Chapters review

4.The use of exhibition space to create meaning (100 Words) How does the exhibition space change the meaning of the work.

I think the exhibition space has great effect on the video and how we perceive it. The environment in which you view a piece can really add or detract from said piece.

Video and film are displayed in many different locations such as cinema's, school's, in the home, at work, in theaters, public places, gallery's and museums. A lot of the time it depends on context as to where specific things are shown, for instance if you were to view something in a school or museum its more likely to be an educational piece, whereas if it was in a public place its most likely to be advertising but then when it comes to cinema its for recreational and entertainment value. i think each location has its own reason and importance, you wouldn't want to go to the cinema and watch something that you would usually be shown in school or college, just s you wouldn't expect to go to a public place like time square or Piccadilly circus and watch a blockbuster, this greatly relates to the theory that everything has an appropriate time and place.


we went to visit the Tate modern and look at 5 experimental pieces.

The first piece we looked at was an installation piece by Dominique Gonzalez called the Turbine Hall .TH2058, the concept behind the piece is that its 50 years in the future and its constant torrential rain outside, there are metal bed frames with books that fill the hall with large sculptures that overshadow them, the idea behind this is that the sculptures were moved inside to protect them from the rain.the experimental video in the installation didn't really make any sense to me at all, it was displayed on a massive screen at the rear of the hall, i think it did have a soundtrack to it but i couldn't be sure as i wasn't able to hear it very well, most of the images i saw in the video were of eye's or of a desert type landscape, i didn't really pick up the significance of the piece.

The next experimental video we looked at was on level 5, room 8 in the states of flux area of the gallery, Called Psi Girls by Susan Hiller, this piece was very clever, upon entering the viewing space there is a dark long room with 5 screens all set out along the wall on the right hand side with a long bench on the left for people to sit a watch, the five screens all show images/ clips from films that are about girls with the ability to use telekinesis, all the screens are different colours, Red, Pink, Green, Blue and Yellow as each clip finishes there is a moment of static and each clip will swap to a different colour and a different screen, i think its very cleverly set out and if you watched this piece in a diffident atmosphere it would not have same impact at all, i think this piece was the one that made me most appreciate the importance of a viewing space for my own experimental piece.

We then went onto look at Jonas Mekas room 6 level 5, also in the states of flux gallery, this video was like a life story perspective of him living in new york but in fast motion, the picture for this Piece was quite blurry and had to focus on as it moved very fast their was speech as well in the audio but it was hard to make out what was said, the viewing space for this piece was much smaller but again it was set out like the last one the screen was smaller though and the seat was much closer to the screen.

Moving onto the next experimental video still on the 5Th floor but in the Idea and object wing of the gallery, Pawel Kwiek experimental piece was based on the structure of a recording studio, the different aspects and how they work, the film itself is in polish with subtitles in white at the bottom of the screen for the most part,to me this wasn't really an experimental piece it looked more like an instructional video than anything, again the viewing space was the same as the previous a dark room with a bench to sit on opposite the screen with a fairly large screen in the middle of the wall.

The last experimental video my group looked at was Dan Grahams two correlated rotation, I think this overall is the piece i liked most it had a clever concept and when you entered the viewing space there was to white walls adjacent to each other with two different shots of the same piece being projected from old projects on free standing columns. with diagrams explaining how the camera angles worked, again this is one of the pieces that really out across to me the importance of the viewing space, setting up the piece if needed and using a unlike way to display it helps to keep the viewer interested which i think is important with a lot of the other pieces we watched i have to admit i lost interest fairly quickly. All though i do think if they had chosen to display this piece in a different environment it would have lost the ability to be interesting and to keep people interested.

Although i didn't necessarily understand or grasp the significance of every piece that we viewed at the Tate it did put across the importance of selecting a related and appropriate viewing space for my piece and made me really think about setting up a a distinct environment in which to show my piece.