video installation research (task 1)

This article will be about controversial video art installations that has caused a twisting response from the public and whether or not if its appropriate. The artists I will be focusing on is:

• Bill Viola
• Wolf Vostell
• David Wojnarowicz

Bill Viola

Most of Bill Viola's video art that he produces relates to life and death and he has stuck with this theme throughout his time creating video art installations. It has became his artistic identity within the art world - This is where his work leads to a controversial issue to the public.

An example of his work (Above) called ''Anthem'' started off showing construction buildings, city areas, fruits, bread and vegetables; further on to the video, it started displaying insides of fruits as this relates to the human body. Life in this piece is represented through cities, food and humans whereas death is related to out-of-date fruits and vegetables, insides of an eye lid and an opened body. The camera techniques used in Viola's work was still, the camera did not move at all which became the focus of the scene; he described this piece as ''Our deepest primal fears, darkness and the separation of the body and spirit'', the audience found this very dark and extremely graphical because of the separation of the body and soul which might of caused religious believers to be upset about this particular art work.

Wolf Vostell 

An example of Wolf Vostell's work called ''Elektronischer: Happening Raum (Happening Room)’'' made in 1968, it was videotaped recorded with sound and colour, the video showed a spaced out room with objects scattered around. The items used in the video were classic televisions with weird tools attached to them that moved, an old pile of dirty, rugged clothing with meat on the floor and blood stained cloths. The video installation was set in a room which had strange happenings such as the television showing the key relevance about a past event also the shaky camera effect made it more unclear. Audience found this very confusing with questions unanswered due to the random meat and blood that was contained in this art. I believe that Vostell wants to tell the audience something and that he might be talking about the political society.

David Wojnarowicz
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''Fire in my belly'' is David's most controversial piece which was done in 1987, this is famous for its biggest uproar in terms of video art due to the fact that it seemed that David has put religion down by putting an image of Jesus Christ with crawling insects all over him. The theme seemed to be very dark and gothic that it almost looked scary with a rotting hand. There was use of narration in this video as it had been said that he created this video in memory of his friend that had died from AID's, he was also suffering from the same disease when he made this video. He made this video to express his feelings; he felt that the world abandoned him and the US did nothing about this problem, he felt alone and felt that he was suffering the same pain as Jesus Christ. The audience thought it was irrelevant to add Jesus Christ and all the other religious imagery's that may have caused an uproar from religious believers.