More weirdos

Paul Pfeiffer is primarily a video artist. His most famous works are clips of sporting events in which the athletes’ clothing is edited to remove all logos and symbols or the figures are edited out completely. He also has made edited photographs and sculptures related to these videos. I was only actually able to see one video, The Long Count (Rumble in the jungle) in which two boxers are edited out of a clip. I really like how you can see sort of an outline where the figures were, so even though theoretically there is supposed to be nothing there, I find myself watching the blurs go back and forth. I don’t think that’s what Pfeiffer was necessarily going for (it seems that the video is supposed to emphasize the crowd), but I think it would be kind of lame if you couldn’t see even the trace of the boxers and it was just an empty ring with a crowd in the background. Here is the link to the video on youtube:

http://youtube.com/watch?v=tIj4IpTATLM

Vito Acconci’s videos and performances are very sexual, often in a crass or aggressive way. Open Book and Theme Song both feature close-ups of the Acconci himself pleading the viewer (or an unspecified person) to “come closer.” The close-up shots and subjects of the videos together are very confrontational. I think his work would make a lot of people uncomfortable, which is why I like it. At the same time, I imagine him being a very creepy man. And just saying… I would not want to participate in an interactive performance in which the artist masturbates while watching the viewers and fantasizing aloud about us. Here is a link where you can watch a few of his videos.

http://www.ubu.com/film/acconci.html


Alex Bag is yet another one whose work I can’t really find much of. I’ve only been able to find stills- not even a single video clip. She seems to use herself as a model for her videos (one article described her as a video artist answer to Cindy Sherman), which comment on issues ranging from prescription of antidepressants to witchcraft to the war in Iraq. It definitely sounds intriguing, but most of the reviews of her work that I read were negative, and since I haven’t seen them, I don’t really now what to make of it. However, I did think that this quote from one of her videos was funny: "It's like, what is the point of making work for people that are so smart that they don't even watch TV? It's just useless and depressing."