Video art and Ghosts of Mars: Difference between pages

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{{Infobox_Film |

{{cleanup-date|September 2005}}

name = John Carpenter's Ghosts of Mars |

image =Ghostsofmars01.jpg |

imdb_id =0228333 |

writer =[[John Carpenter]]<br>Larry Sulkis |

starring =[[Ice Cube]]<br>[[Natasha Henstridge]]<br>[[Jason Statham]]<br>[[Pam Grier]]<br>[[Clea DuVall]]<br>[[Joanna Cassidy]]|

director =[[John Carpenter]] |

producer =Sandy King |

distributor =[[Storm King]] [[Screen Gems]] |

released =[[August 24]], [[2001]] ([[Theater]])<br>[[December 4]] [[2001]] ([[DVD]]) |

runtime =98 min. |

language =English |

music =[[John Carpenter]] |

awards = |

amg_id = 1:250566 |

budget =$28,000,000 |

}}

'''''Ghosts of Mars''''' (also known as '''''John Carpenter's Ghosts of Mars''''') is a [[2001]] movie directed by [[John Carpenter]], which in its basic themes is similar to his earlier [[Assault_on_Precinct_13_(1976_film) | Assault on Precinct 13]].

'''Video art''' is a type of [[art]] which relies on [[moving pictures]] and is comprised of [[video]] and/or [[sound reproduction|audio]] data. ((It should not however be confused with [[television]] or [[experimental film|experimental cinema]]). Video art saw its heyday during the [[1960s]] and [[1970s]], but has exerted an influence to the present.

==Plot==

Different artists use different media, but [[video tape]] was probably most common in the form's early years, though [[Hard Disk]], [[CD-ROM]], [[DVD]], and [[solid state]] have been used;any electronic storage format. However, despite obvious parallels and relationships, video is not [[film]].

The movie is set in the mid 22nd century. The planet [[Mars]] has been [[terraformed]], allowing Humans to walk on the surface without having to wear pressure suits. The story concerns a police officer, Melanie Ballard ([[Natasha Henstridge]]) who is leading a small team to pick up and transport a prisoner named Desolation Williams ([[Ice Cube]]). Arriving at the remote mining town where Williams is being held, Ballard finds virtually all of the people missing. On investigating she discovers that the miners found an underground doorway which had been created by an ancient [[Martian]] civilization. When the door was opened it released "ghosts", disembodied spirits who possessed the miners.

One of the key differences between video art and theatrical cinema is that video art does not necessarily rely on many of the conventions that define theatrical cinema. Video art may not employ the use of [[actor]]s, may contain no [[dialogue]], may have no discernible [[narrative]] or [[plot]], or adhere to any of the other conventions that generally define [[motion picture]]s as entertainment. This distinction is important, because it delineates video art not only from cinema but also from the subcategories where those definitions may become muddy (as in the case of [[avant garde]] cinema or [[short films]]). Perhaps the simplest, most straightforward defining distinction in this respect would then be to say that (perhaps) cinema's ultimate goal is to entertain, whereas video art's intentions are more varied, be they to simply explore the boundaries of the medium itself (e.g., [[Peter Campus]], ''Double Vision'') or to rigorously attack the viewer's expectations of video as shaped by conventional cinema (e.g., [[Joan Jonas]], ''Organic Honey's Vertical Roll'').

Violence ensues, as the now possessed miners commit acts of [[death]] and [[destruction]], as well as [[self-mutilation]]. <!--The self mutilation however may be merely the alien spirits attempting to alter their human bodies to look more like those of the aliens themselves (which are only partially seen very briefly).-->

Video art is said to have begun when [[Nam June Paik]] used his new [[Sony]] [[Portapak]] to shoot footage of [[Pope Paul VI]]'s procession through [[New York City]] in the autumn of 1965. That same day, across town in a [[Greenwich Village]] cafe, Paik played the tapes and (so legend goes) video art was born. This fact is sometimes disputed, however, due to the fact that the first [[Sony]] [[Portapak]], the [[Videorover]] did not become available until 1967.

Ballard must fight off the attacking miners, escape the town, and if possible destroy the ghosts. Unfortunately all these tasks are complicated by the fact that killing a possessed human merely releases the Martian spirit, which immediately possesses another human. Eventually they decide to blow up a [[nuclear]] reactor, which kills the human hosts. All of Ballard's team are killed by the miners, leaving only her and Desolation. Not wanting the authorities to blame the massacre on him, he handcuffs Ballard to her bed and escapes the train, leaving her to return home. While she reccuperates at a hospital, the miners attack the city. Desolation returns with a pair of [[nickle]] plated [[uzi]]s and they team up to fight off the alien zombies, setting the film up for an unlikly sequel.

Prior to the introduction of the Sony Portapak, "moving image" technology was only available to the consumer (or the artist for that matter) by way of eight or sixteen millimeter film, but did not provide the instant playback that video tape technologies offered. Consequently, many artists found video more appealing than film, even more so when the greater accessibility was coupled technologies which could edit or modify the video image.

