Tony Conrad (b. 1940, USA – d. 2016, USA)
Yellow Movies, 1973

In a way, Conrad’s Yellow Movies could be compared to my Yellow Piece – a video of a yellow wall that keeps making subtle nuance shifts based on how sunlight is filtered by clouds (at some point also revealing some shadows). Certainly, mine is barely ten minutes (which many in the audience found to be a bit “too long”), while his can “play” for years, being simply painted and left to yellow with time. Mine is encapsulated in a set of instructions of how to watch it (that many chose to disregard), while Conrad leaves no instructions, although he suggests that any truly motivated audience member could star in the movie by standing in the way of the light for a year or two.

Yet, the main point is in rethinking the medium and challenging its current conventions. Conrad went on a fishing expedition between the painting and film, while I was mixing together instructions, participatory situation, video and performance with aim to trigger discussion about how responsibility for aesthetic encounter can be shared between the artist and the audience.