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Jeremy Blake: An Interview

Video Data Bank

2004 00:24:27 United StatesEnglishColorStereo4:3DV video

Description

Jeremy Blake (1971-2007) used digital media to create works that function on a flexible spectrum between being more painting-like or more film-like. He created continually looping digital animations with sound to be projected or presented on plasma screens. Blake often began by making the digital C-prints, which he conceived to be somewhat like paintings; if the imagery and idea of one of these works lent itself as such, he might extrapolate from and expand on it to begin creating a digital animation, which could range from 3 to 20 minute repeating loops.

Blake's work did not rely on overt displays of technological complexity. Rather, through his talented and insightful use of relatively basic applications, he created compelling visual narratives that operate on a variety of levels. Blake's works typically have a color field as well as an architectonic foundation, with a sense of neo-modernist design and film noir-like attitude combining the representational and the abstract.

"I do think that adapting to new technological speeds is part of an artist's job," Blake notes in this interview with Romi Crawford.

A historical interview originally recorded in 2004 and re-edited in 2008.

 

The Video Data Bank is the leading resource in the United States for videotapes by and about contemporary artists. The VDB collection features innovative video work made by artists from an aesthetic, political or personal point of view. The collection includes seminal works that, seen as a whole, describe the development of video as an art form originating in the late 1960's and continuing to the present. Works in the collection employ innovative uses of form and technology, mixed with original visual style to address contemporary art and cultural themes.

Founded in 1976 at the inception of the media arts movement in the United States, the Video Data Bank is one of the nation's largest providers of alternative and art-based video. Through a successful national and international distribution service, the VDB distributes video art, documentaries made by artists, and recorded interviews with visual artists, photographers and critics.