visiting speaker - ellie rees

Visiting Speaker - Ellie Rees

Ellie Reese in her discussion made the point that the setting for a piece or art is a major importance when viewing. For the artist to have complete control over their work and limitations on how it is displayed is understandable, for if they are trying to say something with their work, its important that it is placed in an environment where this is best achieved.
But I'm not convinced that taking a work out of it's intended or optimal environment is as terrible as she believed.

One could argue that all experience is personal, so 10 people viewing a work of art in a exhibition will have 10 different experiences, and could potentially have been affected in 10 totally different ways, whether those had any connection to what the artist intended is an important point.

There's been much discussion about the problems and implications of viewing video footage on sites like Youtube, where the quality has been reduced to ensure that its playable over the Internet, and that viewer is loosing something important by seeing them in this online context. Interestingly in response to this, i recently went to see Addictive TV at an event in Brighton marking the end of a film festival.
Addictive TV are a couple of DJs/VJs who have played all over the world, including recently on the roof of the National Gallery in London, where their art of remixing video footage and scratching it into an audio track was visible to thousands of people, projected on multiple screens and the sides of buildings. I saw footage of the event online, as well as some of their other work of film remixing. After seeing them live, i can honestly saw that what i saw online had way more impact on me than seeing them live.
The screen at the event may have been massively larger than the 3 inch movie playing on my monitor, but the definition was actually better than the fuzzy screen, plus it was easier to see because of all the coloured lights dancing across it at the gig. Despite the fact that the music was compressed over the Internet, it sounded better than the gig, where the levels were set wrong - rendering any dialogue in the film to be barely audible mumblings, and the high tones pretty much dominating the rest of the sound. I have my PC hooked into my stereo -so the sound quality is better than desktop PC speakers, but for the sound to be so superior to that of a sound system in a club stuck me odd at first. But then i considered other music events I've been to in the past, and if you compare the sound quality at an event , to listening to a studio album that's been meticulously engineered to sound as crisp and rich as it can, then you often encounter massive differences. So which one is the better audio experience, the live gig, or listening to it on a stereo? Which would the artist prefer as a method for delivering the optimal in sound quality?

We've all seen the image of the Mona Lisa, hundreds of times in many different settings and media format. Her smile is still enigmatic, even when on a 5 inch postcard. Leonardo da Vinci finished painting this classic piece in 1519, and the environment in with it was created and displayed is very different form that of today; it's had various homes in it's life, and still today it draws big crowds. Someone seeing the image for the first time will likely be view a copy, but may still be moved by it. Is the context so important?.

Ellie Rees's work entitled Britney is a video of the artist playing a Britney Spears song on bottles

She has strong views on whether it is suitable for the popular video site Youtube, despite the content being pop trash - I've never heard Britney Spears music described as fine art. I would have thought Youtube would be the perfect vehicle for her new media piece.

Toccata et Fugue in D Minor on a Bottle Organ on the other hand IS available on Youtube..


This young artist uses a well respected piece of classical music in his work, the editing may be raw - i know Ellie is a proponent of the unedited performance, but who is to say if one is less worthy than the other, who is to say which is art and which is not. By putting one in a exhibition space it is stamping it with exclusivity. If something is worth saying, why limit it to saying it in a short period of time at a gallery, especially if it is a new media artwork? Is not art for the people?. To have on demand access on the web is giving it a much wider audience than it has in a single gallery.
Not all artwork should be displayed in a gallery, where the atmosphere can be austere and pretentious, it should be more accessible.


To quote Banksy , who's not afraid of giving his vision a wider audience -
"Art is not like other culture because its success is not made by its audience. The public fill concert halls and cinemas every day, we read novels by the millions and buy records by the billions. We the people, affect the making and quality of most of our culture , but not our art.
The Art we look at is made by only a select few. A small group create, promote, purchase, exhibit and decide the success of Art. Only a few hundred people in the world have any real say. When you go to an Art gallery you are simply a tourist looking at the trophy cabinet of a few millionares."