PIPPILOTTI RIST CCDP10002

i t t o l i Pipp

RIST

SIP MY OCEAN - EVER IS ALL

OVER

welcome to

A Special Edition THE LIFEWORK AND LEGACY OF

pippilotti rist This edition will force you to submerge yourself not only in colour and eccentricity as a visual composition, it should encourage a struggle to read text. The text presented here is idiosyncratic just like Rist’s work itself. Rist wants her viewer to see video as if it’s a third eye I want you to read this as if you are looking through a kaleidoscope as Rist does visually. Your natural reading path should be distorted at times, I want to confuse you as the text bends around shapes. Pippi’s goal is to encourage her audience to question their acceptance of the ‘given’, things in life that we take for granted but are actually deeply complex. I think reading is one of these things. We have become so good at reading that it is instinctual. I hope to encourage you to rethink your instincts as Pippi does through her works.

It might be difficult to discern some reading paths, ‘which one is next?’ you may ask but this too is part of the journey. I want you to have to turn your head at points as Pippi allows us to see new angles with her camera. It’s all intentional.

Pippi lo name tti Rist ch o ju distin st as she c se her ow ct hose n he the w ive way of co r own orld a n nd th tions e way veying for b i e schoo t tter o l r wo funcPippi her frien rse. A ds t d it of rawing up called h er Pippi on th home e Longs tockin spirs h e w she a gs. A as Lo lw t didn’t ays prefer tti. Thoug re h b comp elieve that d Pippi sh letely e she co “ strain ts” as free with uld be n ings was a Pippi Lo o conngsto nd so comb ckin s yond e the two he chose t n o to co ames, Pipp names. B e mbin e arti ilotti grew up stic m edium s.

About Pippi 1.

Rist i perim s most w med ental, cr ell know ia n o whic video a ss-discip for her 2. envi h she us rt and in linary, m exes st ro ultimerg nments to crea allation t w a e mi e jectio d within s if the lieus ork v n” (M and i ewe a “ spac e an CA). He kaleidosc r is subr d opic ality p of ou plays wi process ural, cons roth th r per i d p of b hysical ceived re e dimen ers sioneing. and ality te : imm ersiv The spa chnolog the natces ical e, h haps sh st yp terna ethereall er sens e creates ates y u tive or fu explora al and are t p turis i tic u ve of an ertopia n re alality.

3.

However, the impo Though the colours Rist uses r ta Rist to a social lev nce and meaning o are imbued with fluorescent 4. heavily in mass el. She explains th f colour runs dee p a a e t d r c v tha tones and over-saturation, she olour and ertising t this kind hat the b saturation n this for of colour. o u r claims that they are “no more C a g r e work as s olour the refore bec oise distance them e used so he asks h er a ome selves fro colourful than life is” (Rist). While letariat an m d the exo udience to fall into s a reflection of c la t some would perceive her use of ic ss in Rist’ as a way the colou ” s r of the “ for her to (Rist). Colour is one gy colours to be perhaps idealistic, of Rist’s s “warm u ymbols o psea, prop [video f life and art], a [o for Rist her use of colour is simacts therwise] Video ca c o ld ply a reinterpretation of reality. m n articu edium”. late ever She questions and reinterprets yth cept perh ing exwhat it means to see and the aps touch .

Consider value of colour, “it’s like music” ing this 5. , 6.

Rist ac Rist explores the nature of video art and she says, a seductive element companie s the ‘flatn the ways in which it can be manipulated of the work, “you don’t know ess’ of vid eo with th to convey various emotions. What she where it stops or what comes e tangible dimensio likes most about video is its “painterly nality o next”. Rist’s comparison of muf sculpture quality”(Rist) through which she is able to sic to colour makes me wonder and 3D objects w indicate that there is no separation bewhat the distinction between ith installatio in her tween our bodies and nature. The camera ns. Non our senses is and even if there is e of the acts as a third eye and an extension of the senses o one. Perhaps, just like the interr their in body for Rist so that she can show how life tersection disciplinary nature of Rist’s art al intera looks from unreachable places as if her ctio our senses are also intersectionunnoticed ns go viewer is an insect on a leaf or between al and completely dependent on or unexplored blades of grass. Video shows the relaby Rist,. each other. I would argue that For me t his is wh tivity of size she explains. But this is not you can’t see the same in the at makes he r so influ video’s only capability, it is a “handbag” absence of noise and vice verential in explains Rist, you can pack everything the evosa, each sense contributes to the lution of in: sound, poetry, storytelling, fashion. electroncapacity of the following sense. ic art, th ere is no sensual limitation .

