above, you can see the kind of things that would be in the installation for the "Wot U Smiling About" video. The room would be quite open and not very filled so that the main attraction is the video and people can sit down to try and get the message.

Audience:

Nature Of Audience:

So far I have focused my attention on Rachel MacLean and Norman McLaren and what they have done and do as artists. However, there is a more important part to what they do and that is their audience. Their audience are the people that will be seeing their art and taking in what the meaning of it is in and interpreting it in different ways. The audience for an artist is one of the most important things because obviously if they had no audience their work wouldn't be known to people and they wouldn't succeed in the industry.

Peter Greenaway:

Peter is a very well known artist as well as film director who like Rachel MacLean also shows his art in the form of video, and having installations created around the video. What Peter's audience would take away from visiting and watching one of his art installations would be a closer insight into famous historical paintings and events. One being a installation about the famous Da Vinci piece "The Last Supper".

Steve McQueen:

Steve McQueen like Peter Greenaway is also a artist in the video form and a film director, best known for directing "12 Years a Slave". As a child Steve experienced a lot of racism towards himself and his family. His work features a great deal of images that try to bring everyone closer together, and this is exactly what the audience take away from his work. The black and white styled videos imply a hidden meaning of black and white being together and it is quite empowering from an audiences perspective.

The audience for Steve's installation videos would differ to his audience for his movie 12 Years a Slave slightly, his audience for his installation work would be people that enjoy art or forms of art. As well as people who are interested in his empowering video installations, his audience base would also be a considerably smaller for his video installations because its not as advertised and isn't interesting for a lot of people. Compared to his audience of his movie 12 Years a Slave who would be much larger due to the large advertising, but would be for people that enjoy longer films that can watch them in the comfort of their own house. I do feel that both his film and his video installation have the same kind of theme to do with black and white people and the empowerment and belonging the audience would take away from it. 

Sam Taylor Wood/Sam Taylor Johnson:

Sam Taylor Wood also known as Sam Taylor Johnson uses multiple screens stacked on top of one another to create a portrayal of many hidden different meanings. She experiments with photography and film to create a contrast between internal and external. What people will feel when they are at a installation by Sam Taylor Wood would be how we view ourselves vs how others view us. Sam Taylor Wood also is known for directing the famous movie "Fifty Shades of Grey".

Georgina Star:

Again like Sam Taylor Wood her installations would show multiple screens being stacked on top of one another. Her videos would feature characters that she has created to give a more film like experience for the viewer. Her characters give the audience a feel of sympathy and empathy when something would happen.

Jeff Keen:

Jeff Keen is an artist known better for his sculpting and art, however he has worked on video installation and his work proves to be quite unique. His videos feature old videos with wacky and vibrant images being laid on top. The imagery behind is very fast cut behind and is hard for the viewer to focus on what is going on.