Agustin Lara
December 4, 2016
Art 346
Artist comparison
Digital
Combinations
Digital
media can be defines as digitized content that can be transmitted over the
internet or computer networks, this can include text, audio, video, and
graphics. This means that news from a TV
network, newspaper, magazine, etc. that is presented on a website or blog can
fall into this category. The wonderful
thing about digital media is that many artists no matter their background can
incorporate digital media into their own works. Two artists that I would like to focus on to
better help give an explanation of digital media are Bill Brand and
Banksy. Right away the name Banksy might
come off, as a bit of a surprise considering that he is mostly known for his
graffiti works, however there is more to some of his works than meets the eye.
Bill
Brand is a video artist who was born in 1949 in Rochester, New York. His films and videos were first shown at the
Anthology Film Archives in New York City in 1973, and have since been screened
in the United States and around the world in museums, independent film
showcases, colleges and universities, and even on television. He has been featured at major film festivals
including the Berlin International Film Festival, New Directors/ New Films
Festival, Tribeca Film Festival, and the Rotterdam Film Festival. He was asked,
“What kind of source material, what types of film or genres of film and gauges
have you been working with primarily, in terms of preservation? (Frye 216)”, during an interview with Brian
Frye, to which he responded, “My own films made on the optical printer are from
16mm reversal camera originals. I don't work from negative in the projector
end” (Frye 216). One of his films that
includes the use of 16mm film was his work, ‘Moment’. Moment is a 16mm black and white film work
that lasts twenty-three and a half minutes, and it was introduced in 1972. When
I first watched the work I did not read the description and did not know what
to expect. Now when the film starts it almost seems like it is not going to be
an interesting piece at all up until what seems like reversed audio comes in
and you as a spectator start to gain more of an interest. However after watching the same sequence over
and over you think to yourself I am not going to sit here and watch twenty more
minutes of this, yet little changes start occurring in the film and the
sequences start to change, little by little the film is starts to more into
less of a video and more of a frame ‘slideshow’ in a way. Now what I mean by that is that every frame
used for the film becomes visible. I
can’t say why, but as the film reached the end I started feeling uneasy, I did
not like the fact that I could see every frame, it reminded me of a bad Internet
connection or losing cable signal due to a storm. Bill Brand description of the piece goes as
follows. As the film starts we see a
view of a gas station, behind a multi-paneled tire ad display. In the first two
to three minutes, or so, a simple series of ordinary gas station events is seen
intermittently through the opening display. This sequence was then divided and
rearranged seven times in reverse order. Each time the divisions are greater in
number (smaller in size) until finally the film appears to move smoothly
backwards, divided by a single frame. The inspiration for the film as well as
the title is derived from information theory where a 'moment' is defined as the
shortest duration at which no distinction can be made between units of information.
This work is a demonstration and exploration of the line between human
information and machine information. It dynamically reveals film's basic unit,
the frame.
The
second selected artist is Banksy; Banksy is an England-based graffiti artist,
political activist, and film director of unverified identity. His satirical street art and subversive
epigrams combine dark humor with graffiti executed in a distinctive stenciling
technique. His works of political and
social commentary have been featured on streets, walls, and bridges of cities
throughout the world. Banksy displays
his art on publicly visible surfaces such as walls and self-built physical prop
pieces. Now all of this does not seem
like he is a digital media artist whatsoever yet I will talk about not one but
two works that say otherwise. The first
work does not really have a title since it is a graffiti piece, yet it’s a
graffiti piece with a twist. He painted
the piece across the street from the French Embassy in Knightsbridge. The main subject of the piece is Cosette
from Les Miserables, who is crying from the use of tear gas. This piece is supposed to criticize the
French government and their use of tear gas in refugee camps. Now what makes this a digital media piece is
a simple QR code. That’s right this work
has a QR code to the left of the work, that once scanned takes you to a video
of tear gas being used in a camp in Calais. This work brings the issues to life
and directly to you, to everyone who walks down this street in Knightsbridge
and sees this work. It makes the subject
matter real; it makes you question right and wrong and whether or not you have
the power to make a difference. The
second Banksy piece I would like to talk about is his video titled ‘Rebel
Rocket Attack’. This video was released
on YouTube where it shortly racked up millions of views in no time. In the video we see a rebel fighter aiming to
the skies with a rocket launcher, after a few seconds he fires the weapon and
we see the trail of smoke being left behind by the rocket as it propels itself
to its target. Once it hits its target
the ‘aircraft’ comes falling down and crashes right in front of them,
disturbing the images a bit then once the image regains clarity we see that the
aircraft is really Dumbo the Disney character.
As Dumbo is slowly losing his life we see a little boy walk up to the
injured elephant, then turn around and kick the man holding the rocket straight
in the shin, as if the boy was angry that they killed a beloved cartoon
character. In an article written by Liam O’ Brien, many Commenters believe the
clip reflects the way we've been granted an insight into the Syrian conflict through
videos uploaded onto the Internet. Since
the term commenters came up the comments on the YouTube video are absurd. These comments are probably more shocking
than the video itself. People commenting
asking if it’s fake, others quick to call it fake with the help of an
exclamation mark, while others seem to critique the quality of the “terrorists” cameras. Banksy turned to one of the most used video
websites on the Internet to release his work and yet the amount of ignorance to
follow is astronomical. Its almost as if
he wasn’t intending this piece to criticize Syrian issues but the issues faced
on the Internet. The comments clearly
show it in this case.
The
biggest difference between these two artists right off the bat is the use of
mediums. While one is strictly a video
artist the other is a graffiti artist who also incorporates video and digital
media aspects into his works, another thing to notice is the target audience,
Bill Brand mainly has his work installed in galleries while Banksy’s audience
is anyone who lives in a city or walks passed a certain wall. Banksy is noticeably a more recognizable artist
than Bill Brand and his subject matter seems to drive a bigger meaning than the
work of Bill Brand. Yes Brand is making
a connection between man and machine Banksy is using everyday issues as subject
matter, issues that relate to every spectator, issues that need solutions. All in all both of these artists were
interesting to research and learn more about and while both of them come from
different backgrounds we can clearly see them both fall under the digital media
category.
Works
Cited
"Banksy and Digital Art –
Making It and Saving It." Digital Shakespeares. AJ+, 08 July
2016.
Web. 13 Dec. 2016.
Brand, Jo. "Moment | Bill
Brand." Moment | Bill Brand. N.p., n.d. Web. 13 Dec. 2016.
Frye, Brian, and Bill Brand.
“The Accidental Preservationist: An Interview with Bill
Brand.” Film
History, vol. 15, no. 2, 2003, pp. 214–219. www.jstor.org/stable/3815513.
Ruggiero, Lucia. "Are
Digital Spaces the New Graffiti Walls?" Digital Meets Culture.
N.p.,
n.d. Web. 13 Dec. 2016.
Timoleon Wilkins. “At This
Moment.” The Moving Image: The Journal of the
Association of Moving Image Archivists, vol. 12, no.
1, 2012, pp. 95–97.
www.jstor.org/stable/10.5749/movingimage.12.1.0095.
