Posts Tagged ‘loop’

Thursday, June 24th, 2010

Acapella, one of two videos by Guthrie Lonergan with that title (the other was discussed in the previous post), opens on a stock video clip depicting a direct point-of-view shot in which the camera smoothly banks through white clouds in an otherwise sublimely blue sky.

Almost immediately after this imagery appears onscreen, an a cappella version of the Oasis song “Wonderwall” emerges on the soundtrack and, then, almost immediately after that, an identical “Wonderwall” vocal track appears, creating a harmony.

The lead vocalist of Oasis, Liam Gallagher, in harmony with himself, sings:

Today is gonna be the day
(Today is gonna be the day)
That they’re gonna throw it back to you
(That they’re gonna throw it back to you)
By now you should’ve somehow
(By now you should’ve somehow)
Realized what you gotta do
(Realized what you gotta do)

*****

At about nine seconds into the video, a ray of sun peeks through the clouds and the video clip suddenly loops back to the beginning while the song continues normally.

The video clip then continues looping while the song continues playing.

There’s something blissful about it.

The shot is generic, but somehow beautiful in its simplicity and the harmony created from the a capella versions of “Wonderwall” only adds to the sense of this.

However, as one watches, one may wonder if it’s too blissful – after all, artists who work in a conceptual vein (as Lonergan does) often use aesthetic beauty ironically or to make a broader point about art.

So, one scans through the image, on the hunt for clues or a punchline.

But, there doesn’t seem to be any goofing going on here – it’s not like it’s all a big joke.

Eventually, though, the song ends and the viewer is left only with the endless silent looping of the video clip.

There’s an unsettling quality to just seeing the video clip without the song; it’s not “silent” as in a silent film, but rather “quiet” as in a person who could speak, but chooses not to.

At this point, one can either leave the work or follow it through this new phase.

Now, all that said, a strange sort of question pops up:

Is Acapella a narrative video with a beginning, a middle, and an end, or is it an infinite loop?

Is the piece done when the song finishes or does it just go on endlessly?

To put the question in practical terms, how would one show this in a gallery?

At the opening do you play it through with the song once and, then, for the duration of the exhibition just let the loop cycle through itself in silence or does the curator or gallery assistant just occasionally go over and start it up again based on either whims or an arbitrarily regulated schedule?

Perhaps that’s missing the point, though.

Maybe it only works as Web art in which the user is free to control their own personal experience of the work, viewing for as long as they choose, reloading as frequently as they choose.

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Friday, May 28th, 2010

Surveying the American Cultural Habitat by Hayley Silverman is a video composed of a short clip appropriated from a Bollywood musical which the artist slows down, plays in reverse, plays in forward motion again, and, then, in reverse again in an endless loop.

The action of this slowed down, reversed, and endlessly looped clip involves a South Asian woman holding a video camera in front of her face as she slides horizontally into the middle of the frame, removes her eye from the camera viewfinder (which is pointed directly at “us,” the viewers of the clip) and, then, smiles at “us” in a sort of half-awed, half-patronizing gesture of approval.

Also, the soundtrack of the video is a piece of music which is itself slowed down, played, reversed, and looped, resulting in a low, ominous undercurrent to this otherwise brightly colored and happy imagery.

As one begins to view through this loop, perhaps the first thing one tries to do is rationally understand it – to deconstruct all of these elements described above and, then, piece them back together into a satisfying story.

For example, the collision of the anthropological-sounding title – Surveying the American Cultural Habitat – with imagery involving a South Asian woman pointing a video camera back at “us,” the viewers of the clip, might lead one to say that the work is in some sense, anyway, inverting the practice of “othering” back out to the “American” viewer who is watching the clip.

It is not the “American” who is surveying her cultural habitat; but she who is surveying the “American” cultural habitat.

Perhaps.

But, as one continues to view through the repetitions of the loop, one may realize two additional things:

1. First of all, as one watches the repetition of the clip, one’s understanding changes each time – each repetition involves the present experience of the clip – yes – but also both the viewer’s ever-increasing past understandings of the clip as well as their future predictions for their understandings of the clip.

Thus, each time one views through the loop, one experiences a different clip with a different understanding which it affords.

2. And, second, due to this continuous change in understanding, it becomes difficult to assume that any effort at rationally understanding the clip will ever come to any ultimate fruition.

Every time one thinks they understand it, the next time one views through the loop, that understanding is mutated by the experience of comparing the understanding to the actual viewing of the clip.

And, at that point, one might catch on to another level of understanding in the work:

What the viewer is shown to be othering here is (in its own way) the video itself.

By looking at the work in the hopes of decoding it, dissecting it like a forensics report, one is going to miss it every time as it continuously slips out of one’s grip.

As such, one’s attempts to understand the work must then be conducted with a certain humbleness – an automatic understanding that no understanding is final.

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