Lee Walton:
If you had to sum up this action in one instructional sentence or formula it would be something like:
Use your hands to feel a diverse range of things in the city.
Notice he takes the common expression “Getting a Feel for Things” literally in this work, and feels things. See how he uses common expressions, and simple instructions as a formula for creating in the following videos.
If conceptually informed artworks are ones in which an idea determines the work, as opposed to the artist’s masterful technique, or the perfect handling of materials. In fact, when you follow directions, things might even turn out badly, things can break down, fail, fall apart. There is tremendous tension in this – when we really don’t know how things are going to go. Watch Jon Sasaki play with attempting to do something, and the possibility (and sometimes the reality) of failing, falling, or otherwise destroying everything.
Kelly Mark:
Sniff:
https://kellymark.com/V_Sniff1Video.html
Hello/Goodbye:
https://kellymark.com/V_HelloGoodbyeVIDEO.html
I love Love Songs but Angry Music Makes me Happy:
https://kellymark.com/V_ILoveLoveSongsVIDEO.html
Jon Sasaki:
Ladder Climb:
http://www.jonsasaki.com/index.php/work/ladder-climb/
Dead End, Eastern Market, Detroit:
http://www.jonsasaki.com/index.php/work/dead-end-eastern-market-detroit/
Harrison and Wood
Michelle Pearson Clarke:
Lenka Clayton:
Human Beings. 1-100 (2006)
“This is first in a series of four films – People In Order – commissioned by the UK’s Channel 4 in 2006. The concept behind our films was simple: we asked ourselves if you can reveal something about life by simply arranging people according to scales. Three minutes is a very short time to communicate something – perhaps too short to tell a story, or to get to know a character – so we wanted to make this series by setting ourselves some very straightforward rules, and then following them through over a long trip. The rules had to be simple so it would take the audience virtually no time to understand them. We established what scales we’d look at, and then chose how each film would be framed. Then it was a case of getting in a campervan and driving round Britain, filming as many people as we could over 4 weeks in February, coping with microphones crackling and our camera refusing to work.
The experience was exhausting but also life affirming. In our whole trip we were struck by how happy people were to help. Only a handful of our shoots were arranged in advance. We relied instead on the kindness of strangers – and we found that everywhere, from deprived urban estates to rural aristocrats.
The resulting films are like a list of government statistics where the citizens they are referring to have broken out from behind the figures on the page. The people on the screen stop us from seeing them as numbers.
Adad Hannah:
Blackwater Ophelia:
https://adadhannah.com/2013-blackwater-ophelia
The Russians:
https://adadhannah.com/2011-the-russians-videos