THE PROBLEM WITH VIDEO INSTALLATIONS!

Despite working in the medium of moving image film installations and video art in galleries are generally something I have struggled with and often seem tokenistic and pretentious outsiders to the environment. As a lover of narrative and structure these do not seem to be the foundations of much of the and are often freeform at best. I also am a lover of the traditional exhibition screening and consumption of filmic works on a screen in a cinema or on TV and never really enjoy the screening of work in a colder more clinical gallery style environment.

I am not alone in this and in the late 1960’s and early 1970’s Philip Dodd stated that the art world feared video art as an “alien force supplanting painting and sculpture” and the Tate London was accused of not representing video art properly, turning it into an “end of the pier curiosity” . However in recent years to quote Michael Nash “The “blue chip” video artists – Gary Hill, Nam June Paik, Bill Viola – have been absorbed by the traditional arts establishment and now concentrate on creating collectible video installation”.

However I am anxious to overcome all of my prejudices and concerns and have decided that in wishing to extend my practice to being more art based that I simply cannot ignore gallery installations. So the best way to deal with this is to tackle it head on and try and create some of my own starting with the "Siblings" piece. Alongside this there are many exciting avenues that video installations will allow me to explore.

Audio-visual documentary material has become increasingly prominent in the art world with more and more artists incorporating non-fiction material into their work, and more filmmakers and new media artists creating documentary film, video, and interactive work destined for a museum or gallery setting. This overlap of worlds has created a productive hybridity of forms and another avenue to pursue and explore in my own work and this blurring of art, fact, fiction, presentation and contextualisation I find extremely interesting. An apparent clash still exists between the authenticity of realism that the documentary has laid claim to-however contentiously-and the association of imagination and experimentation with art practice. I also feel that installations are a way of exploring different methods of narrative construction, and de and re-narrate as a filmmaker and an audience avoiding the tendency toward a single linear narrative that single screens impose on material.

This move from traditional distribution and exhibition associated with documentary films I have worked in to art galleries and the possibility of multiple screens I find exhilarating. I want to explore how it can be used to manupulate structure of my narrative and ideology as well as providing a more physical and interactive, interpretation and experience for the audience.

Inga Burrows comments. “It is ironic that with the advancement of technology, with the increasing sophistication of television production, that the quality of ideas informing programmes appears to be diminishing. By contrast the art gallery is growing in importance as a site for innovative media practice. Artist filmmakers have begun to borrow conventions from television as a way of articulating their ideas; and it may be that this gallery – based film work might stimulate a broader debate about television itself”. I am hoping this cross-fertilisation of practice will be a shot in the arm for both my broadcast TV filmmaking practice and also my inner aspiring installation artist.