ARTDES 222: TMP Video VII, Sec. 02
Fall 2005
Instructor: Prof. Heidi Kumao

Homework Due Tuesday, Nov.15, 2005
ART VIDEO
3 FINAL PROJECT IDEAS

Think out of the box, beyond cable tv, MTV, Hollywood and network reality shows. This is a class about using contemporary digital tools to create art. You don't have to sell anything. You DO need to find your own artistic voice using the tools at hand.

Given that video and the computer have a relatively short and politically engaged history (common usage starting in the 1960s), video art has few "established" modes: documentary, "experimental" (this term gets bandied about for anything considered non-linear or non-Hollywood), alternative-tv, to name a few. Because it is such a new art form (without the weight of 2000 years of history), practitioners like yourself can establish and name your own manner of working. We will try to show as many different kinds of art video as we can.

Some examples, ideas, and approaches are listed below: (OR MAKE UP YOUR OWN!)
-Experimental documentary - a documentary that questions traditional documentary forms, "truth"
-Video Performance: creating an event, performative activity strictly for the camera
-Video Journal: using camera as your confidante to document an event, life, etc. over time
-Video portrait: create a portrait of a person using moving images and TIME
-Formalist/structuralist video: the creation of a work using strict rules and boundaries (e.g. editing every 4th frame, recording 24 hours for some specific reason...)
-Appropriation and recontextualization: using the camera's VCR to record and the computer to re-edit material to change its original meaning
-Juxtaposition to create new meaning: weave a new narrative by putting unrelated images and sounds next to one another VISUALLY or after one another in time
-Use photographic stills with moving images
-Record the audio first and figure out the appropriate image matches for the audio
-Interviews--gathering information from the public
-Video as observation (is it "objective?" "neutral?")
-Video installation - video is ONE component of a larger piece. This could be an installation in which video is projected, seen on a tv monitor, transforms something physical
-Animation: creation of a piece from a sequence of still images
-"News:" create your own commentary or reaction to mainstream broadcasts, point the camera at something it doesn't normally point to

Write down 3 DIFFERENT ideas for possible projects you would like to do. Sometimes it's helpful to start with the topic or idea first and then find the form for it. Other times it's more useful to start with the style and form and find the content to fit that form. You decide. The content is totally up to you. We will discuss these in individual meetings in class.