Today while working at home, I noticed the wind rustled shadows of leaves projecting onto the surface of my desk. This isn't the first time I've noticed this phenomena as I've accumulated a lot of pictures over the years that I've taken of these two dimensional representations. But today, I thought to make a video of the event to, I guess, preserve the experience in some way. So I did and here it is with no sound. It may look like a black and white video but in fact it was shot in color with a blank piece of white paper as a backdrop. After watching it a few times I began to think of aesthetics and what this little video meant to me.
I thought of the idea of representation. Of course this is a video which is a representation of what I saw with my eyes, yet it doesn't do the job completely well because cameras see differently than humans. For instance; the video quality is a lot poorer than my eyes. I don't see in pixels like this (at least not this defined) and it's an extremely trunciated view of the experience as it happened because even though I was focused on this event, my entire vision encompassed all the other things in my immediate area that the video does not (not to mention my four other senses), but this later quality is what makes it special. This is the quality that Immanuel Kant called, "Presentation". Kant considered works of art presentations of representative objects that are imprinted on our imaginations. This is what I think has to do with why we, as in humanity, consider some things to be evocative. This is one of the qualities of art, and an example of why art is so wonderful and complex at the same time. One of the other beauties of art, is that it's extremely different for every individual - and that, to me, is extraordinary because you can't nail it down to one thing like a science or logical equation. The old cliche, "One man's junk is another man's treasure" fits well here.
Another representative aspect to this is the fact that I did not invent or make in an original way the leaves, wind, sheet of paper, or light that makes the shadows. All I did was hit record. But I'm presenting it in a way that could be original (it's most definitely not, but this is just for the purpose of an explanation) in the sense that objects which I didn't create are "remade" into objects that I've manipulated into being something that they are not normally thought to be. They're remade in the viewers imagination as something else by the medium of the video. In this way the video can be more interesting than the actual occurrence I saw playing out on my desk. I don't personally think it is, but I do think the video gives it a different quality that equals the original.
So is this video art? Well, kinda; if only because I think it's neat and beautiful in itself. Surely others will disagree and I wouldn't fight 'em because I don't have a lot at stake here - after all it's just a short little video that I thought of on the fly. One of the interesting things about aesthetics is that a philosophic analysis can either enhance or denigrate the art in question. In the case of this, I think it takes away from the experience of watching it as a stand alone piece. I've always liked critical perspectives but the catch is that somehow through the process of trying to understand something, a certain magical luster is seemingly etched away from the end result that would otherwise be evocative. A similar thing used to happen to me when I was first learning guitar. I would anxiously do my best to learn a song I liked, but once I had learned it to a degree of reasonable ability, hearing the song on its own again didn't mean as much to me. It was as if all the specialness and magic had been taken from it through my breaking it down and putting it back together again to understand it. Same goes for certain aesthetic analysis of works of art. If this video was just that and nothing else, there would be a certain mystery to it. It's not altogether obvious at first that the moving objects are projections of leaves in the wind. What would the viewer think before that conclusion is reached? That's the part that makes it viable art to some people's eyes. It's that curiosity that gives it weight and ultimate meaning. And this is one of the many reasons why people are drawn to art.
I thought of the idea of representation. Of course this is a video which is a representation of what I saw with my eyes, yet it doesn't do the job completely well because cameras see differently than humans. For instance; the video quality is a lot poorer than my eyes. I don't see in pixels like this (at least not this defined) and it's an extremely trunciated view of the experience as it happened because even though I was focused on this event, my entire vision encompassed all the other things in my immediate area that the video does not (not to mention my four other senses), but this later quality is what makes it special. This is the quality that Immanuel Kant called, "Presentation". Kant considered works of art presentations of representative objects that are imprinted on our imaginations. This is what I think has to do with why we, as in humanity, consider some things to be evocative. This is one of the qualities of art, and an example of why art is so wonderful and complex at the same time. One of the other beauties of art, is that it's extremely different for every individual - and that, to me, is extraordinary because you can't nail it down to one thing like a science or logical equation. The old cliche, "One man's junk is another man's treasure" fits well here.
Another representative aspect to this is the fact that I did not invent or make in an original way the leaves, wind, sheet of paper, or light that makes the shadows. All I did was hit record. But I'm presenting it in a way that could be original (it's most definitely not, but this is just for the purpose of an explanation) in the sense that objects which I didn't create are "remade" into objects that I've manipulated into being something that they are not normally thought to be. They're remade in the viewers imagination as something else by the medium of the video. In this way the video can be more interesting than the actual occurrence I saw playing out on my desk. I don't personally think it is, but I do think the video gives it a different quality that equals the original.
So is this video art? Well, kinda; if only because I think it's neat and beautiful in itself. Surely others will disagree and I wouldn't fight 'em because I don't have a lot at stake here - after all it's just a short little video that I thought of on the fly. One of the interesting things about aesthetics is that a philosophic analysis can either enhance or denigrate the art in question. In the case of this, I think it takes away from the experience of watching it as a stand alone piece. I've always liked critical perspectives but the catch is that somehow through the process of trying to understand something, a certain magical luster is seemingly etched away from the end result that would otherwise be evocative. A similar thing used to happen to me when I was first learning guitar. I would anxiously do my best to learn a song I liked, but once I had learned it to a degree of reasonable ability, hearing the song on its own again didn't mean as much to me. It was as if all the specialness and magic had been taken from it through my breaking it down and putting it back together again to understand it. Same goes for certain aesthetic analysis of works of art. If this video was just that and nothing else, there would be a certain mystery to it. It's not altogether obvious at first that the moving objects are projections of leaves in the wind. What would the viewer think before that conclusion is reached? That's the part that makes it viable art to some people's eyes. It's that curiosity that gives it weight and ultimate meaning. And this is one of the many reasons why people are drawn to art.
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