The Resolution Will Be Televised

Resolution 3 was a new experience for me, I attended all three days and each day was completely different. I had seen Video Art displayed in museums before, but I had never attended a symposium, so I was good for anything and any experience. I strolled in from my dorm room and saw my teachers who were helping hand out flyers to the crowd who had gathered at the Broad Center at Pitzer College. I entered and saw many of my teachers and classmates sitting down so I was able to say hi as new faces walked in. The very first person who was introduced was Wafaa Bilal. There is more info on Wafaa on a blog post below, but here’s the gist. Wafaa Bilal is an Iraqi born man who lost his father and his brother in the war in Iraq within a season. He created first an interactive exhibit in which he was in a studio space with a paint ball gun. He called it “Domestic Tension.” For a month the paint ball gun was able to be controlled by people who logged onto a website and shot him for whatever reason you could think of. He was hailed by critics for his use of interactive political art. His new project he created was “Virtual Jihadi.” After some programmers created a video game in which the viewers are shooting Iraqis, he used the origin code the game was written in and changed it to shooting an army of George W Bush’s. Controversial? Yes, considering how the original art gallery had many complaints against it and suspended its showing. The game was another attempt at changing the perspective of the Iraqi war. The game itself was not impressive by any means. The game code (or engine for geeks) was dated and it was like playing the first “Half Life” game back in 99. However, the response from it, or the “social capital” was what he was looking for instead of attracting people with the greatest graphics. Again, for more of the artist’s exhibit check out of the blog entry below. That day ended early for me. The gallery exhibition started at 10 and I stayed until 12, because I had class not too far from there.

The next day I traveled to L.A. to see the 24-hour showing starting at 7. I was having a pretty hard day and naturally, got excited when I saw free wine at the table in the hall close to the seats for the viewing. Obviously, I had no idea what to expect. I walked in, with my wallet out expecting to pay, but this broke college student was even more in favor of Resolution and Video Art in general when he found out you didn’t have to pay. I stayed for about an hour. The videos varied in subject matter, topics, and execution. One artist was physically exhausting to watch. His exhibition consisted of about 10 movies shown in a row. Although they were maybe a minute each, they were physically exhausting to watch. The first one was of him on top of a moving semi-truck. His body was filmed at an angle that made his look as though it was cut in half, or more like a hood ornament. In another film, the horizontal axis of the film was split in half. His head was on the top half and the bottom half had a shot of his feet. He would jump several times. When he jumped his feet and head switched shots. Near the last of his set, two shots switched rapidly between a close up of him yelling and his penis. This piece was called “Mating Call.” Another artist collected scenes from the movie “Sid and Nancy.” There, whenever the actor who played Sid arrived on the screen he had himself covering the actor with a cutout of himself, reenacting the scene. Around 8:10 I felt as though I had enough of the experience. It was thought provoking, to say the least. I had to make the 45 min trip back to Claremont and prepare myself for my first full day of the symposium the next day, which was Sunday.

On the last day of Resolution, I saw more familiar faces, teachers, friends, and I briefly studied artists who were all in one room together in the back of LACE. The exhibit started a little bit after 11, and by then I had already had a cup of coffee in my hand and was ready to see more artists and more of the work they were doing. This symposium had a diverse array of artists to come speak. Ishmail Farouk, a grant-winning artist from South Africa showed the lives of the Trolley Pushers, low wage workers who push luggage for you at airports or groceries. His work showed how they were being trapped by police and basically being robbed of their money every week. He put a camera on a trolley during a nonviolent protest to show how Trolley Pushers, primarily immigrants, were being mistreated in the country. Another artist and teacher at my very own Pitzer College, was Gina Lamb. She works for a program called REACH/LA. Their initiative is to help the urban youth stay healthy and make their transition into adulthood complete ( HYPERLINK “http://www.reach.la” www.reach.la). Amitis Morevalli is an artist/activist who speaks out against Police Violence. Amazingly enough, she keeps a shrine for all her friends who are victims of Police Violence. It’s amazing because her surname, Motevalli, means “keeper of the shrine.” After all the artists spoke there was a panel discussion with the artists that didn’t last long due to the fact that the artists didn’t have enough time for their presentations.

The last scheduled program on Resolution 3 was the dialogue of Alex Villar and Maria A Diaz. They are two masters of bodies in space. Maria A Diaz’s work was like visual poetry. In one of her pieces she carried a little girl through open beautiful and bare landscapes. In another she ran a loop of a family’s silhouette running through a bushel. The silhouette was similar to the immigrant warning sign found throughout southern California. The next artist, Alex Villar, uses space but draws comparisons and contrasts within the urban landscape. He is photo based, and he puts himself in drawers and odd spaces in offices. His work has focused on space within waste management. He is often the model for his own work, and I had a brief discussion with him. I asked him if he finds wasted space interesting, if he felt like we were wasting some of the space, and exactly what kind of space was wasted space. He felt that these questions raised interesting issues that he should talk about later. I felt proud of myself. Afterwards there was a dialogue with the two artists. However, everyone was in a circle listening and asking questions. The two artists focused on language, shapes of female and male bodies, space, and gender within their art. They mentioned how the space they put their bodies in was unique to their gender and that there is in fact a difference. The group also talked about how Diaz’s work was more poetic and grandiose in landscape. Villar’s work was more gothic or harsh. There is also a sense of humor within his art, a humor that makes you think that the body is capable of warping around a displacement of a situation, but physically.

By far what made Resolution 3 so enjoyable was how all the artists were different in what they were trying to represent. All of the artists that I can remember, except for one artist, were activists. They all had a different story to tell and represented their themes in their own style. I was expecting the symposium to be a lot like the last Resolution. However, it was not. The last symposium focused more of the technology and blending of the images to tell the story. This Resolution was more at ease with its use and innovation of the video technology. I’m sure some would say they would want it pushed even more. However, what was being done with video art was what this show was about, and it reminded me of how you can never run of out ways to express your views or concerns about society.

-Latham