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CMIR
One Artist’s Journey: From Videotape Screenings to Video Sculpture and site-specific projections and commissioned installations. Prof. Chris Meigh-Andrews
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Post-seminar report: Many thanks to the RWA and to Chris Meigh Andrews for a great start to the weekend - let's do that again!
Following an introduction by Terry Flaxton, Chris showed the mixed audience (RWA network members, the public, academics, artists/practitioners) a range of his work from early 1970s pieces to current installations, and talked us through some of the thought processes, technical changes, commissioning briefs and site specifics which had informed the pieces. Not surprisingly, there were more questions for Chris than time available to answer them.
The talk was also a chance to become more aware of social changes over the period, contextualising the development of the video art form and our understanding of it. The significance of the milieu and artworld in which works are made and received can be forgotten - or perhaps we weren't there at the time. There were wry chuckles of recognition from those who had been.
From the buzz of conversation afterwards it was clear that we need to get Chris back - we wanted to know more, to see more, and to have the opportunity to ask more questions. This was a taster - a more immersive experience is definitely called for.
Comment from audience member: "I enjoyed the talk very much and I have been discussing it with people ever since. I may have been the only person in the audience with absolutely no background knowledge of video art and it has given me a wealth of things to think about. I was interested in the relationship between the technology and content. It got me thinking about the role of the reflective observer and how video artists can help people access the work, opening up opportunities for individual and personal interpretation without telling the audience what to see and limiting responses. I sympathised with Chris' s anecdote about the piece of work that was ignored by visitors to the gallery and have been thinking a lot about the role of video art, where it is best viewed and the curatorial challenge this poses.
I'd really like more info about [his piece] Darwin' s Garden and how to view it."
Invitation to the seminar:
The Centre for Moving Image Research and the Royal West of England Academy of Art invite you to a talk by artist and academic Prof. Chris Meigh-Andrews*, freshly returned from the installation of a piece in Sydney. He will be talking about the technical and cultural changes within the moving image field and in his own work, from the 1970's through to the present. All welcome. *(A History of Video Art - Bloomsbury, London and New York, 2nd Edition, 2013)
Since the mid 1970’s when I made the decision to specialise my art practice on the moving electronic image, the medium has gone through enormous changes- both technically and culturally. Initially fascinated by the distinctions and differences between video and broadcast TV, and subsequently on the potential of video as a unique and distinctive medium for the exploration of identity and perceptual processes, my work always wrestled with the problematic question of how the resultant work could be experienced and engaged with.
The issues that working with video raised most troublingly for me during the 1980’s were related to the fact that as a medium it seemed to be technically and socially “unbroadcastable” as well as unsuitable for the either the cinema or the gallery! My solution in the 1990s was to develop a series of video sculptures- relatively large-scale structures and temporary objects that could occupy the white cube spaces and/or darkened cavern of the gallery and readily understood by gallery visitors because of its relationship to conventional sculpture and traditional mixed media installation. In the decades that followed I have sought to develop and explore opportunities made possible by the shifting technology and expanded creative potential of both inside and outside of the confines and walls of the conventional gallery environment.
My presentation will trace the development of my work as an artist dedicated to working with the electronic and digital moving image from early single screen videotapes via gallery installation and data projection to site-specific projects featuring web-based image streaming and augmented reality.
Brief biography:
Chris Meigh-Andrews is a pioneering video artist and writer who has been making and exhibiting screen-based video and sculptural moving image installations since the mid 1970′s. He studied fine art at Goldsmiths and completed his PhD at the Royal College of Art in 2001 and has taught at numerous art schools and media departments in the UK. He has held a number of artist’s residencies in the UK and abroad and his site-specific and commissioned installations often incorporate renewable energy systems and establish direct relationships with the natural and constructed environment.
Curatorial projects include Yes, Snow Show, (British Film Institute, 2009), Analogue: Artists’ Video from the UK, Canada and Poland: 1968-88, (Tate Britain and Modern, London, and at venues in Liverpool, Norwich, Warsaw, New York, Toronto, Ottawa, Valletta and Berlin.) and The Digital Aesthetic, in collaboration with the Harris Museum (2001, 2007 & 2012).
His recently published second edition of A History of Video Art (Bloomsbury, London and New York, 2013) can be obtained at: http://www.amazon.co.uk/History-Video-Art-Development-Function/dp/1845202198
Chris Meigh-Andrews is Emeritus Professor of Electronic and Digital Art at the University of Central Lancashire and consultant to CMIR in the subject area of the history of artists' video.
