Pipilotti Rist and Ryan Trecartin

Watching the videos of Pipilotti Rist and Ryan Trecartin gave a better insight to what video art is and how diverse it can be. The two artist are completely different in style, however fall into similar categories. Pipilotti Rist's videos were completely bizarre and often I had no idea what the video was about. Her videos were random however the technology she used in them created amazing visuals and art. In the video, You Called Me Jacky, I love how she superimposed a figure on top of a moving landscape in the background. It also looked like the figure was on a moving sidewalk in the way that Pipilotti created the video. Something else that I liked about the video was that she used black and white for the background and used color for the woman, therefore it gave a focus to the video, while giving a contrast to the art. I'm not sure if this video was used for a music video, but it definitely looks like it could be a music video. Another video of Pipilotti that I really enjoyed was the I'm Not a Victim of This Song. Here she placed a rope-like object on top on the sky to make it look as though it was floating through the air, however you can tell the object was placed onto the background. However I liked that she would fade the object out and then bring it in again keeping your interest. The blurry aspect of the video allowed the viewer to see the imperfections of the work, which I sometimes feel add to the art and makes it even better, especially in this case. Lastly I found that her integration of common, everyday people sitting in what looks to be a restaurant setting was interesting because she used technology to contextualize something that we see everyday and see no beauty in.
In contrast, Ryan Trecartin videos all had a story-line and a character to follow. I thought that his character in the Kitchen Girl and Valentines' Day Girl along with the characters in the K-Corea INC.K, videos were absolutely hilarious. The voice effects and movement of the camera added to the story, while was not as much video art in Kitchen Girl, as in Popular Sky. In Popular Sky, Trecartin had videos on top of one another, while he used several frames of the same scene at the same time. The way he changed his voices by speeding them up and slowing them down adding to the film when it was also sped up and slowed down. I also found that having several things going on at the same time really showed his video art ability. In this particular video he used many techniques of video art. One thing that connected his videos was the voices and his use of slowing the videos and speeding them up. I think that as an artist this may be a trademark of his, or a trait that you would see used in all of his video artworks.
Looking at both these video artists, they are completely different, however both use technology and even similar techniques to express their visions. Pipilotti and Trecartin used speed in their videos and voices in their video art, along with superimposing images on top of one another to create one visual. I find their videos inspiring in the way that they use the technology to contextualize what we see everyday or to combine everyday, random objects.