Appropriation in art and art history refers to the practice of artists using pre-existing objects or images in their art with little transformation of the original. Appropriation can be across mediums, I looked at the readymades & Duchamp last year on Foundation as an example of this. Warhol is another artist I looked at last year briefly in my inside outside project, he also uses appropriation. Today we focused on ‘Moving Image’ and video aesthetics and how artists have appropriated music/videos to make new art works, find new meanings and ask more questions from the footage/music.
The task was to find two videos on the internet, download via a video converter and switch them around so the sound and image are swapped over for each video. I chose a few different videos/footage of nature and also chose a song I had been listening to a lot recently that I had been wanting to use for something due to the emotive instrumentals.
I chose to do a nature video, and I don't feel I stuck to the brief really. I kind of just made my own video with whatever imagery was stirred up when I listened to the song. The name of the song is 'Sweet Apocolypse' by Lambert. Its an instrumental piece that I love. It makes me think of nature growing, expanding and taking over. I wanted to use imagery of epic nature scenes to create different moods that went with the music. I was still appropriating but just not in a contradictory way. I am still happy with the result and think it works well.
The other task as an experiment after the workshop was to make an illogical music video and appropriate all the footage and make it as illogical we can. I added effects/ lots of images, so it ‘mades no sense’ whatsoever and is a visual nightmare. I worked into the footage as much as possible and it actually took me a few days to create. There are some really humorous elements to it looking back and it gave me a chance to explore the video & audio transitions & effects. I learnt a lot through the process.
The video itself is completely illogical yet there are elements of pattern to it which I think is effective, such as using the two women singers at the same time and then swapping their faces over. I like the idea of layering videos on top of one another and the same video duplicated to show an emphasis. The music was a completely random choice. I enjoyed playing around with the video transitions to go with the changes in keys and parts of the song.
To take this whole project further I have been inspired by Mark Leckey and the video 'dream english kid' 1964-1999AD. This video is a self portrait in a way and as he claims "a record of the virulent media spore that contaminated me at birth. From the launch of Project Echo to the Y2K Millennium Bug."
I would like to explore the media stories and appropriate them from around the time I was born until 5 years old. They say that a child's brain is developed more between when they're born and 5 years old than at any time in their life. This interests me. I'd like to look into this more and explore how the media and TV also affect a child's brain. But first I will make a video appropriating media footage from the years 1989 - 1994 in my next project as a self-portrait.
Comments