Artist Showdown: Sklaar v. Singer

Daniel Sklaar displaying his "Fine and Raw" chocolates

Digital media artist and professor, Brooke Singer

"The Counter Kitchen"

"The Counter Kitchen's" demo of Sklaar's innovative chocolatiering.

Singer's "Superfund365" Project

Second Life: Screenshot #1

This Second Life dealio is not my cup of tea.

YouTube Remix

Below is a screenshot of my video mixer titled "NoVember".

Reading: Manovich

1. I like the idea that cinema is considered the pioneer of "multimedia". This type of media has changed drastically since its invention and has made leaps and bounds over the years (think of the contrast between silent films and something like, Transformers). If cinema is considered the original form of "multimedia", where will the field be in five, ten, or even 100 years? How is cinema going to change in our lifetime?

2. Near the end, the reading discusses interactivity with media users. In the analog world of books and hard copies, the reader is given a specific and singular form of media and information; however, in the world of digital media, the author states that users can generate their own, individualized form of media with the use of hyperlinks. How does this change the way that we receive or perceive information? What does the implementation of customized media mean for artists and how they will adapt to the digital mindset?

Replications

Here is my emulation of "Hand Movie" by Yvonne Rainier.  Taking videos of your own hand is actually not that easy, but I accomplished it on my cell phone's 8 MP camera.  It only took five million years (NO exaggeration) to render and upload using Sony Vegas.



My emulation of Oliver Herring's video "Nathan" was filmed via my laptop's webcam and all the audio comes from the original artist's soundtrack.

Vids.

The videos I've chosen to replicate are from the company Dance with Camera:

"Nathan", Oliver Herring, 2007
"Hand Movie", Yvonne Rainier, 1966

Reading: Video Art

Questions: 1. How can you visualize 'video art' when you're reading about it on paper? In my mind, reading the descriptions of the videos (particularly those from the women during the 90s, such as Phyllis Baldino) only enforces skepticism as to whether or not the examples qualify as art. Since we read a scanned copy, the reference images included in the book were darkened and lost. What classifies a video as artistic? Is there a point or threshold when a video cannot be classified as art or are there no boundaries? 2. "Video also afforded as sense of intimacy usually not realizable in film." What is the difference between film and video? While the differences (according to artist Dan Graham) are listed in the reading, this is a concept that's hard for me to grasp. Does the technique separate film from video? Or does the actual hardware used to create the images separate the two? Like above, does film qualify as art?