Introduction
Video art emerged towards the middle of the twentieth century, initially as a direct response to television as a ubiquitous and dominant influence on the domestic landscape. Early work in the genre by artists centred on the rejection of conventional broadcast television and included efforts to create radical alternatives to the one-way diffusion of information and propaganda by governments and large corporations. During the 1970‘s and 80‘s, as television technology developed to include methods for the recording and editing of the video signal, artists and media activists took up the increasingly accessible and affordable equipment to explore the capabilities and potential of this electronic medium beyond the broadcast domain to alternative venues, including galleries and museums. As video technologies and techniques improved to approach the flexibility and capabilities of film- especially once it became possible to process the video image digitally, the two forms have increasingly merged, sharing approaches and cross- fertilising two formerly distinct but related genres into what for many is now perhaps more accurately characterised as Time Based media.
Chris Meigh-Andrews, May 2020
Programme 8 Video Art
Both Sides Now 5: Queer
Curated by Isaac Leung (Videotage) & Jamie Wyld (Videoclub)
Both Sides Now 5 looks at the way in which artist filmmakers are exploring Queer culture, using various film and video techniques, to explore aspects of Queer life in Hong Kong, China, and the UK.
British colonialism widely affected legal discrimination against LGBT people – specifically homosexual men. As in many ex-colonies, laws criminalising homosexuality were slow to change in Hong Kong, with decriminalisation taking until 1991, as opposed to 1967 in the UK. In 2019, laws regarding equality for LGBTQI+ people are almost equal. Though reception to Queer people in the UK and Hong Kong varies widely geographically, generationally and socially. With the rise of right-wing sentiments globally, the acceptance Queer people have enjoyed feels like it is in descent.
In response to post-colonialism and the rise of right-wing opinions, we have curated this programme to show a range of artworks that explore Queer identity and culture. Filmmakers from both sides explore aspects of LGBTQI+ life – with artists from both the UK and Hong Kong making work that reflects upon Queer identity, life, and creativity.
Artists in the programme include: Jay Bernard, Matt Lambert, Anson Mak, Fan Po Po, Nicole Pun, Lucie Rachel and Kayla Wu.
Both Sides Now is a tactical programme that uses film and video to explore culture and society between different nations, the UK, China and Hong Kong, and beyond. It is a project developed in collaboration between videoclub (UK) and Videotage (Hong Kong). Supported by Arts Council England and Hong Kong Arts Development Council.
Both Sides Now 5 attempts to reconsider queerness by looking into historical perspectives and its relevance to the present. Through this collection of films, we aim to investigate personal experiences and problematize the various notions of “queer” from local and global perspectives. Isaac Leung (Videotage) & Jamie Wyld (videoclub)
Where We Are Now, Lucie Rachel, 2016, Something Said, Jay Bernard, 2017, God is Watching, Matt Lambert, 2017, The Drum Tower, Fan Po Po, 2016, To Be Brandon, Nicole Pun, 2019, Differences Do Matter, Anson Mak, 1998, A Glass of Water, Kayla Wu, 2019,
Total programme run time: 52 mins
Programme 9 Video art
Joyous Dystopia
Curated by David Gryn, Founder & Director of Daata & Leilani Lynch, curator at The Bass
Featuring artists: Bob Bicknell-Knight, Jeremy Couillard, Keren Cytter, Elliot Dodd, Anaïs Duplan, Rosie McGinn, Eva Papamargariti, Scott Reeder.
Curated by David Gryn - Founder & Director of Daata & Leilani Lynch - curator at The Bass Joyous Dystopia was initially launched by The Bass² and Daata, as a dedicated online and Instagram project. The presented and screened by Daata, Bass Museum of Art & New World Symphony, during Art Basel in Miami Beach 2019. A selection of artworks by artists on Daata, originally presented by The Bass², a satellite gallery space of artwork native to the digital realm initiated by Bass Museum of Art, Miami Beach, in collaboration with Daata in July 2019. All the artworks subtly distort, poeticise and comment on readings, interpretations and postings online and on social media, mirroring views of our daily and sometimes dystopian life. The artists were commissioned by Daata, in tandem with The Bass².
http://daata.art @thebasssquared @daataeditions
Programme 10 Video art
Climbing Mount Ishizuchi in the Autumn
Chris Meigh-Andrews
In October 2018 I climbed the series of four chain routes to reach the summit of Mt Ishizuchi, the path of the pilgrimage route on Mount Ishizuchi, a holy mountain in western Japan, recording the sounds and images of my ascent in 5.7K video with a Garmin VIRB 360 camera. The panoramic images and sounds of the mountain landscape I have recorded reflect my fascination with the cross-fertilization of Eastern and Western aesthetic sensibilities, both for the landscape and it’s tradition in art and for the intersection between nature and technology, which has been a major theme in my work for many years.
Mt. Ishizuchi, located in Saijo City in Ehime prefecture is one of Japan’s Seven Holy Mountains and has been worshiped for around 1300 years. The Ishizuchi Shrine which holds the holy embodiment of the mountain, consists of four shrines: the main shrine at the foot of Mt. Ishizuchi, Jouju Shrine and the Tsuchigoya front shrine on the mountain side, and a shrine at the peak. From Jouju Shrine up to the mountain top is a 3-4 hour (one-way) mountain climbing route. There are four heavy iron chains which are used to climb up the perpendicular rock face.
Maurice Merleau-Ponty observed in his seminal essay Eye and Mind that “the artist takes his body with him” (sic), and this idea has been influential on my work for many years. The conventional video camera looks out at the world most often via a fixed stare, and in my video work I have often attempted to find ways to counter this to recreate and express the complex dynamics of human perception. “Climbing Mt Ishizuchi...” returns to the subject of the landscape, but by working with immersive display technology I am seeking to make a work which will present images (and sounds) of the landscape in relation to a direct experience of the human body. In this new work the camera has recorded the relationship between my body and the surrounding environment; the physical activity and effort of climbing the route has been documented in continuous “real-time” and the immersive version will allow the viewer to engage with this experience more directly. As an artist who has chosen to work and engage directly with technological devices, I seek ways to highlight both my fascination with emerging imaging technologies and to expand the potential ways in which the landscape genre can be expanded and redefined.
I have been exploring the potential of panoramic imagery in my work for some time. Previous video installations that feature digital panoramic camera devices include “Interwoven Motion” (2004), “The Monument Project (Si Monumentum Requiris, Circumspice)” (2009-2011) and “In Darwin’s Garden” (2010-2013). Each of these works is concerned with different aspects of the application of panoramic technical devices and seeks to examine the possibilities of spatio-temporality in diverse ways, but for the most part from a fixed- or at least quite limited geographical location, and all have been limited to the visual aspect. “Climbing Mt Ishizuchi in the Autumn” is the first of my landscape works to incorporate spatial sound as an integral element, and the first to directly engage with the spiritual dimension of the landscape, specifically the Buddhist acknowledgement of the transitory nature of existence. In my approach to this new work I would also like to acknowledge or reference the Japanese tradition of Sansui-ga, (“Mountains and Water”) an approach to the art of landscape in which the human figure is just a random and transient phenomenon within the more timeless landscape.