Video Installation

What is video installation? Who does it work? This contemporary art form that combines the use of video technology
within the use of installation art. This means that all the aspects needed from the surrounding environments that affects the
viewing audience. This means that the way the installation is shown to its audience will affect the interpretations gained
from it.

Its shown
that Practitioners of Video
installation
use this form of


technology to portray artist topics in

all sorts of ways. They will sometimes
build a set around the video as a way
of being
able to engage its audience. A
main point
in presenting this type of

installation must be shown through

different forms of technology which
Ipads, TV screens, laptops
could be
etc. anything
that will get this

audience engaged!

Now you are all probably question this,

thinking how is it done? How can a video
bring such an audience to the art topic.
Installation artist Omar Fast produced a
piece called 5000 Feet. This piece of work
is a 30 minute films that connects you to
the piece straight away with confusion and
a mixture of exciting yet anxious feeling on
whats going to happen throughout. You
find yourself part- way through an
interview with an American drone or
looking at the Las Vegas night skyline,
hearing about a family killed by a missile or
a man conned out of his trousers. With this
installation piece it works behind the idea
of war and how one pilot is discussing how

To hit targets in Afghanistan whilst sitting in

the control room in Nevada seeing these
militants and civilians from a US base. The
drone is based in immediately shows emotions
and thoughts due to the way they sound
within the piece. The way that the pieces is
portrayed it makes you question a lot on the
topic of war and what environments you are
associated with when involved with the career.
This piece of high tech installation would be
instilled in big places like the Imperial War
Museum, this is due to the high focus on the
war topic and the fact that the way that the
video was portrayed it gives the audience that
feel of what its like to be within the war
environment. It suggest many ideas in which
this can be presented but, based on the artist
wanting to create that effect they decided to
place it within the War museum in a
soundproof black box with only one person
allowed in at the time.

Video Installation

This can be presented but, based on the

artist wanting to create that effect they
decided to place it within the War museum
in a soundproof
black box with only one

person allowed
in at the time. Within this

film one of its main objective immediately

takes you away from reality with the use of

Ariel footage
and a lot of helicopter
sweeping
shots, which allows us to connect
with the surroundings, and the atmosphere
it creates. But also the use of the dark

lighting and massive scene to make the
audience feel tiny in comparison to the
video itself.

being watched the entire time creating those

uncomfortable and unwanted feelings. They
would want to do this to make you think what
its like to be living within the world of war.
Being trapped on your own in a black box is
like your mind is separate you are focusing on
something specific thats your mission like you
would as a solider within the army. However
it does make you thing about the concept of
war and how tiny you actually are compared to
the screen showing, it has the good use of
creative space that could be seen as making
have a insignificance feeling.

use of black box it brings a lot of

With the
negativity
in the sense as it make you feel
small and
isolated as you are trapped in just

that one small area. Its almost like you are

Past and Present

Inverted Birth, 2014

Video/sound colour High-Definition video
projection Screen mounted on the wall in
Darkroom. Projected image size: 16 ft. 5 in
x 9 ft. 3 in (5 x 2.81m). Duration: 8:22
minutes. These themes continue in Violas
Inverted Birth, which explores the life cycle
as a continuum rather than a linear
progression. Viola has remarked, Birth is
not a beginning, death is not an end. This
was presented through the form of a six
screen show at James Cohan.

Video Installation

installation work is art that is able
Bill Viola
to express
the focus of fundamental

experiences like birth, death and aspects of
consciousness. These forms of art
installation show how he focuses of portrays
images in certain ways.

The fluids change from black to red to white,

ultimately becoming clear like water. A soft
mist covers the man for the final stage of
awakening. This then is showing the essentials
of human life: earth, Blood, milk, water and
air. This shows the passage of birth to death
which was is idea to portray in the first place.

Viola presents the footage

backward, so we see those
sheets of liquid fly off Scott as if
hes an exploding star.

The typical of narrative that is covered

by this piece is due to the way that the
storyline of this installation is portrayed.
The piece begins with a man standing in
darkness, coated in black fluid.
Gradually, the fluid begins to flow in
reverse and rises upward with increasing
velocity.

Reality and Present

With Shigeko Kubota was a Japanese
American artist who produced a lot of
revolutionary video installations within the
60s and 70s but also grew in popularity after
meeting Yoko Ono. He way her work was
presented was through a portable 8mm
camera meaning she could capture this type
of work. Kubotas work from the 60s to the
1980s was produced in homepage to Marcel
Duchamp such as nude descending a stair

Case, which takes the name of the Duchamp

Painting it was made up of 4 small monitors
embedded within four of the wood staircase
steps on the super 8 film of filmmaker Shelia
McLaughlin walking down stair loops in the
monitor.
Most of her installations are used in an
interesting style of presentation and aimed to
create an immersive space for the audience to
enjoy her work such as one particular piece
thats being placed on a five-inch monitor
attached to motorise bike wheels.

Video Instillation

How these examples of installation

inspired my own installation piece?
With my installation piece I have decided
that a way to presented the topic of
Graphic narrative I was going to have a
bookshelf located within my area where
the Use of TVs and Ipads will be able to
show my target the types of narrative
trailers. Each part of the shelf will be
allocated to particular narrative genre
being Superheros, Pop Art, Horror and
Childrens story. Each will have its own
section showing the trailers and also
having professional looking comic books
of the real life narratives that had been
drawn or photographed by students.
We will also be interacting with our
audience make them more engage and

Able to participate with the topic. In this

case we are going to have a stand within
the area where the audience are allowed to
create their own flip books of one of the
graphics narratives of their choice, the can
then see how the progress of graphic
narrative works.
So in this case from the examples above I
have been inspired by some of their idea to
be able to create that interacted needed to
keep the audience engage and wanted
more at all times. I felt as if the Bill Voila
piece was inspired with my instillation due
to the repented stages it has within
showing the piece. I felt that Voila
showing all these separate stages would be
useful for my topic in being able to show
each genre in a different and unique way.

References
http://www.jamescohan.com/exhibitions/2015-1210_bill-viola
http://www.villagevoice.com/arts/bill-viola-s-invertedbirth-video-installation-will-mess-with-your-mind8047776
http://www.bpb.org.uk/2012/whats_on/omer-fast/
http://www.moma.org/collection/artists/3277
http://www.independent.co.uk/artsentertainment/art/reviews/visual-art-review-5000feet-is-the-best-how-truth-and-fiction-becameblurred-8783611.html
http://www.bpb.org.uk/2012/whats_on/omer-fast/