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Chris milk is from New York but went to school at the Music and Film at the University of California, Santa Barbara. He’s considered an American entrepreneur, innovator, director, photographer, and immersive artist.

He has had a very eclectic career that began with working commissions for music videos and commercials for names such as Kanye West, Johnny Cash, Nike, and Nintendo.

He works in such a vast variety of mediums, most recently Virtual Reality, and I think he is really working to push the boundaries of his own art.

This TED talk is extremely interesting because he talks about art as a whole and music as an art form, which personally I get completely. He then talks about how this translates to his art and shows some of his first music videos which I think is great because it aids in seeing his progression to now as an artist especially since he continues to work on music videos.

I can’t really attach a link other than the website, but one of my favorite things that he has done is http://www.thewildernessdowntown.com/. It is an interactive, personalized “music video” experience for the song We Used To Wait by Arcade Fire (great band). It takes the users personal information that they willingly give, like the address they grew up in and then transforms it into this trip using google map technology. It’s fantastic and so clever. The interactive aspects of it transform the properties of a music video so interestingly.

One of the music videos that he did was for Gnarls Barkley. It’s very surreal and focused on the video itself rather than the music in a lot of ways which is interesting since it is for the song. It has this feeling to it that the song itself is the background noise which is not how traditionally it is done especially in the realm of popular and current music that Gnarls Barkley fell into at the time. It’s super creepy and uses effects in a weird way that is reminiscent of his other work.

Elizabeth Charotte Rist was born in 1962 in Grabs, Sankt Gallen, in Switzerland. Since her childhood she has been nicknamed Pipilotti. The name refers to the novel Pippi Longstocking by Astrid Lindgren. She is known for her experiential video and installation art. These often portray self-portraits and singing. Her style is often considered surreal, intimate, and abstract. It is often related or focused on the presentation of the female body which is part of why her artwork is often noted as feminist art.

This is so fucking weird. It’s just a trailer for the exhibition but already it is super interesting. She is using her body as a way to create her art in this piece. The use of makeup and expression is how she explores the idea of femininity, while she’s smearing and distorting her face. This idea of messing up the makeup and the disturbing faces that she makes challenges stereotypical images of women.

The two videos on adjacent walls is an interesting idea.  The content of two videos are different but compliment each other in a really interesting way. The lush vegetation compared to the woman with sparkly shoes walking down a busy street. Then the video shifts and she begins smashing windshields. It’s whimsical and anarchistic, with a police officer approving of the destruction.  Again, this use of a soft object or traditionally non-destructive object in a way that challenges stereotypes is something I really enjoy about her work.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ks_DquEcaJI

She also directed a movie.
I didn’t have a chance to finish the whole thing  (I plan to later) but was able to watch a decent amount of it. It is so wild and surreal and very distinctly Rist as the bright colors and whimsical qualities are maintained throughout. I think the production of a full film is a lot more interesting that some of her other video art pieces. It highlights her expertise, and shows her artistry through the ability to sustain stylistically and not fall flat throughout a feature length piece.

Evan Roth is an American artist who applies a hacker philosophy to an art practice that visualizes transient moments in public space, online and in popular culture.

The most interesting aspect of these piece besides from the visuals is the audio. It was recorded on location and is created from a device that he built called the ‘ghost box’. It scans radio frequencies and blends the scanning radio static with ambient noises of waves and wind. This allows it to be tied to the place that it is happening. Aesthetically, the color composition of this video is very appealing and monochromatic. The pink tones overall work well with the audio. I dig it.

Internet Cache Portraits series
C-print face mounted on acrylic, dibond backing
2014
This series reminded me of Jason Salavon especially with the use of the internet images. However, the portrait idea is more intentional and interesting than I think a lot of Salavons work is. This is and uncensored stream of images collected through a session of Internet browsing. The series depicts individuals from different countries, occupations and genders, all rendered during the same two week period of time. These algorithmically produced prints act as a contemporary nude, exposing in a generous and open way an individual’s private online interactions. It’s weirdly not personalized and extremely personalized all at the same time.

techniques in some prints/pictures for his galleries or exhibitions. Known for psychedelic animated videos and datamoshing. There is also a focus on sound in his video art, especially with how he chooses to implement them along side the videos.

https://www.salon94.com/artists/detail/takeshi-murata/2256

Night Moves, 2012
I couldn’t find a way to embed this video since it is a part of an official site. This one is the most appealing video of his to me, the kaleidoscope visual ideas in the beginning really visually draw me in, and then it turns into this almost hyperrealistic setting, which it’s hard to distinguish whether or not it is real or CGI. When the images start to break down, similar to many of his other works that’s where it begins to have the tonal similarities and distinct aspects that make it his art.

Monster Movie
This is so weird. He uses clips from films that already exist in order to manipulate them and it resembles glitch art in a lot of ways which I find very visually appealing in an extremely unsettling way. The most jarring aspect of this piece is the sound/music that he puts over the video. It’s seemingly demonic and the tones do not match up which creates an even more interesting effect.

Part of Synthesizers
This whole collection and series is super interesting because it seems almost realistic but almost CGI. It’s almost falls into the idea of the uncanny valley, where you can’t fully tell if it’s real or not, especially with the 3D elements and the color composition that he’s choosing to use.

Christian Marclay is a contemporary artist who explores the connections between visual arts, film and mass-market musical culture. His artistic process seems to have roots in sight, sound, and all variations of recordings which includes visual or otherwise. His overall body of work spans sculpture, video, photography, music, performance and collage. He works in a way that his pieces transform sounds and music into visible, physical forms throughout all the mediums that were mentioned above. One quote from him is that he’s “always been interested in how sound is visualized” which explains and shows some inspiration behind his art.

Splashhh Splosh (No. 8), 2012
This one is great because of the way it uses onomatopoeia and words visually to create the art which is an example of content matching form. The use of bright color is also very aesthetically appealing in this one, too. There’s not a lot I can comment on with this, because it’s self-explanatory. The simplicity is part of it’s appeal for me.

Cassette Grid No. 13, 2009
The process that was used to create these is what struck me the most. The idea of using tapes and then creating the cyanotype phantograms out of them is such a unique thing to do, also because of the labor involved in this process which also involved dissembling the tapes themselves. There is a series of these, and this one is my favorite because it’s not as specific as some of the other one’s which are titled with the tape name. This one though, is just a grid of so many different one’s it leaves it up to the viewer to wonder what the different cassettes were that Christian chose.

October 29, 1989. On music television show Night Music. 
This is so intense and loud and wild. The use of already created music and combining all the different sounds in a way that is so indistinguishable is creative but also reckless in a weird way. The record scratching sounds and the mechanical outcomes of this to where it almost sounds like office technology gone wild. Then the transition, technically this is extremely impressive because of the seemingly precise use of each record and how he changes them out. It’s like science-fiction based with elements of mysticism in the phrases of melodies that he chooses to leave in tact before manipulating them in a jarring and dissonant way. I loved this in a way that it made me cringe but I was so entranced the whole time too.