Ed. note: In celebration of Artblog’s 10-year anniversary, we are bringing you content from our inaugural year, 2003. In August, 2003, we weighed the successes and failures of “video” as a medium. Debates were had and opinions were stated but in the end, it was decided that we were just too dang impatient for such a slowly-transmitted message! Video art has since become a bit more user-friendly and its rising popularity and increased accessibility have led us to become more receptive. Consider the dialogue below and remember to “be kind” as you “rewind”!
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Video time
By libby
Another thought on video–it is not quick at all. It forces you to stand there and look and look and look, and it doesn’t always pay you back for your time.I find myself growing impatient often during video installations. I miss the temporal payback that a commercial movie or a good documentary gives you–a storyline. Just think about those interminable Andy Warhol portrait movies.
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Zoom, zoom, zoom
By roberta
Libby, I love all the points you made about slow video art. My question has to do with the future. You mention your impatience with slow video art. That is my point exactly. 100 years from now, will we be less impatient because art will have changed to respond to our impatience? Will we have fast art in the future instead of slow art….and is that a bad thing?
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The fault, dear Brutus, is in the video
By libby
The video art will respond to our impatience because if it doesn’t, who will watch it? I think the slowness of video art is a flaw, and I question that the flaw is in us, the viewer.
I concede that we, as viewers, are quite impatient, just like we, as drivers, these days, are insanely impatient. Ten years ago, drivers didn’t used to run me down as I stepped off the curb. Now they do. I, too, am impatient behind the wheel.
But I am not impatient in front of a good painting. Just as good paintings hold my interest, so can good videos. I think the fault is in the videos. Videographers need to pep up the proceedings to some degree. But the art is young, and in this way, I have patience to wait until video artists figure out more about their medium and how to make it work.
