The other day I was at Durlston Castle in Swanage, Dorset. They had some exhibition down stairs and part of it was a movie thing. (Arrghhhh! A video in an exhibition! Run!) But it was great, really nicely shot. And better than that it actually made great use of four screens linked horizontally.
I HAVE NEVER SEEN THIS BEFORE.
I have never seen an elegant execution across several panels. Usually you see a normal film that happens to be shown across several screens. You hardly ever see one that uses the medium, the format, the dimensions properly. Let alone beautifully.
Some times the film played across all four screens, sometimes each screen showed a different angle / crop of the main shot. Sometimes two screens showed the same and so on. Lovely.
The medium adds to the story rather than getting in the way or confusing it.
Not all video in exhibitions is bad (says the ex-video artist)! I know that video is massively over used in contemporary art and exhibitions these days but there is some really good multi-screen work out there. Recently at Victoria Miro gallery was Doug Aitken's Black Mirror http://www.victoria-miro.com/exhibitions/_425/ Then there is the Canadian Stan Douglas and our own Steve McQueen, to name but a few.
For my own efforts (from my art school days), I made a two screen piece called 'video tape loop' - made back when VHS tapes were just fading out of use. I think the medium, format and dimensions were used well there but - inspired by 70's video art - 'beauty' was not on the agenda. http://bathosphere.org/emilyheath/project.php?directory=videotape
Posted by: Gradualist | Sep 06, 2012 at 10:44
I'm kind of happy that I'm not the only one who feels that way about video in installations.I like the four-panel presentation, but I can't help but feel I've seen the technique used somewhere before. Maybe it was the use of multiple frames within a movie?
Either way, this is much more tolerable than viewing a single frame.
Posted by: Glen Isip | Sep 07, 2012 at 19:42