Steve McQueen

Steve Rodney McQueen CBE (born 1969) is a British artist and filmmaker. He is a winner of the Golden Camera at the Cannes Film Festival, a Turner Prize and BAFTA. wiki

*A Short Essay by da eun Jeong on Mustang Advertisement

The ideological function of this commercial is that you can speed up as much as you want with the help of Mustang. This commercial “is a part of ideology, and involves a false assumption which is the root of all ideology, namely that because things are as they are, this state of affairs is somehow natural, and must ‘make sense’ simply because it exists” (Williamson 29). The speed of the car just seems too dangerous to even try, and the driving skill this protagonist possesses is unbelievably amazing and professional. Plus, he does not wear helmet, or anything to protect himself. He is too confident that this Mustang can never break down and harm him. The possession of Mustang seems necessary and crucial in order to enjoy the speed. All the protagonist needs is money and his love for Mustang. So Mustang and this “image/emotion (stylish lifestyle) become linked in our minds, while the process of this linking is unconscious” (Williamson 30).

This commercial is a fait accompli because Mustang is infallible, and the tires will never worn away. The form of this commercial is visually exciting and simulating. The background music adds to create the exciting atmosphere. The logic and connotative meaning behind the notion of the commercial is that Mustang functions as a source to prove his success, happiness, and popularity, and without it, he would not look cool the way he does in this commercial. The nexus between Mustang and Success, happiness, and popularity is interchangeable and solidified.

Mustang commercial is “based on evoking emotion, but not directly, only through a promise of evoking pleasure”(Williamson 30). Emotion is “promised when you buy the product” (Williamson 31) that Mustang and money are interchangeable. Consequently, the intent of this commercial is to make viewers admire the lifestyle of this man in the commercial that people pay to purchase this product. In this way, meaning acts as a currency through a promise of pleasure and satisfaction. You pay for this product, you make Mustang your own, then you feel confident, and powerful, and successful.

Television commercial functions to inject its own ideology and social discourse on to viewers by creating myth. Mustang can make you enjoy life and make you successful. By creating this man in the commercial as a Mustang idol, audience admire and desire his life style. Interchange between money and Mustang seems possible when there is a promise of excitement and satisfaction in life. Mustang makes viewers determine who they are and make people follow this commercial’s ideology and social discourse.

Works Cited
Williamson, Judith. “Decoding Advertisements: Ideology and Meaning in Advertising.” London and New York: Marion Boyars, 1978.

Janet Biggs

Janet Biggs (born 1959) is an American video artist, photographer and performance artist living in New York City. Biggs’ video works often include images of individuals engaged in obsessive and extreme activities. She has worked with miners underground, champion wrestlers, speed-obsessed bikers, synchronized swimmers and arctic explorers. Her earlier video work dealt with issues of psychosis and psychotropic drugs.

I am not sure if speed means freedom of the Soul. I would rather freak out if I am on a motorcycle driving alone. This woman must be a fearless and a bold person who enjoys speed! I get extremely exhausted after driving lessons. I think what Janet Biggs means by the vanishing point is a place where there is freedom and she challenges herself endlessly to get to the vanishing point. Vanishing point can mean many things: success, freedom, happiness, etc. According to the brief summary of this video explains the vanishing point as the freedom which can lead to destruction and self-harm. I absolutely agree when there is so much freedom, many people struggle to make right decisions and to find right path for themselves. Life is full of mistakes.

Jym Davis

ARTIST STATEMENT
My art reflects my interest in the way we deal with mystery in a scientific era, exploring how the fantastic fits into comtemporary culture. My influences come from a variety of story-sources: Norse mythology, The Old Testament, and tales of folkloric revenants from Eastern Europe. I’m exploring the ways these archetypes interact with a new generation.

BIOGRAPHY
Jym’s exhibition record includes shows all over the east and west coast of the United States as well as Germany, The Netherlands, Austria, Russia, Lithuania, and at The University of Thessaloniki School of Fine Arts in Greece. His work was featured in the 2009 Prentice Hall textbook Digital Art: Its Art and Science as well as the International Cinematographer’s Guild Magazine. His music videos appear on Encyclopedia Asthmatica, a DVD compilation of Asthmatic Kitty Records music videos.

