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OBSERVER / OBSERVED and Other Works of Video Semiology

Takahiko iimura

1998 00:21:31 Canada, JapanRomanianB&WMono4:3BetacamSP video
Tags:
Image Processing, Visual Art, Television

Description

This video trilogy of Camera, Monitor, Frame, Observer / Observed, and Observer / Observed / Observer creates a semiology of video as a work on video rather than a written text.  Its main purpose is to study the structural relationships between video and language, in this case using the English language.  I designed a system depicting the relationship between the observer and the person being observed using words such as "I" and "YOU" through a video feedback system as the basis.  This trilogy is a remake of my 1975-76 piece.  It is shorter in length, but its original concept has note been changed. 

--Takahiko iimura

"The development of the closed circuit syntax is closed when iimura stands behind one of the cameras, thus being able to declare (in terms of the image) 'I am a camera.' Camera, Monitor, Frame, is one of a series of work that derived from the literal usage of language in terms of construction."

-- Daryl Chin, The Video Art of Takahiko Iimura, Anthology Film Archives, New York, 1999, New York.

About Takahiko iimura

A pioneering figure in the New York and Japanese film and video undergounds, Taka iimura has had a tremendous impact upon the development of experimental cinema in both the U.S. and Japan. iimura's work in video has concentrated on deconstructing the language of video, especially video's power to obscure the author of the image, through the audience's immediate acceptance of what is shown on screen as true. iimura establishes a relation between the self-reflexive nature of language and the simultaneous feedback characteristic of video, exploiting this relation to investigate the shifting position of video's subject (who is behind the camera) and object (who is in front of the camera). Through his videos, which read like elaborate semiotic riddles, iimura has educated audiences to the structure of video in a way that has profoundly changed the way the medium is viewed.

He is a widely established international artist, having had numerous solo exhibitions in major museums such as the Musem of Modern Art, the Whitney Museum, Anthology Film Archives, Centre Georges Pompidou, the National Gallery Jeu de Paume, Palais des Beaux-Arts, Reina Sofia National Museum, and the Tokyo Metropolitan Museum of Photography, in addition to artist residencies at the German Academy of Arts and Bellagio Rockefeller Foundation Study Center.

Recently he has been involved in using computers, publishing more than 20 DVDs/CD-ROMs, and writing several books on film, video, and multimedia, including a book published in English, "The Collected Writings of Takahiko iimura".

"I am concerned with the whole system of video, not just what you see on the screen, but including the camera, monitor, the whole system."
—Takahiko iimura