User:Niek Hilkmann/Reading, Writing & Research Methodologies 2012/2013/Youtube Seminar

Let’s start with what happened before. I promised I would go out, to the museum, and reproduce a painting on the spot. As you can see by looking at this empty canvas I brought along, I haven’t succeeded. The reason for this is simply that I did not have the time to get all the supplies that are necessary for producing a painting, let alone the bothersome trial of getting permitted to a proper museum with paint and other possibly damaging tools in hand while annoying unsuspicious visitors who like to spend their Sunday in peace. If I were a real painter, which I am not, I would have had less trouble starting quickly and getting my act together. Now, I was not able to get into my ‘role’ as the only attendant to the play I staged myself. I can see that the minds of some of you are wandering off and I can understand it if you at this point are wondering: ‘What has this to do with Youtube?’

There are many ways I can connect Youtube to the concept of the painting. I could point out various similarities and differences. However, you would be none the wiser of the reason why I wanted to paint in a museum. Today, I would like to talk to you about the borders of the canvas, the frame of a painting, simply put: the borders and constraints of a particular artistic medium. As you are probably aware, a painting is held by a frame, which separates it from the world around it. Because the painting is framed, it is a constrained image, a world in itself, unspoiled by even the littlest thing going on around it. The frame indicates where we should point our direction and it helps us grasps an understanding of elements such as composition and the use of colour. In other words, the frame tells us where to look and what to look for. Furthermore, it delivers a non-moving snapshot of a narrative. A situation captured in time that helps us contemplate its deeper meaning and stimulates our thoughts.

The actual real-life frame of the painting isn’t the only border that produces a mode of thought. The brick walls of the museum that the canvas hangs on separate the entire field of painting, and one could say; art, from the outside world. This brought about a lot of comment during the previous century and a half and nowadays artists tend to avoid ending up in ‘white cubes’. However, by stepping out into ‘daily life’ artists are committing themselves to countless other boundaries and frameworks. By avoiding the sacral space of the museum and producing art directly within a society, art often seems to lose some of its sting and become merely another outing of another social subgroup. Art acts as a special interest within this framework. Youtube has become an indispensable tool for countless groups in society to facilitate their own special interest. The site acts as another medium in which narrative is constrained, produced and delivered. The videos it contains are framed both by the public and the lay-out of the site. They are for instance constrained to an upload limit, the use of codecs and image sizes. If we look even further, the site itself is framed by being part of the World Wide Web. Things are still framed, but the relation towards the content, the image has indeed changed.

I choose to emphasize this point because the manageability and connectivity that is ascribed to media based art is closely related to the concept of the frame and produces important questions. One can ponder what art actually is or means, but I want to focus on one question: Should it be manageable? Our friend Heidegger suggests that art is before anything else NOT a tool and should not be useful in the sense of being constrained to what a human being can do with it. If it is manageable it is devoid of a particular narrative and human indication. By making art manageable and re-establishing the ritualistic tendency that Benjamin describes as lost and De Mul suggests we regained through media-art, one is actually removing the temporality of the work by presenting it as relative object without definite value. Because of this serious contemplation and a framework indicating where to look becomes almost impossible.

I believe the Youtube video can be used as a canvas and the site is its frame, but every manipulation, from turning up the sound to making the screen brighter, makes its content manageable and as art perhaps less interesting. The internet as frame produces no stability or steady indication of any focal point. With these thoughts in mind I decided to paint, a medium I do not master, and produce something in a traditional framework that has almost fallen apart due to its friction with countless others. I know this effort is doomed to fail, for I cannot draw two straight lines in a row. Luckily, my attempt and struggle will not only manifest themselves on the canvas, but also in the museum where my presence is an assault on the quiet framework one finds there. By filming my endeavours, the narrative becomes a quiet and solid entity again. Stuck in time as object of your consideration and who knows, maybe even… admiration. But that is something I do not control.