YouTube has opened the floodgates of information on the internet to include video in the available content. The internet provides an uncensored collection of responses and opinions of real news around the world. Anyone with a camera and an idea can create a video and have it available for millions of viewers to see. This removes the control that the media currently uses to focus our attention on one thing or another and enables users to choose their news. With such a large user base as well, YouTube provides artists with an incredibly large audience. What was once relatively hard to distribute, video art can now be posted and seen by thousands upon thousands of eyes an unlimited number of times. Any artist can get their name out and launch their career and it can all stem from word of mouth. The internet took a traditional grassroots method and amplified it a million-fold. Users like the Numa Numa Guy Gary Brolsma can almost accidentally become pop culture celebrities by tickling the fancy of bored web surfers both young and old.
The Numa Numa Guy- over 9.6 million views
The implications of this newfound media stretch to the realm of politics. Activists and satirists who previously depended on rallies and cafes to get their word out on the street can now have a much louder voice. Groups like jib jab fuse comedy with their message to increase the effectiveness upon the viewer. The ability to host and distribute video web content has exponentially increased the power of the individual.
The Hirshhorn exhibit The Cinema Effect: Illusion, Reality, and the Moving Image brought to my attention a number of innovative uses of video art. Tony Oursler uses video art to achieve a moving sculpture which is more real than any painting or sculpture yet eerily artificial at the same time. His work, pictured below, uses video art to evoke a reaction to a unique blended art piece. The innovation is in the delivery. Anyone can show a movie of an eyeball or a man talking. Anyone can carve a face out of granite, but the fusing of these two ideas combined with recorded audio creates a surreal effect that I never even imagined.
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