A short explanation of this video: White Space was created as a variation on the theme of Creation. The work uses the Creation story of Adam as a guide (“formed man from the dust of the ground”). A human head appears as animated ‘dust’ as it emerges from and descends into a chalky white pool. While the non-narrative short film can viewed as the original “man” being created by God, there are also references to science-fiction and the head takes on a ghostly ethereal quality…like an alien being from another planet. Influences of David Lynch as well as the repetitious music of minimalist composers Philip Glass and Steve Reich can also be seen. In addition to directing the video, Jym Davis also appears in the work.

Website: www.jymdavisart.com

I personally love this video. I love the soundscapes, and the composition of this piece. The continuous progression of this ‘not yet human figure’ lifting its head looks like a soul coming out from its head. I think the mysterious sounds fit very well with the mood of this piece.

One thing I was not sure about was the yellow colour at the bottom of the screen in scene 2:32. I was so into this piece while I was watching. I assume that the blood pouring down from the top explains how blood is an essential part of human survival. The sound gives me the notion of struggle to become a human figure. My favourite colour is white, and I particularly enjoy watching pieces that contain colors such as white, green, and blue.

Gary Hill

Gary Hill (born in 1951, Santa Monica, California, U.S.) is an American artist who lives and works in Seattle, Washington. One of the pioneers of video art, Gary Hill has exhibited his video and video installations worldwide (Artfacts 2007). He is represented by Donald Young Gallery of Chicago.An anthology on the work of Gary Hill by Robert C. Morgan was published by Johns Hopkins University Press in 1999.Gary Hill’s work is especially significant due to his incorporation of text in video art, evident in works such as Incidence of Catastrophe 1977-78. Hill began working with video, text and sound in 1973. He was influenced by the intellectual orientation of conceptual art which dominated art of the 1970s. His reading of the writings of Maurice Blanchot, in particular, provided him with ideas relating to the way in which language impinges on phenomenological experience, and a notion of ‘the other’ stemming from the philosophy of Emmanuel Lévinas. Such reading informs Hill’s visual-poetic explorations of the interrelationships between language, image, identity, and the body. For example in Cabin Fever he uses the binary opposition of light and darkness to convey the notion of an interaction between a self and an ‘other’. He has also explored immersive environments, as seen in his 1992 piece Tall Ships. Hill’s work thoroughly exploits the capacity of video to offer complex nonlinear narratives that encourage active engagement on the part of the viewer. In Roland Barthes’ terms, Hill’s video narratives can be understood as ‘writerly’ texts. wiki

Donald Young Gallery Website: http://www.donaldyoung.com/hill/gary_hill_index.html

I have no idea what this video is trying to say, but the voice is really creepy.

Have a look at this video as well. The voice sounds like alien’s voice. I honestly really don’t get his works, and his works are really scary. Is there anyone who can help me understand?

Andrew Huang

Andrew “bunnie” Huang is an American hacker, who holds a Ph.D in electrical engineering from MIT and is the author of the 2003 book Hacking the Xbox: An Introduction to Reverse Engineering. He was born in 1975. He also was the first person to hack the original Xbox console. Huang, along with Ken Steele, designed Chumby, an embedded computer device. – wiki

website: http://www.andrewthomashuang.com/about.htm

I absolutely agree with the video that so many girls and women are influenced by the ideological beauty that is created by the media. I even personally think that I need to be more beautiful and need to be more fit in order to make myself more worthy. However, I don’t get a motivation to do make up, do exercise to lose weight, or whatever. For What? Right Now? I don’t have time! and before I become so skinny and thin, I will get a cold because of consuming lack of nutrient! I see these skinny girls on the Internet, and they are interviewed what they eat, and they say vegetables, fruit, nuts, and milk. And they say they are getting enough nutrient, and faint in the middle of performing at concerts. I mean I can make time to exercise, make myself beautiful, but I need to use that time and energy to do my HW! But I highly believe that I need to take care of my beauty more when I get married.

This video reminded me of this movie (I don’t remember the title) where this poll dancer agreed to sign a contract before getting a breast enlargement surgery, and the next day she died of bleeding too much. I was really shocked even though I have seen some people on television with side effects of cosmetic surgeries. I think the scene 3:07 is telling us how harmful it is to follow the ideological beauty by having cosmetic surgeries, and use chemical substances in order to make oneself beautiful. This female robot tries to get closer to TV, and as it tries to get closer and closer, her waist and her body break down (self-destruction).

I saw the CBC documentary in the past where some women advocate people not to use makeup, or any sort of cosmetic products. They got cancer because of using too many cosmetic products for a long time. They said when you take a close look at the lists of things that are listed in a skin care product, these chemicals are actually harmful for skin. The majority of product users are not familiar with the terms that are used such as perfume, xynoglaciers, etc, and people use products because media tells them that these products make them beautiful, and they can have healthy skin and can look as beautiful as the girls on television.

