Proposal and treatment for final idea
My video installation project is titled ‘Mirrors’ and is a comment on people’s own self perceptions and insecurities.

My video installation will be split into two parts:

• Friends and Family through the mirror - this shows them carrying out their daily routines. This will contain medium close ups of my friends and family getting ready and or using vanity checks for example:
  Brushing their teeth
  Checking their hair/facial hair
  Makeup adjustments
  Applying face cream
  Adjusting any piercings,Removing or adding accessories
  They will be looking into the lens as it adds more depth and intimacy.
  
  
• Confidence and Paranoia - this shows people stood by a mirror looking at themselves and then switches to a close up of them looking into the camera lens. The lens represents the mirror and the close up shots will portray a much more personal view of the people which is a similar technique in the first video installation.

The juxtaposition between these two themes will represent the different emotional states that the people are in. Whilst the first section is more uplifting and features people that are clearly content, the second section is more melancholy as the subjects are in a much darker emotional state. These two themes are also reflected in the way that the piece is edited. Both parts won’t feature quick cuts because using longer shots allows the viewer to engage more and creates a relationship with the installation.
The purpose of this piece is to show everyone is not the same, everyone shouldn’t be judged by the way they look and that appearance isn’t everything.

The production will be made up of separate filming times, using around 30-40 people for the whole installation.  

Resources and locations
Canon 60D,Tripod
One large mirror taken from the Dome in College
The Studio, Lights used in the studio
A stool taken from the studio
37 Park Street
10 Claxton Street

The length for the first installation will be very short with a continuous loop. The length of the second installation will be around 2-3 Minutes Long.
The budget will maintain at £5, as I want to spend as little as possible. This will be for any props when showing my Installation. The Audience isn’t restricted, as it isn’t targeted at anyone specific only people who affected by their looks.

Video art developed in the late 1960s and early 70s making it popular, as it was much easier to edit video than film. Artists found it much more satisfying to work with video than cinematic productions and over the past thirty years, film and video has had an increasing presence in the gallery space rather than in the cinema auditorium. This can be attributed to the increase of creating contemporary art in digital formats and has developed distinct forms of presentation. In these presentations images appear on screens incorporating the viewers into the art in an installation format. The viewers get this full sensory experience by participating in performances and projects used in different types of spaces (mostly galleries). Alot of artists will loop the projection so that it will run for an indefinite period of time so that whenever you walk into this space you don’t feel like you’ve missed something.

The first video installations were determined by the limited technology available, “so that the monitor based delivery system of the video image becoming a sculptural part of the installation”.(LuxOnline, 2005) Video installation uses objects and materials to encourage a different viewing experience such as screens embedded into furniture or screens inside glass boxes and even sculptures made with various sizes and amounts of screens.

“Video art is an audio video production genre all its own. Artistic movies are not video art. Experimental movies are not video art. Music videos are not video art.  They are each their own genre, too, and should not be confused with video art.” (http://contemporart.tumblr.com/)   Video art should be interpreted differently from all of these other genres of audio video production. Pictures can say a thousand words without dialogue but video art can have dialogue and audio to different clips to show what the artist is trying to say.

Nam June Paik is among the most exceptional artists of the 20th century and his influence can still be felt today. 
Paiks artist development began with this concentration on music.
Manipulation television images became the foundation of his video art. (Nam June Paik-Tate Publishing February 1, 2011)

Paik seemed to have a creative tension with his past, due to the complex relationship he had with his Asian Heritage, but it led to much inspiration for his work, as well as inspiration for others. He was a very creative individual and nothing ever seemed to change that.  

TV Buddha. 1972 which still evokes many questions in viewers as to the meaning of the particular sculpture.
He was the first video artist who experimented with electronic media and through this made a profound impact on the art of video and television.
In 1996 he had a stroke that paralyzed half his body, yet his creative energy never diminished and he continued to produce work for the remaining ten years of his life despite his handicap.
 

“Our life is half natural and half technological. Half-and-half is good. You cannot deny that high-tech is progress. We need it for jobs. Yet if you make only high-tech, you make war. So we must have a strong human element to keep modesty and natural life.” (Paik)

Installation Art is characterised by the incorporation of the site or space of display into the artwork. Alot of artists such as Shirin Neshat use video installation art to air their political viewpoints (which can make them seem biased). Artists have always done this, but moving imagery and pictures can make it more effective in showing opinions.    

Shirin Neshat’s film is powerful and thought provoking. Her opinion, whether you agree with it or not, is a valid one. She is an Iranian who still has deep rooted connections and influence to her culture and it is still the most predominant subject for all her artistic endeavors.
She grapples with the destruction of her country through fundamentalism and explores the effect that this has had on women, in particular.
Turbulent shows a two screen video installation of two singers recitaling persian music playing the role of a male and female that creates a metaphor of gender roles. The video shows a man in white being applauded by people with his back turned and then a woman facing empty seats in black showing that In a society represented by men, the woman suffers. 