The two examples mentioned above both made use of "low tech tricks" to produce seminal video art works. Peter Campus' ''Double Vision'' combined the video signals from two Sony Portapaks through an electronic mixer, resulting in a distorted and radically dissonant image. Jonas' ''Organic Honey's Vertical Roll'' involved recording previously recorded material as it was played back on a television -- with the vertical hold setting intentionally in error.

Many notable people who used video art emerged more or less simultaneously in Europe with work by [[Wojciech Bruszewski]] (Poland), [[Wolf Kahlen]] (Germany), [[Peter Weibel]] (Austria), [[David Hall]] (UK) and others. For key early British work see [http://ukvideoart.tripod.com Video Art: The Early Years].

==Production Notes==

Although it continues to be produced, it is most frequently combined with other media and is subsumed by the greater whole of an [[installation art|installation]] or [[performance art|performance]]. Contemporary contributions are being produced at the crossroads of other disciplines such as [[installation art|installation]], [[architecture]], [[design]], [[sculpture]] or other documentative aspects of artistic practice.

*Although Mars has a day/night cycle almost identical in length to Earth's, most of the movie is set at night. The only moment in which we see Mars during the daytime is in a flashback through the character of the scientist, when she talks about how she found and opened a "Pandora's Box" that let the alien spirits out.

==List of video art organizations==

*Much of the movie was filmed in a [[gypsum]] mine in New Mexico. The pure white gypsum had to be dyed with thousands of gallons of biodegradable red food dye to recreate the appearance of the Martian landscape.

List of video art institutions and distributors:

* [http://www.artaviva.com ARTaVIVA] - San Francisco, California

* [[ArtRod]][http://www.artrod.org] - Creators of the [[Tollbooth Gallery]], world's smallest gallery dedicated to wheat-paste and video fine arts

* [http://www.av-arkki.fi AV-arkki, Distribution Center for Finnish Media Art], Helsinki, Finland

* [http://www.egoplastiek.nl Egoplastiek.nl], Utrecht, The Netherlands

* [http://www.eai.org Electronic Arts Intermix], New York

* [http://www.experimentaltvcenter.org The Experimental Television Center], New York

* [http://www.famefame.com FAMEFAME], Toronto, Canada

* [http://www.interversion.org Interversion] - Interactive and video art, Geneva, Switzerland

* [http://www.freewaves.org LA Freewaves] - experimental media art festival with video art, shorts and animation; exhibitions are in Los Angeles and online

* [http://www.littlebirthlittledeath.org little birth little death.org]-strange, miraculous, and mundane video art, Saint Paul, MN

* [[LUX]], London, England

* [[Netherlands Media Art Institute]], Amsterdam, The Netherlands

* [http://www.videoart.ch Office for VideoArt / Büro für Videokunst], Switzerland

* [[Park 4DTV]], Amsterdam, The Netherlands

* [http://www.perpetualartmachine.com Perpetual Art Machine], New York

* [http://www.post-videoart.com Post Video Art], New York

* [http://www.seahorseliberationarmy.com Seahorse Liberation Army], San Francisco

* [http://www.snackonart.org SnackOnÄrt] - TV each episode is curated by a video artist, New York

* [http://www.videoart.net VideoArt.net] New York

* [http://www.videoparty.info Video Party] Montreal

* [http://www.vdb.org Video Data Bank], Chicago

* [http://www.videographe.qc.ca Le Videographe] Montreal, Quebec

* Zahra & Remick, London, England

* klip//collective[http://www.klip.tv] Architectural Video Installation artists, Philadelphia

* [http://www.videoformes.com VIDEOFORMES] VIDEOFORMES New media and Video Art Festival, Clermont-Ferrand, France

* [http://www.videotage.org.hk Videotage] Videotage, Hong Kong, China

* [http://www.echotrope.org Echotrope] Omaha,USA

* [http://www.lalavisuals.com lalavisuals.com] San Francisco

==ReferencesTrivia==

*Originally Courtney Cox was set to play Ballard but after her foot was run over accidently by her husband she was replaced by Natasha Henstridge.

*On a similar note, Jason Statham was originally set to play Desolation Williams. This film also contains Statham's first on screen kiss.

==External links==

* [http://cinovid.org/ Cinovid] - database for experimental film and video art

* ''New Media in Late 20th-Century Art'' by [[Michael Rush]] (Thames & Hudson, [[1999]]).

*{{imdb title|id=0228333|title=Ghosts of Mars}}

[e-mail]

*[http://www.theofficialjohncarpenter.com/pages/themovies/gm/gm.html Ghosts of Mars at theofficialjohncarpenter.com]

{{John Carpenter Films}}

==See also==

* '''[[List of video artists]]'''

* [[Video synthesizer]]

* [[experimental film]]

* [[new media art]]

* [[video jockey]]

* [http://www.elnorteproductions.com Political Video Art]

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