Internet video: Art and artists

Yesterday we talked about two museums that have recently launched their own channels on YouTube: MoMA and Indianapolis. But what about artworks and artists?

I can't find too many examples of artists posting video art straight to YouTube or to Google Video. Brian Presnell, who received a solo show at Indianapolis MOCA last year, has a YouTube channel with his work. (It was curated by On the Cusp contributor Christopher West.) NYC-based Swede Annika Larsson posts her video work on her MySpace page.

But the overwhelming majority of the video art on YouTube appears to be there without the direct consent of the artist who created it. Francesco Vezzoli's Caligula (above)-- now in the collection of the Guggenheim -- has been on YouTube long enough to have been viewed 25,000 times. (Via. You'll need to sign in or use BugMeNot to view it.) There are dozens of other examples, including of video that visitors to museums have recorded on their digital cameras or cell phones. Much of that content seems to come from MoMA, which can be as much a photo arcade as it is an art museum. Pipilotti Rist's Ever is Over All is one video-to-digital example.

Museum visitors also like to capture whatever they can, whether it's video or not. Check out Janet Cardiff's 40-Part Motet at MoMA or Carsten Holler's slide at the Tate Modern. Actually, Turbine Hall seems made for YouTube as Rachel Whiteread is all over YouTube and Olafur Eliasson is too. One MASSMoCA visitor filmed Ann Hamilton's Corpus, but I'm guessing Hamilton prefers the video on her own site (at right).

And what would the internets be without a little parody? How about The Passions, a Bill Viola send-up, complete with a wry stand-in for Viola's ubiquitous waterscapes?

Finally, there are a few websites that aggregate video. Ubu.com features a lot of early video art (expect the Getty Research Institute to put some of its early video collection online someday too), and Joao Ribas' Expanded Cinema features Ribas-selected work.

Related: Chris Jagers makes a point I was going to make.