Immersive art
The Guardian says in an article on" The Year in Art 2006" that :
" For many, though,the artistic event of the year was not looking at art- but sliding down it in Carsten Holler's huge slides in Tate Modern's Turbine Hall."
The slides are a brilliant idea in immersive art…loosing yourself in the moment. ( But how does it differ from a fairground except that it is in a gallery?…)
Digital Native or Digital Immigrant?
We had a young art student from Shanghai with us over the festive season and I took her to the Scottish Gallery of Modern Art in Edinburgh.
We stopped in front of Douglas Gordon's wall text:"Everyone I have ever met". At first she was intrigued asking what was the context of the work.
"You mean its just everyone he has ever met?""Yes."She shrugged. "But it's just like an e-mail address book. No different."And she walked on, clearly disappointed.Looked at from the perspective of a 22 year old Chinese artist Gordon's work seemed curiously dated; so 20th century.I realised with a jolt that digital natives automatically collect the names of everyone they have ever met in their e-mail address books as soon as their fingers are able to touch the computer.
Digital immigrants like myself are running to catch up.
Well, I guess I may not have been on the web for the past couple of days but I can see from checking my site that plenty of people have been viewing my videos, including a woman from New Zealand who added a comment which left me nonplussed.( Singing Ghost video). http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nYBE2saRm7M
Fractals
Some of the stuff on You Tube is awesome! just take a look at this one on fractals ( OK there's a lot of junk too).
Just had some feedback from a friend who thought my latest video ("The Lost Dog")"old fashioned….(http://www/youtube.com/watch?v=EauXUpmxtI) like a Lowry painting".
Well, I was a bit gobsmacked at first. Old fashioned is not a word I like to hear used about my work. But I could understand the reference to a Lowry painting because I remember thinking that as I was filming the children and adults playing in the snow.
Ann Shaw is an artist/writer based in Scotland working in new media. As a journalist she campaigned and wrote about many social and medical issues. She is a feminist and founder member of Falkirk Womens Aid, active in the trades union movement and former member of National Union of Journalists Equality Working Party, and founder member of Forth Valley Open Studios.
