Moving-Image as Revolution: Featuring Victoria Gong
- 1 day ago
- 4 min read
One of the reasons moving-image has historically been an underrepresented form of visual art is because throughout the history of film and video, society has largely regulated these mediums as entertainment or fringe expressions, rather than high-art. Moving-image and performance as artforms are at the forefront of the avant-garde because we are collectively rethinking our approach to art with sustained motion. Since time immemorial, we have largely defined art as a static, fixed-in-time entity. Also, performance and moving-image are very young artforms. Performance art has only been in the mainstream since the 1970s and was arguably invented in Japan during the 1950s. Moving-image as video and film is only about 130 years old as an artform, compare this to many other older mediums such as painting, drawing, and sculpture which are thousands of years old and have been thoroughly experimented with. The potential in moving-image and performance is infinite because they rely on integrative and interdisciplinary practices and methods, such as costume design, texts, set design, analogue computer graphics, experimental audio, acting, dance, etc.
Introducing Victoria Gong, a moving-image director and artist whose works very much shape the direction of the avant-garde and contemporary discourse. By combining contemporary dance with tribalistic elements along with science fiction, she bridges sustained visual imagery to cross time and space. In moving-image projects such as AMBERSTICHE and UNCANNY VALLEY, Victoria develops a unique vision based on flashing theatrical stages, mechanical yet engaging actors, and non-linear narratives which leave open-ended questions such as who died at the end of UNCANNY VALLEY? The android or the human?
The moving-images of Victoria Gong are a call to action, she creates collective sequences based in sustained motion of suspense and dance which ties into the dark narratives within her high-contrast set design. These actors do not feel relatable, in fact, they appear as super-human…entities who traverse time and space as well as carry a graceful wisdom, as if they were resurrected ancestors from ancient times brought forth to perform a hybrid of ancient mystical and contemporary sensual dancing. With the costume design, we will find these props are a vital part of the story. From I’MMORTAL in UNCANNY VALLEY switching between futuristic white outfits to rockstar faux fur complete with sleek bangs to dancers in AMBERSTICHE wearing revealing garments which compliment the tribalistic markings on their faces and bodies.
With the experimental audio in Victoria’s work, she advances the purpose of moving-image beyond visuals into a hybrid artform reliant on impulse and ominous music. The shrieks, howling, and rhythmic beats create suspense and sustain the imagery to have longer impact beyond their initial impressions.
What a revolutionary moving-image director and artist such as Victoria Gong can teach us about the avant-garde would be how moving-image can be manipulated with an infinite amount of capabilities through interdisciplinary intentions. In international context, being a moving-image artist is also easier in terms of transport or costs than being a non-lens-based artist because the works can be transferred onto any monitor device with the simple transfer of files. This revolutionary aspect of art as a mobile platform creates greater accessibility for underrepresented artists and creates real-time experiences based in performance and theatrics as opposed to a fixed one-time image.
Moving-image, as well as performance, as an artform has the potential to bridge streams of consciousness through sustained motion and action. As a lens-based art, we must consider how reality can be distorted through the lens of moving-image to convey conceptual notions not possible in other mediums. Through the integration of set design, actors, texts, script, costume design, and motion graphics, a complex interactive experience becomes brought forth for us to engage on the deepest philosophical and conceptual questions. We can alter our minds with enigmas posed through the power of continuous narrative, not fixed in-time within an isolated moment, but rather through thoughtful sequences which extend the purpose of image quality and meaning.
Like fine poetry and literature, the literary aspects of moving-image creates an open dialogue beyond fixed-image practices which sustain a dialogue across expanded time. When we investigate brilliant moving-image artists such as Victoria Gong, we will discover realms which has us rethink how figurative elements and environments shape our psyche and understandings of conceptual notions. As a conceptual form of art, moving-image even has greater potential than say installation in being able to manipulate figurative elements and settings to have scale beyond the confines of fixed objects, static in time. The unlimited potential of moving-image should be considered by every serious contemporary conceptual and experimental artist.
A common misconception many artists make would be moving-image as the most expensive artform to undertake. Although the production values in moving-image can be potentially astronomical, one does not necessarily need an expansive budget in order to create a dynamic moving-image project. There are literally thousands of entry-level actors willing to work for an hour or two of filming for a couple of hundred dollars and there are wide open arthouse documentative approaches to found environments which can be incorporated into a moving-image project. For example, as a moving-image artist myself, my works usually do not cost more than a ticket to the aquarium as I use the visual stimulation of aquatic life combined with texts and ominous music to create arthouse experiences with depth. Although great production values can potentially apply an added layer of dialogue to conceptual purposes.
Artists should recognize the revolutionary aspects of moving-image by studying directors and artists such as Victoria Gong. Her sustained sense of impactful complexity based in intense theatrics, experimental audio, and provocative dance sequences highlighted by lucid acting in avant-garde set and costume design reveals a universe of rich artistic arthouse depth. Explore the range of moving-image and get lost in the sequences for all of eternity.
Written by Michael Hanna, Editor of Point Pleasant Publishing.