Video painting
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Video Paintings are ambient video works presented on LCD panels and wall-mounted in the same manner as traditional paintings; they are a form of video art. Content in this emergent form is designed to work at all times as either a highly aware foreground experience, or as passive background. It can act as the focus of attention or as background ambiance, submerged within the surrounding environment. It is, at its core, an exercise in ambient video. There is no sound accompaniment, it is only video. The concept of video paintings borrows from Brian Eno's idea of ambient music in works “must be able to accommodate many levels of listening attention without enforcing one in particular; it must be as ignorable as it is interesting."
Like traditional paintings, video paintings hang on the wall to be viewed or passed over - depending on individual viewer preference in the moment.
[edit] Description
Flatscreen technologies such as plasma and LCD displays, are on the cusp of exploding in terms of marketplace penetration. Currently, the market offers both existing hybrid (video projection boxes) and true flatscreen technologies. Even as these devices are being steadily introduced to our domestic and creative cultural spheres, more revolutionary technologies are being developed and implemented. Bill Buxton (University of Toronto, former chief scientist for Alias Wave Front and Silicon Graphics) maintains that gel, thin film, and painted surface video technologies are the inevitable next step in this development. Massively large scale moving images, beyond anything we have experienced, will be part of our everyday lives. As a result our domestic (and public) visual spaces will be profoundly transformed. There are several artists and designers who are producing video paintings and ambient art that is intended to repurpose the blank space of an idle flatscreen.
Jim Bizzocchi (http://www.dadaprocessing.com), an artist and Assistant Professor at Simon Fraser University's School of Interactive Arts and Technology, describes the new form: "Ambient video will emerge as a supremely pictorial form - relying on visual impact and the subtle manipulation of image, layer, flow, and transition. It sits in the visual background of our lives - always changing, but never too quickly. It does not conquer, it seduces. It rewards attention, but never commands it. Rather, its aim is to support whatever level of attention the viewer cares to bestow in the moment: a passing glance, a more intentional look, or a longer and deeper immersion within the dynamically changing experience of an ambient video world."
AV artists NomIg. (http://www.nomig.net), were among the first to create video paintings in 2001 with their piece ‘Ad Infinitum’. Created for an installation by designers IdeaGarden, the piece was an 8 second loop which was tightly edited so as to be played forever, with no beginning nor end. Made from a combination of cloud and CG water footage, the fluid motion created by the layering techniques facilitated prolonged gazing as well as a gentle ambiance. The NomIg. duo has since then developed the ambient video concept further, exploring and creating new techniques in achieving near-imperceptible movement.
Visual artist Jeffers Egan (http://www.jeffersegan.com) has been working with the video painting medium for some time, producing works described as references to Rothko and Pollock. Malcolm Daniel (who was involved in the New Forms Festival exhibition mentioned below) has recently started producing a series of work as well.
One of the early participants in the growing ambient video genre, Detourdvd (http://www.detourdvd.com) have been designing ambient video since 2003. Slow moving videos, with no audio track play in infinite loops, the Detourdvd Collection references modern design themes, with some titles available in a choice of color palettes. With sales of flatscreens soaring (Keepmedia www.keepmedia.com), and with the new, sleek screens on display instead of being hidden away in an armoir or closet, more people are searching for sources moving art to display in their homes. As Jim Bizzocchi says, "We believe artists will use the flat-panel displays as frames for "video paintings" -- slow moving but highly pictorial works of televisual art that explore light, shape, texture and motion. The next decade will be a rich test-bed for new forms of domestic visual art."
[edit] Exhibition
The first gallery exhibition of this emerging genre took place in 2004 at the New Forms Festival (http://www.newformsfestival.com) in Vancouver, BC (curated by Bizzocchi & NomIg.). Featured works were mounted on walls on large plasma displays in the middle of the festival’s larger new media gallery space. A bench was provided for the public to rest from the larger gallery tour as well as to contemplate the video painting exhibition. Other exhibitions include the Cimatics '04 festival (http://www.cimatics.com) which presented the works of Jeffers Egan and the 2006 Common Wealth Games which is presenting an exhibition by NomIg., Bizzocchi and Malcolm Daniel.
