Nam June Paik was a Korean-born American artist. He worked with different styles of media. He was a composer, performer and was the very first video artist. Paik’s work showed how performance, music, video images, and the sculptural form of objects could be used in different combinations. Most of Paik’s performances were as much visual as a musical experience. For example, in his work “Hommage a John Cage”, Paik combined a pre-recorded collage of music and sounds with “on stage” sounds created by people, a hen, a motorcycle and other objects.
In 1963 Paik made his first video sculptures, “Exposition of Music- Electronic Television.” In this work, Paik scattered twelve television sets throughout an exhibit space. He modified the electronic components of these television sets in order to create unexpected affects. Another one of Paik’s installations is “TV Buddha.” In this work a statue of Buddha is sitting and facing its own image on a closed-circuit television.
Bruce Nauman was born in 1941. He is considered one of the most innovative contemporary artists in America. He finds inspiration for his work in the activities, speech and materials of everyday life. Nauman works with numerous diverse mediums such as sculpture, video, film, printmaking, performance, neon and installation. He focuses on the way a process can transform or become a work of art.
One of Nauman’s works is the “One Hundred Fish Fountain.” The “One Hundred Fish Fountain is made up of ninety-seven bronze fish which spurt water through punctured holes. The water drops to a large basin below and is pumped back through tubes. This piece of artwork is very noisy. The water fills the fish noisily and it sprays out loudly until the pumps are turned off. Then the remaining water drips out. This sculpture is displayed at the Donald Young Gallery in Chicago.
Bill Viola is one of today’s leading artists. He established video as a form of contemporary art. Viola has created videotapes, architectural video installations, sound environments, electronic music performances, flat panel video pieces, and works for television broadcast. His work focuses on universal human experiences such as birth, death and the unfolding of consciousness. His art represents Eastern and Western art as well as spiritual traditions such as Zen Buddhism, Islamic Sufism, and Christian mysticism. His art is shown in museums and galleries worldwide.
One of Bill Viola’s works is “Silent Mountain.” “Silent Mountain” is a 45 second clip of two actors in states of anguish. One of the themes of this artwork is force of change. Viola stated that in nature there are two extremes of change. One is the slow process of when material is transformed such as the wearing away of a mountain by wind and weather. The other is a sudden change caused by an event such as a volcanic explosion. The energy from this work focuses on the violent type of change. In “Silent Mountain” the performers are in pain in isolation. The two actors are parallel to one another in silent companionship. When they are no longer able to withstand the suffering, they burst out with a violent scream.
Joseph DeLappe has been working with electronic and new media since 1983. His work includes online gaming performance, electromechanical installation and real-time web-based video transmission, which have been shown across the United States and abroad. He is an artist and also an educator at the Department of Art at the University of Nevada.
In 1997 DeLappe started his “Mouse Series.” In this series DeLappe started working with Apple mice. The “Heart Mouse” was one of the first pieces made in the “Mouse Series.” During the times in which this piece was made, Apple equipment was made with a surface which was similar to human skin. It had a texture that was similar to pores. “Heart Mouse” as well as “Vagina Mouse” were pieces meant to show the hidden industrial design and show how companies design products to fit the human body.
In 2001 DeLappe began a series of protests through computer games and online communities. One of his projects was “Dead-In-Iraq.” He created this to intervene in a game, “America’s Army”, created by the Defense Department as a recruiting and marketing tool which is taxpayer funded. DeLappe enters the game with the name “dead-in-iraq”. He then drops his weapon as opposed to participating in the “mayhem” and he is eventually killed. He then hovers over his dead avatar and types the name, age, service branch and date of death of each American military casualty from the war in Iraq. In 2009 he was recorded to have inputted 4042 names and he intended to keep doing so until the end of the war.
Another one of Joseph DeLappe’s projects was his reenactment of Mahatma Ghandi’s famous 1930 Salt March. Over the course of twenty-six days, March 12 to April 6, 2008, DeLappe was able to reenact Ghandhi’s march through Second Life. The original walk was 240 miles and was made in protest of the British salt tax. DeLappe’s march took place at Eyebeam in Second Life. He walked the entire 240 miles on a treadmill, which was customized for cyberspace. His steps on the treadmill controlled the forward movement of his avatar, which was MGhandi Chakrabarti.
Gary Hill is a video artist who has exhibited his video installations worldwide. Electronic Linguistic, created in 1977, is one of his early pieces. In this work he shows the relationship between linguistic and electronic “phenomena.” He does this by using white pixel images, which appear and move on a black screen, which correlated to high-frequency sounds. As the video progresses, the pixels become larger and start to pulsate more intensely.
The way that Hill was able to correlate the images and the high frequency sounds really fascinated me. He made the frequencies change as the pixel images changed. As the video goes on the pixels turn into a circular shape accompanied by high tones. The work ends with a silent image, which lasts for several seconds. This early work was a precursor to his later more complex art pieces.
The Los Angeles County Museum of Art, LACMA, was completely different than what I was expecting. It was massive as compared to the Norton Simon Museum and had a lot more artwork. It was also extremely gorgeous and had modern buildings. There were also a huge variety of different painting styles. When I went to the Norton Simon Museum I wasn’t really a huge fan of contemporary art. The contemporary art at LACMA completely changed my mind. Everything in the contemporary building was interesting. I also noticed that almost all the artwork in the contemporary building had bold colors, which really caught my eye and attracted me to the artwork. I am really glad that I was able to experience going to this museum.
Lari Pittman was born in Los Angeles, California in 1952. He was inspired by commercial advertising, folk art, and decorative traditions. Pittman’s art comprises of themes such as romantic loves, violence, and mortality. In his paintings, Pittman gives human characteristics to furniture, weapons, and animals. Pittman paints his art in layers that overlap each other. His art is a rebellion against the division of two contradicting ideas. His work actually depicts the complementary nature of beauty and suffering as well as pain and pleasure. In the early 1980s, Pittman started to use silhouettes. He used silhouettes to discuss social conventions, human behavior and encoded behavior. He believes that even if the work has a strong declarative voice, which is obvious, the painting’s subtext or code is actually being advanced. I personally like Lari Pittman’s artwork. The colors he uses are bold and each of his paintings have a unique message which is he trying to convey.
