Week 7

1. Watch the videos and read about the works below.
2. Write notes on videos based on questions below.
3. Post your final video on the blog with a description that references artworks seen in class.

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TECH TIME this week will have Nathan consulting on all your video art ideas throughout class. He will promote his DaVinci Resolve workshop and his resources for sizing videos for the web.

Watch:

Michelle Pearson Clarke

Suck Teeth Compositions (After Rashaad Newsome)

3-channel, HD video installation with sound
16 x 9 format, 9:47 | 2018

In Shade Compositions (2005-present), a series of live performances and videos, the African-American artist Rashaad Newsome explores issues of Black authorship, appropriation, identity and belonging by conducting choirs of women (and sometimes, gay men) of colour who snap their fingers, smack their lips, roll their eyes, and cock their heads, creating expressive linguistic symphonies out of the nonverbal gestures and vocalizations of African-American women. Suck Teeth Compositions (After Rashaad Newsome) is a three-channel video and sound installation that both responds to and extends this inquiry by focusing on sucking teeth, an everyday oral gesture shared by Black people of African and Caribbean origin and their diasporas, including those of us who live here in Canada.

Referred to variously as kiss teeth, chups, steups, and stchoops, to suck teeth is to produce a sound by sucking in air through the teeth, while pressing the tongue against the upper or lower teeth, with the lips pursed or slightly flattened. West African in origin, this verbal gesture is used to signify a wide range of negative affects, including irritation, disapproval, disgust, disrespect, anger and frustration. Given that representations of African-American Blackness dominate and define mainstream understandings of the Black experience, when it comes to anti-black racism, most white Canadians are allowed to feel comfortable and are supported in their comfort by the historical and ongoing narratives of “not me,” “not us,” “only them, down there.” Suck Teeth Compositions (After Rashaad Newsome) is thus a response to the frustrations of living within this denial, and an expression of the anger and pain that many Black people often experience living in Canada, where we are always assumed to be better off, if not completely free of racism. (From https://www.michelepearsonclarke.com/suck-teeth-compositions/)

Installation Photo (Royal Ontario Museum, 2018): Peter Schnobb

Basil AlZeri

Basil AlZeri is a Palestian artist based in Toronto working in performance, video, installation, food, and public art interventions/projects. His work is grounded in his practice as an art educator and community worker. He explores the intersections between the quotidian and art, and strives for interactions with the public, using social interactions and exchanges to create gestures of generosity.

AlZeri’s performance work has been shown across the Americas.

The Mobile Kitchen Lab

With The Mobile Kitchen Lab (2010 – present), AlZeri performs simple and generous gestures, inviting his guests to identify the Palestinian stories of land, resources and labour that are built into his recipes.

Initiated in 2010, his durational performances feature live projected instructions provided by his mother, Suad, via Skype.

Hear a radio interview on the project here.

Artists make Zoom Backgrounds:

Look at Art Metropole’s artworks for Zoom backgrounds:

https://technicaldifficulties.artmetropole.com/

WRITE NOTES:

Make notes on two of the above videos. What strikes you in each of them? Describe the ways artists use the media of video technologies to create affecting experiences for viewers. How would the works be different if these media were not used? What do you think the conceptual prompts/instructions were for the performers?

EXERCISE:

Record and edit your new work for teleconferencing technologies. You may work together with others from the class. Post your finished work (up to 4 minute excerpt) to the blog with a concise description of the piece.

Get help from Nathan with your editing, and with sizing the video for the web. Nathan’s office hours are Monday and Thursday 1-4, and he is also available by email for appointments. See resources for video on this blog, under Resources.