When video becomes art?
Or to re-frame the question: What is video art?
For the purposes of this study, video art relates to the moving image acquiring new aesthetic characteristics separated from the realism involved in the original recording of the video. Thus, realism is not an end in itself but a medium used by the artist to compose. I was inspired by dancing bodies as raw material for video-art creation, re-interpreting them as dynamic objects that can be changed, altered and re-assembled into new forms and colors. Here I present three video-art pieces inspired on tango dance. Interestingly, I present them without sound, in silence, as if they were already their own entity evolved from their original physical manifestation of the dance in response to music.
> Video-art_1
'Cuerpo-Ventana del Recuerdo' (version #1)
Dancing bodies of a tango couple in New York City are re-interpreted as windows into a new but related territory, that of Candombe from the streets of Montevideo. As bodies move across the space, they reveal different aspects of fond remembrances of my country of origin (Uruguay) and its cultural activities (Video 1).
Video 1. 'Cuerpo-Ventana del Recuerdo' (version #1) is a video-art piece based on the recording of Jusleine Daniel and Hugo Visoso dancing tango at a social event in New York City. Their bodies are re-interpreted as windows that reveal re-mixed video footage of Candombe from the streets of Montevideo. Candombe's video source was taken from 'Comparsa - Valores de Ansina' by Giselle Noroña (2014) [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-lIcMWZiF0Q].
> Video-art_2
'Cuerpo-Ventana del Recuerdo' (version #2)
A second take on dancing bodies from a tango couple is shown here, derived from a second video recording of Jusleine Daniel & Hugo Visoso. Although the technical approach is similar to video-art_1 piece, the visual aesthetics differ as well as the source of the remixed video footage (Video 2).
Video 2. 'Cuerpo-Ventana del Recuerdo' (version #2) is a video-art piece based on the recording of Jusleine Daniel and Hugo Visoso dancing tango at a social event in New York City. Their bodies are re-interpreted as windows that reveal re-mixed video footage of Candombe from the streets of Montevideo. Candombe's video source was taken from 'TumbaLaTaVideos: Candombe Documental / Los Toques del Tambor Afro-Montevideano Parte 1' (2012) [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QbHcN-AHwcE].
> Video-art_3
'Trapped in a Tango Loop'
Dancing bodies are trapped within a digital tango loop, dancing to the beat of the pixel for eternity. Their bodies fuses with the glitchy background of the image, disappearing at moments from the work to only come back and keep dancing (Video 3).
Video 3. 'Trapped in a Tango Loop' is a video-art piece based on the recording of Jusleine Daniel and Martin Calvino dancing tango. Their bodies are re-interpreted as dynamic group of pixels that change colors in dramatic manner.
When realism is transmuted to video-art, the digital moving image becomes the representation of a non-existent entity from the physical world, only a reference to what the viewers of the piece can imagine the bodies are dancing to. Art then becomes a force that transforms reality into something new and unexpected.
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