Video art are often short pieces in which i would personally describe a music video without music. These pieces often depict more depressing or serious ideals in an interesting and captivating way, often in these the camera tends not to move but the people or objects in them guide the video themselves. As well as this sound is often kept quite real and is more than often diagetic as it tends to add ground and realism to the pieces instead of something from a music video which would instead use the music to pull you out of the realism of the piece.
Bill Viola- The content of many of Bill Violas videos all link to the idea of water, whether it be sinking, drowning, being splashed and anything else he has probably done it. Most of his videos consist of people coming into contact with water or other elements like his 4 screened piece in st Pauls cathedral showing people in front of the camera whilst different elements wash over them.
Bill often uses long shots with little motion so that they look much more interesting when slowed down, this is especially apparent in his piece 'Fire Woman' which depicts a woman in front of some fire before she falls into water and then remains under the water invisible from the cameras view.
As for editing Bill doesn't tend to do a vast amount of editing to his videos, for the ones involving fire and water he just tends to slow them down in order to visually amplify the affect of the fire and or water, other than that some of his pieces take place in a darker setting but it is more than likely that was done via the actual lighting in the room aside from editing.
Bill once stated in an interview once that when he was a child he was in an incident that led to him being completely submerged under water and almost led to him drowning, he did say tho that in that time when he almost drowned he looked into the water that he was in and said that the body of water he was in looked beautiful and through this experience he believed he has then subliminally used water within his pieces in a way of expressing his art form. From this idea as well he has also incorporated using other elements as well as using people falling in water to create a visually appealing piece.
In his video Fire woman the sound he used was all diagetic sound of what was actually occurring in the video so the only sound you could hear was the fire crackling and the prolonged echoed sound of the water as the water fell into it, I do feel that this has been done in order to make the video seem more grounded and realistic as well as giving an eerie tone as there is no other sort of sound or explanation as to why this is happening.
Bill is very good at using lighting and color to create a visually stunning piece as again in the fire woman the room is pitch black only the ground and woman are illuminated by the large fire in the background, this has been done especially well as it also doesn't give much inclination that the surface under the woman is actually water that she is about to fall into. As well as this the pitch black void that she is shown in goes incredibly well with the echoed like sound of the water splashing outwards and the fire crackling more centered.
Sam Taylor Wood- The content within Sam Taylor woods video art consists mainly of the constant decay of various things such as fruit and in other cases animals, the pieces of work I am referring to in this case would be 'little death' and 'still life' these two videos both depict something that symbolizes life that being either what was once an alive animal or a bowl of fruit decomposing. The pieces themselves are single screened and are presented as a moving painting with the objects within the video changing while the camera remains motionless.
The video is only edited so that it is sped up so the transformation of fruit and other things happens much quicker, this itself could elude to how death and decay can be so quick and could potentially play on the idea that life is short.
There aren't many affects within the video other than the entire thing being sped up so to make the entire process seems a lot quicker and as a result makes the movement of the animal seem more alive.
The concept behind the two videos are having a look at the affect that decay has on things such as fruit and animals but other than the obvious visuals there doesn't seem to be any embedded narrative.
There is sound used within the videos seen just seem to be backing tracks for the video itself and don't really add much to the videos themselves other than just giving the audience something to listen to whilst watching.
I feel the soundtrack does and doesn't brake the convention as some people may find the entire thing satisfying so the backing track could seem relaxing on the other hand however it could clash with the obvious dark background seen as the whole thing is set on a old dirty table.
Overall there aren't many visual codes within the video aside from the fact that the whole thing is meant to represent aging and decaying and they filmed it in an old fashioned home and as a result the two concepts kind of link but other than that there isn't many visual codes.
David Hall - The content behind Davids video installations is that the video is a moving painting, the video in question here being either the dripping tap or Two figures, both showing the objects and or people within the videos moving rather than the camera itself. As well as this the installations are all single screened due to the fact they were displayed in the 1970s as radio interruptions rather than actual video art. The video is 'edited' to just be one long shot of either a tap dripping and then being emptied or a man sat down in front of a camera before moving away. There don't seem to be any edits within the video aside from possibly a black and white filter, however due to the time period within these videos took place its hard to pinpoint whether it was edited to be black and white or if it was just the cameras. For these video installations its quite hard to tell what the meaning behind the videos are but from some interviews with David himself he said that video art was an untouched medium and the idea of experimenting with cameras hadn't been trialed yet and whilst he doesn't claim his videos to be 'art' I do believe he intended to use his videos to show what was capable with a camera. The sound used within the videos tends to be diagetic and is just whatever is happening on screen such as in the dripping tap video all you can hear is the box or area filling with water before being drained completely. The sound doesn't really break any codes as it is quite literally just what is happening within the video and doesn't have anything edited in. The visual codes within the piece of video would only really be water which could represent flowing or being calm, or the black and white color scheme which represents the era in which this was made and broadcasted.
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