Further information on the work and activities of Professor Meigh-Andrews can be found at www.cmiresearch.org.uk and at www.meigh-andrews.com
Following an introduction by Terry Flaxton, Chris showed the mixed audience (RWA network members, the public, academics, artists/practitioners) a range of his work from early 1970s pieces to current installations, and talked us through some of the thought processes, technical changes, commissioning briefs and site specifics which had informed the pieces. Not surprisingly, there were more questions for Chris than time available to answer them.
The talk was also a chance to become more aware of social changes over the period, contextualising the development of the video art form and our understanding of it. The significance of the milieu and artworld in which works are made and received can be forgotten - or perhaps we weren't there at the time. There were wry chuckles of recognition from those who had been.
From the buzz of conversation afterwards it was clear that we need to get Chris back - we wanted to know more, to see more, and to have the opportunity to ask more questions. This was a taster - a more immersive experience is definitely called for.
Comment from audience member: "I enjoyed the talk very much and I have been discussing it with people ever since. I may have been the only person in the audience with absolutely no background knowledge of video art and it has given me a wealth of things to think about. I was interested in the relationship between the technology and content. It got me thinking about the role of the reflective observer and how video artists can help people access the work, opening up opportunities for individual and personal interpretation without telling the audience what to see and limiting responses. I sympathised with Chris' s anecdote about the piece of work that was ignored by visitors to the gallery and have been thinking a lot about the role of video art, where it is best viewed and the curatorial challenge this poses.
I'd really like more info about [his piece] Darwin' s Garden and how to view it."
Invitation to the seminar:
The Centre for Moving Image Research and the Royal West of England Academy of Art invite you to a talk by artist and academic Prof. Chris Meigh-Andrews*, freshly returned from the installation of a piece in Sydney. He will be talking about the technical and cultural changes within the moving image field and in his own work, from the 1970's through to the present. All welcome. *(A History of Video Art - Bloomsbury, London and New York, 2nd Edition, 2013)
Since the mid 1970’s when I made the decision to specialise my art practice on the moving electronic image, the medium has gone through enormous changes- both technically and culturally. Initially fascinated by the distinctions and differences between video and broadcast TV, and subsequently on the potential of video as a unique and distinctive medium for the exploration of identity and perceptual processes, my work always wrestled with the problematic question of how the resultant work could be experienced and engaged with.
The issues that working with video raised most troublingly for me during the 1980’s were related to the fact that as a medium it seemed to be technically and socially “unbroadcastable” as well as unsuitable for the either the cinema or the gallery! My solution in the 1990s was to develop a series of video sculptures- relatively large-scale structures and temporary objects that could occupy the white cube spaces and/or darkened cavern of the gallery and readily understood by gallery visitors because of its relationship to conventional sculpture and traditional mixed media installation. In the decades that followed I have sought to develop and explore opportunities made possible by the shifting technology and expanded creative potential of both inside and outside of the confines and walls of the conventional gallery environment.
My presentation will trace the development of my work as an artist dedicated to working with the electronic and digital moving image from early single screen videotapes via gallery installation and data projection to site-specific projects featuring web-based image streaming and augmented reality.
Brief biography:
Chris Meigh-Andrews is a pioneering video artist and writer who has been making and exhibiting screen-based video and sculptural moving image installations since the mid 1970′s. He studied fine art at Goldsmiths and completed his PhD at the Royal College of Art in 2001 and has taught at numerous art schools and media departments in the UK. He has held a number of artist’s residencies in the UK and abroad and his site-specific and commissioned installations often incorporate renewable energy systems and establish direct relationships with the natural and constructed environment.
Curatorial projects include Yes, Snow Show, (British Film Institute, 2009), Analogue: Artists’ Video from the UK, Canada and Poland: 1968-88, (Tate Britain and Modern, London, and at venues in Liverpool, Norwich, Warsaw, New York, Toronto, Ottawa, Valletta and Berlin.) and The Digital Aesthetic, in collaboration with the Harris Museum (2001, 2007 & 2012).
His recently published second edition of A History of Video Art (Bloomsbury, London and New York, 2013) can be obtained at: http://www.amazon.co.uk/History-Video-Art-Development-Function/dp/1845202198
Chris Meigh-Andrews is Emeritus Professor of Electronic and Digital Art at the University of Central Lancashire and consultant to CMIR in the subject area of the history of artists' video.
Further information on the work and activities of Professor Meigh-Andrews can be found at www.cmiresearch.org.uk and at www.meigh-andrews.com