Neshat uses poetic and fierce film making so that its precise and beautiful cinematography, she does this so it perfectly fits with recurrent metaphoric images of shifting hues of colour and feminist resistance. She shows us the understanding situation of political islam and how the four women who have suffered under the government and religion in a tragic and nostalgic way for the audiences to have controversy.  

“Awesome Women on International Women’s Day: Shirin Neshat.An Iranian artist whose work examines the social and cultural place for women in Islamic society, like in her “Women of Allah” visual art series. She also does performance art and works with film. Neshat directed the complicated and beautiful film, “Women Without Men,” which was an adaptation of a magical realist novel by Shahrnush Parsipur about three women in Tehran during the 1953 coup.”

Neshat shows that women are dehumanised in a muslamic society through lack of education of both sexes. Show shows there is an encouragement of feminism and womens rights and that theyre changing the views of the woman srole and the judicial and legal system so that the stereotypes will not be hold so negatively on women and things will become equal.
 

The late 1960s had been burst with feminist views as women began to show their own spaces in politics and the workplace so they wanted their name in history and the only way to do that was through new feminist art. Most feminist artists until the late 70’s showed art of the naked female body wether it was a performance or objectification only they would know. So this lead to debates on wether female artists should compete with men or exlude them entirely.

“The formative period of Installation Art, during the 1960s and 1970s, was a period of social, political and cultural upheaval. A number of avantgarde movements which have influenced the development of Installation Art, such as MINIMALISM, ENVIRONMENTAL ART, LAND ART, CONCEPTUAL ART and PERFORMANCE ART, emerged during this period in reaction to the perceived limitations of MODERNISM – the COMMODIFICATION of the artwork.” (What is Installation Art?, p5)

West approaches film making like an alchemist,experimenting and transforming the surfaces of blank film stock, shot footage ,found photographs or off cuts from Hollywood blockbusters into abstract kaleidoscopes of colour,allusion and direct reference.
Deeply rooted within the history of experimental and more specifically structural film. West produces camera less films trough a number of processes and actions that reference influential avantgarde artists such as … as a former student of mike kelley and diana thater it was thater who encouraged west to consider how the form or structure of any artwork can confront in its own subject each producing their own independent meaning.

Artists are still very interested in making film,theyre very interested in making archive footage,or footage or collaging material together,sometimes thats for very serious reasons,sometimes for other reasons like for a combination of pop culture and thinking back at what design and popular culture meant to us in the 60s and 70s.

Artists such as Spartacus Chetwynd can can use home made props and costume to recreate key works of popular culture and Artists like Luke fowler also intertwine archive footage and new material to create an immersive experience which challenge our resistance to abstraction in film.

Artists such as Elizabeth Price re-annimate existing archvies and text to explore our conplex relationship with objects and consumer culture. As price comes from a musical background soundtracks and scores feature heavily in her work, We can relate some of her ideas to Jennifer Wests. Revisiting the recent past is a real concern but creating fantasy worlds is a totally different meaning especially with Spartacus Chetwynd. Spartacus uses performances that might last for hours but they have an amateur style that also makes an instant impression, and blurrs the boundary between performer and audience such as her early work, she recreates the scene featuring Jabba the hut from the return of the Jedi. You will notice artists love using old footage and remaking it into their own. Recreation with a twist is alot easier than a new product.
 Working directly onto 16,35, and 70mm film leader, west subjects the films surface to a catalog of materials,chemicals and substances that she describes as marinades these include anything from nail varnish,mascara,pizza and whiskey to cigarette smoke, LSD,lithium and urine. west applies and exposes these substances directly to the film allowing their natural properties to alter the celluloid in unpredictable ways,strips of film simultaneously undergo processes of destruction such as scraping,cooking,burning,drumming,headbanging and licking; a series of performed assaults and collective gestures delivered by willing participants. (Jennifer west,Aloe Vera and Butter- www.s1artspace.org/)

Jennifer uses installations that engrosses and connects the viewer within the work. Her use of video installation art is quite unique as it allowed the audience to interact with it in a much more personal way. The video above shows myself and other students looking and playing around with West’s work. The projector displays her work so that we are able to interact in a way that we couldn’t with conventional art. We was able to use different depth of shadows and make different shapes which kept our interest and entertained us.

From analysing different artists who use video installation, we can see that technology has had a vast impact on the way that we create and view art. 
From the short time that I have studied video installation art, it is clear that the range of artists have extremely different styles and techniques that they use. Due to fusion of technology and art, the artists can create extremely evocative pieces that immerse the audience. It also allows the audience to interpret their work in many different ways. 

The interesting thing about some video installation artists are that some are not  purly conceptual artists, meaning theres as much focus on the execution of the idea as there is on the idea itself, and much of the art was produced after long periods of preparation,research and just sheer hard work.

There are some worries that this type of work could also prove hard to the public,and people admit that many of the works demand a prolonged period of viewing for others to fully understand them but all of them have an immediate pull. so its up to you how much time you spend with them. 

Bio- www.imma.ie/en/downloads/what_is_installationbooklet.pdf