Help me find the artist/title of a mid-90's video art piece.

November 3, 2008 1:06 PM

What's the artist/title of the video art piece in where the artist takes old public domain movie and slowly scrubs through the footage? I remember seeing a piece about 6 years ago where it's a family scene, and the father is spanking the daughter, and the video artist scrubs the footage back/forth repetitively. I know it's a long shot, and I've seen other artists do the same thing with similar footage (info on these artists is helpful as well.)
posted by itchi23 to Media & Arts (4 answers total)

Nam June Paik has done some pieces similar to what you describe. Not sure if he' the one, but it's worth a shot.
posted by OccamsRazor at 1:18 PM on November 3, 2008

Best answer: Are you thinking of Martin Arnold? His work is done with an optical printer and film, but the effect is similar to "scrubbing" video back and forth. There's a list with titles of his work here.
posted by drumcorpse at 2:41 PM on November 3, 2008

Takeshi Murata has done something like this.
posted by Mountain Goatse at 3:04 PM on November 3, 2008

Best answer: I was absolutely sure it was Martin Arnold, but I am completely unable to figure out which film. I swear I've seen it. There's quite a bit of his work on YouTube, so you can check. I checked "Piece Touchee" and I'm sure it's not "Alone, Life Wastes Andy Hardy." I was thinking it was "Passage a l'Acte", (a scene from "To Kill a Mockingbird" with the family around the table) but the description I found doesn't mention spanking and the only complete version I could find was a virtually unwatchable one on Google Video.

French grammar nerds, please forgive the lack of accents in the titles. Just imagine them in the right places, I'm lazy today.
posted by ruby.aftermath at 6:33 PM on November 3, 2008