Tag Archives: Ways of Something

Ways of Something – Screening and Live Event

John Berger’s four-part BBC documentary Ways of Seeing (1972) is a seminal work of popular art history. As the camera lingers on iconic European paintings, Berger examines our “learned assumptions” about fine art in a world saturated by cameras, screens, and easily reproducible images.

For her contemporary remake, Ways of Something (2014-2015), Lorna Mills invited more than a hundred digital artists to each recreate a one-minute section of the documentary, retaining Berger’s narration but replacing the image. The result is a chaotic compilation of 3-D animations, video remixes, animated GIFs, webcam performances, and more, by artists who update, challenge, or elaborate on Berger’s ideas. Ways of Something is, in effect, art about art about television about the internet, employing aesthetically diverse practices to re-examine Berger’s theories about looking at art in the digital age.

Ways of Something

Take a mashup of images historically specific to the 21st century, bring them into direct relation with John Berger’s 1972 critique of western art traditions (see Ways of Seeing), and with no cut corners you have Ways of Something. Conceiving this intergenerational commingling was Canadian artist and curator Lorna Mills, who incentivised 114 network-based artists to each contribute one-minute video snippets overlaid on Berger’s original script and voice-over. The resulting heady stew of animation, 3D rendering, gifs, film remix and webcam performance is presented in association with Vivid Projects.

The screening will be preceded with an introduction by Antonio Roberts

Dreamlands: Immersive Cinema and Art, 1905–2016

Dreamlands: Immersive Cinema and Art, 1905–2016 focuses on the ways in which artists have dismantled and reassembled the conventions of cinema—screen, projection, darkness—to create new experiences of the moving image. The exhibition will fill the Museum’s 18,000-square-foot fifth-floor galleries, and will include a film series in the third-floor theater.

Dreamlands spans more than a century of works by American artists and filmmakers, and also includes a small number of works of German cinema and art from the 1920s with a strong relationship to, and influence on, American art and film. Featured are works in installation, drawing, 3-D environments, sculpture, performance, painting, and online space, by Trisha Baga, Ivana Bašić, Frances Bodomo, Dora Budor, Ian Cheng, Bruce Conner, Ben Coonley, Joseph Cornell, Andrea Crespo, François Curlet, Alex Da Corte, Oskar Fischinger, Liam Gillick, Dominique Gonzalez-Foerster, Pierre Huyghe, Alex Israel, Mehdi Belhaj Kacem and Pierre Joseph, Aidan Koch, Lynn Hershman Leeson, Anthony McCall, Josiah McElheny, Syd Mead, Lorna Mills, Jayson Musson, Melik Ohanian, Philippe Parreno, Jenny Perlin, Mathias Poledna, Edwin S. Porter, Oskar Schlemmer, Hito Steyerl, Rirkrit Tiravanija, Stan VanDerBeek, Artie Vierkant, and Jud Yalkut, among others.

Dreamlands: Immersive Cinema and Art, 1905–2016 is organized by Chrissie Iles, Anne and Joel Ehrenkranz Curator.

Ways of Something

TRANSFER is pleased to present the USA debut of ‘Ways of Something’

Screening + Discussion ::: SATURDAY September 6 ::: from 7 -10PM

Ways of Something”, is a contemporary remake of John Berger’s BBC documentary, “Ways of Seeing” (1972). Commissioned by The One Minutes, at the Sandberg Instituut in Amsterdam and compiled by Lorna Mills, the project consists of one-minute videos by fifty eight web-based artists who commonly work with 3D rendering, gifs, film remix, webcam performances, and websites to describe the cacophonous conditions of artmaking after the internet.

The screening at TRANSFER Gallery is based on the first two episodes of a four-part series of thirty-minute films created by art theorist John Berger and produced by Mike Dibb. In the original episode one, voice-of-God narration over iconic European paintings offer a careful dissection of traditional “fine art” media and the way society has come to understand them as art. The second episode is a contentious and sometimes maddening look at the female nude in the western tradition.

Ways of Something at Flatpack Festival, 9th April

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Flatpack Festival, in association with Vivid Projects, will be presenting the first UK screening of all four episodes of Ways of Something on 9th April from 12:15 pm – 2:30 pm at The Victoria.

Lorna Mills, features 114 net-based artists reinterpreting John Berger’s original Ways of Seeing, leaving only the original script and voice-over in tact. The resulting piece features animation, 3D rendering, gifs, film remix and webcam performance.