Pierre Huyghe

Pierre Huyghe (born 1962) is a French artist who works in a variety of media from film and video to public interventions. He won the Hugo Boss Prize from the Guggenheim Museum in 2002. Huyghe was born in 1962 and trained at the Ecole Nationale Supérieure des Arts Décoratifs. In 2001 Huyghe represented France at the Venice Biennale, where his pavilion, entitled Le Château de Turing, won a special prize from the jury. In 2002 Huyghe won the Hugo Boss Prize from the Guggenheim Museum and exhibited several works there the following year. In 2006, Huyghe’s film A Journey That Wasn’t was exhibited at the Whitney Biennial in New York, and at the re-opening of ARC/MAM and Tate Modern. In 2008 Pierre Huyghe became a professor of art and philosophy at European Graduate School in Saas-Fee, Switzerland.
He is represented by the Marian Goodman Gallery.

Marian Goodman Gallery website: http://www.mariangoodman.com/

Pierre Huyghe – 50 Wind Chimes @ Walker Art Center

When I first saw this video, I was astonished with the notion of using wind as main source of power to create sounds using chimes. The different directions of wind, and the collision between winds and the leaves. It would be so amazing and enjoyable to hear and be in the moment. I would love to visit this place, and stay in the middle of these trees, close my eyes, listen to the musical sounds, and stay under the sun. It would be so warming. The combination of wind, the Sun, and the chime — so wonderful.

Speed Painting An Abstract Art Piece ?

This video is really funny. It made me laugh. This video uploader says speed painting when in fact the person used the editing program to speed up the whole video! It will probably take a few hours to finish that up!

Contemporary Japanese Art Painting, Canvas Art ?

I do not think that this is the method from Japanese contemporary art painting because I learned to paint the background first before I paint any details when I was in middle school in South Korea. I mean this is not a method that Japanese only use, but I think almost all painters use this technique. I think it is sort of a common sense to pain background first. Is it not?

Bill Viola

Bill Viola, a leading figure of contemporary video artist works in the fields of electronic, sound, and image technology in New Media. His works cover themes of human experiences such as birth, death, and aspects of consciousness.

This video reminds me of Jesus’ crucification and resurrection. The part where this figure slowly rising from water reminds me of resurrection and him fainting and this woman grabbing him remind me of Jesus and Maria. The right side of female figure remind me of the prostitute who was forgiven of all her sins from Jesus.

It seems like the artist makes many videos on slow-motions to catch minute details in actions. This video would have been more attractive without any dialogues. I am not sure if this video is the real one, but the tilting of the frames of video distracts from carefully observing the actions in this video.

The video derives eroticism.

Chris Boyd

Chris Boyd is a contemporary video artist and was awarded for this video below.

This video is alluring. From my perspective, this video contains many themes: interweaved human relationships, abuse, pain and suffering, expression, emotions, and finally recollection of past memories. Naked women crouched down, ducked in a dark alienated space, and some lie on cold-looking floor looking depressed. These women seem to need help, care, and love. Naked women seem to represent sexual abuse. There is a scene where miniature humans are all interrelated physically and finally zoomed out creating a black hole shape. This seems to explain that human, universe, and nature are all interrelated and one can never break off from each other.

Scene 1:01 reminds me of the CBC documentary where crabs create wave motions by sticking tight as a group to move to one place to the other. This scene looks the same like the way crabs were all interrelated. There are many similarities between human and animals in a way that animals have affection toward their babies the way humans do, they need to stay in groups in order to survive like the way human socialize and need each other to survive.

Scene 1:41 reminds me of the ghost program where the colour of the screen is green and human eyes flash. This scene probably indicates that existence or artist’s belief in ghosts, or things that exist that humans cannot see with their eyes.

There are two scenes about masks. I think these masks symbolize how human sometimes have to wear masks in order to hide their feelings, or sins so that they do not have to recollect painful memories, they have no choice but to hide from others, or they have no one to share their personal stories.

2:40 seems like a penis to me, and the red background reminds me of blood and rape.

Scene 4:11, there is a woman writing a note down. I totally relate to this because I used to write down how I felt on papers and trashed them, and it was sort of my way to release all the negative feelings. However, writing did not help much.

I am not certain and some scenes are hard to recognize what they are, but one thing I noticed is that people in this video are all in dark places. The settings are so depressing.