19-22/2/07
Paris Trip
The Museum of Modern Art turned out to be the most influential place during the whole trip.
I was surprised to see digital artworks and video installations by contemporary artists.
Douglas Gordon's artwork was on display through many TV monitors within an installation space. I had previously gone to see a retrospective of his work in Edinburgh in January. Even though this exhibition didn't include all of his work and no large projection screens, I found this second chance to view his work a valuable experience.
I took photographs and video footage showing the positioning of monitors and wires of the TV screens and video players, as well as the footage displayed on the screens (Galleries in Paris seemed to have a laid back attitude to documenting artwork).

24 hour psycho was on display on one of the TV monitors and I found it uncanny and amusing that I witnessed the exact same point of the film (with Marion Crane driving her car after stealing from her boss) when I was at the retrospective Superhumanatural in Edinburgh

Douglas Gordon's artwork displayed on monitors in the Museum of Modern Art, Paris, 2007.




Nam June Paik
The stacked monitors in the shape of a human interested me because of the sheer amount of monitors and height of the artwork. The 40's/50's style TV monitors appeared to be balanced on top of each other with no technical stability. I have created a short video that shows the work from all angles and close up. I didn't like the netting and flowers positioned in the middle of the monitor, as if coming from the heart of the structure, I thought that these looked tacky and was unsure of their purpose. At closer inspection the TV monitors were showing 80's style visual mixing of bright, flashing objects and abstract shapes. I have mused with the idea of stacking monitors on top of each other to show the viewer different view points of themselves via CCTV.

Nam June Paik's L' Olympe de Gouges in the electronic fairy, 1989.