I’ll be there wearing my Vivid Projects Curator hat and will be doing a short introduction to the screening (I contributed to episode two). It’s also worth checking out the screening of the original Ways of Seeing that will be happening a day earlier on 8th April. In fact, just check out the whole of Flatpack Festival ’cause it’s awesome.

Dreamlands: Immersive Cinema and Art, 1905–2016, 28th October 2016 – 5th February 2017

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Ways of Something, the visual remix/remake of John Berger’s Ways of Seeing, will be seeing a screening at Dreamlands: Immersive Cinema and Art, 1905–2016 at the Whitney Museum of American Art: from 28th October 2016 to 5th February 2017.

dreamlands

Dreamlands: Immersive Cinema and Art, 1905–2016 focuses on the ways in which artists have dismantled and reassembled the conventions of cinema—screen, projection, darkness—to create new experiences of the moving image. The exhibition will fill the Museum’s 18,000-square-foot fifth-floor galleries, and will include a film series in the third-floor theater.

The exhibition’s title refers to the science fiction writer H.P. Lovecraft’s alternate fictional dimension, whose terrain of cities, forests, mountains, and an underworld can be visited only through dreams. Similarly, the spaces in Dreamlands will connect different historical moments of cinematic experimentation, creating a story that unfolds across a series of immersive spaces.

The exhibition will be the most technologically complex project mounted in the Whitney’s new building to date, embracing a wide range of moving image techniques, from hand-painted film to the latest digital technologies. The works on view use color, touch, music, spectacle, light, and darkness to confound expectations, flattening space through animation and abstraction, or heightening the illusion of three dimensions.

If you don’t already know about Ways of Something just Google it 😉 Over 100 international artists have reinterpretd Ways of Seeing in their own aesthetic and style. I had a bit in Episode 2.

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I’m having a major case of #FOMO that I can’t be there to see it so you should see it for me). Thanks as always to Lorna Mills for the invite!

Ways of Something screening and Q&A – 12th March

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After having its UK debut at The Photographer’s Gallery in early February, Ways of Something episodes 1-3 will be having their West Midlands premier at Vivid Projects on 12th March.

waysofsomethingscreening

Ways of Something is a contemporary remake of John Berger’s classic BBC documentary, ‘Ways of Seeing’ (1972).

The project consists of one-minute videos by 85 web-based artists who commonly work with 3D rendering, GIFs, film remixes, webcam performances, and websites. The original audio track is retained, disrupted by an exuberant series of 60-second artworks contributed by artists working across the world.

Join us on Thursday 12 March for the Birmingham premiere of episodes 1 & 2 (2014) and the recently completed episode 3 (2015).

The screening will be followed by a discussion with artist Lorna Mills (via Skype), Dr Richard Clay, Senior Lecturer in History of Art at University of Birmingham and contributing artist Antonio Roberts (UK).

‘Ways of Something’ marks the official launch of Vivid Projects’ new programme RADICAL NETWORKS. All are welcome to join us after the discussion for drinks to celebrate the start of our 2015 programme.

This is a free event, but booking is strongly recommended to reserve your place.

It’s free y’all!

Ways of Something episode 2

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Earlier in 2014 I was invited by Lorna Mills to contribute a one-minute video to Ways of Something:

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Ways of Something”, is a contemporary remake of John Berger’s BBC documentary, “Ways of Seeing” (1972). Commissioned by The One Minutes, at the Sandberg institute in Amsterdam and compiled by Lorna Mills, the project consists of one-minute videos by fifty eight web-based artists who commonly work with 3D rendering, gifs, film remix, webcam performances, and websites to describe the cacophonous conditions of artmaking after the internet.

In the original episode one, voice-of-God narration over iconic European paintings offer a careful dissection of traditional “fine art” media and the way society has come to understand them as art. The second episode is a contentious and sometimes maddening look at the female nude in the western tradition.

The combined work is, in effect, art about art about television about the internet.

Featuring formal, figural and kitsch practices to videomaking, “Ways of Something” is constituted by aesthetically diverse interpretations of Berger’s ideas on looking at art after the introduction of digital media and the internet. Ultimately, it turns the highbrow nature of the original documentary film into a exuberant and disjointed series on how artists understand art today.

Ways of Something episodes 1 and 2 (my video is in episode 2) will be having its premier screening on September 6th at TRANSFER in New York, with many more screenings to follow. Keep watch of the Events page for upcoming screening dates.

Thanks again to Lorna Mills for asking me to be part of this project alongside so many awesome artists!