Reading and Response #3: All the World is a Stage
“Vanishing and Becoming” by Sean Cubitt is an article of dichotomies about light, projection, and the origins of art. Cubitt begins by telling two myths. The first myth from Pliny is the origin of line, shadow and drawing. The second myth of Buddha and a young follower is light and color. Cubitt poses that art, drawing in particular, is a way of immortalizing the dead with replications of their likeness—a memento mori. Taking a 180 degree turn he puts forth Hannah Arendt’s ideal of the “natality concept,” that human action is the beginning and not the end. Despite the many years of art history and video production Cubitt says we are, “At the very beginning of how projection works.”
“Introduction to Video Art” by Lea Collet was more informative about video art and less philosophical. She gives many examples of how video imitates “classic” art. Her first example Le Voyage Dans la Lune, A Trip to the Moon, by Georges Méliès (1902) is a film which she says is to be differentiated from video art; however, it is an illustration of how artists used cinema to create art. Likewise, I included as one of my video examples, Smashing Pumpkin’s “Tonight, Tonight” video because it is an homage to Méliès film. Also included in my videos are Oskar Schlemmer’s 1912 Triadic Ballet an avant-garde performance from the Bauhaus period and New Order’s “True Faith” which was inspired by the Triadic Ballet thus correlating Collet’s ideal that video art is often influenced by “classic” art.
Joe Wallace, The Camera is Your Friend, Documentary:
Smashing Pumpkins,” Tonight, Tonight”
Mariko Mori, Miko No Inori, 1996
Triadic Ballet by Oskar Schlemmer
New Order, “True Faith”, 1987