On a thematic level Rist sees the possible hidden pleasures of daily life that most ignore. She has an idiosyncratic eye and way of articulating her vision. The more specific meanings and 7. emotive intentions behind her work will be explored through her piece ‘Ever is All Over’.

EVER IS ALL Rist’s 1997 video piece ‘Ever is all Over’, one of her most famous, depicts a woman joyfully and perhaps even euphorically smashing car windows with a flower as she floats and dances past people and policemen on the footpath who seem equally as pleased by her antics. Rist wanted to create the video as if you are falling in and out of consciousness with trance like music to accompany the hyper saturated visuals. Rist explains that some of her ideas arise from a dreamlike state and others act as “survival tactics” (Rist). Her idea for ‘Ever is all Over’ came from a moment of weakness when she wanted to smash her boss’s car in haste. After deciding that he wasn’t worth her energy, Rist instead chose to exert her compulsion in the form of her video art piece. Her hope was to use the aggression to construct a hopeful piece and a personal catharsis. However, it runs deeper than this for Rist for both this specific artwork and her whole anthology. She wants her viewers to question their acceptance of “given things”.

To do this she tries to make abstract and unusual things appear as if they are “given” and warranted within her new worlds so that we may question the mundane and observe what we are used to through over consumption with greater intricacy. In ‘Ever is all Over’ Rist makes the smashing of windows appears routine and the subject makes the act seem as if it is a common ritualistic expression, one which should not be questioned. For humans, cars are a societal ‘given’, we use and see cars so frequently that we are undeterred by their brilliance. “We get used to things so quickly” says Rist and so she aims to provide a “counterforce” (Rist), flipping our perceptions. While the colours may appear synthetic there is a realism about the piece, it is still raw and tranquil despite the chaos the ensues. The tranquility partially comes from Rist’s use of a double projection with the movement of flower petals overlaying the woman smashing windows almost as if it is a double exposed image. Each projection gives meaning to other just as sound gives greater context to the image and what we see as the viewer.

OVER, 1997 The part of Rist’s ‘Ever is All Over’ that I find most compelling and ground-breaking for the video medium is her use of colour. Rist explains that “in the Western world, color is underestimated…color is [actually] borderless, it’s dangerous, it’s emotional, like music. Primary colors—red, yellow, and blue—can look stupid by themselves. I’m interested in broken and dirty colors, natural shades. Painting with light, that’s what I try to do. Paul Klee said he wished he could have a color piano, and I am so lucky—I have a color piano!”. As someone who was named after a colour, ‘Indigo’, the idea that there is no boundary to colour is something that has fascinated me since I was a child. I used to close my eyes and try to imagine a new colour, something I hadn’t seen before. I wanted to be the first to name a new colour and trademark it, a colour inventor was my dream job. The reality is that nature shows off all the colours that there are to offer and, in that sense, perhaps there is a boundary to colour. But, when I look at Pippi’s work it is as if my childhood self has seen a new colour for the first time. The way Rist combines colours like light beams and allows them to move and bend both gracefully and erratically proves the lack of boundaries to colour and their curation on screen. I also never quite understood the capacity of sound to be an extension of colour. As someone who experiences a level of synesthesia I draw correlations between colours and people or objects. However, for me it doesn’t necessarily translate to sound. When I watch Rist’s ‘Ever is All Over’ or her other video pieces, the connection becomes more clear. Red begins to have a higher pitch in my mind and blue a lower one. It is obvious that as an artist she does not overlook these connections and accentuates them through her mixed media works. Rist allows even those who don’t have synesthesia to experience for a moment what it might be like, she brings the senses together and eradicates their boundaries. For me, this is what separates Rist from other video artists and why I find her work to be so important to the development of multimedia and cross discipline electronic art forms.

(Pippi )

In a Global Context

What is it that makes Rist so important to the recent development and evolution of multimedia artforms? And, how can she be situated within the history of video art and artists? The Lumiere brothers were some of the first to turn stills into moving image motion pictures. The films of the 1890s and well into the 1900s were black and white, they lacked colour, a medium which Rist centres her art around. While early films are known as ‘silent films’, they never actually were. They were always accompanied by some form of sound whether it was a live band or a vinyl record.

Rist takes a similar approach in some ways, her sound too is prominently non-diegetic and highlights music to showcase emotion. Rist both uses elements of the past and the technology of the present to create her own distinctive multi-media work within the context of the endless video productions made since the Lumiere brothers. While Rist sometimes makes use of the latest photographic and video technology to construct her works she doesn’t neglect how fundamentally amazing the technology she uses is. In today’s society the novelty of technology has warn off in a decade of over-consumption, having access to technology for most is a ‘given’, a state of normalcy. Rist wants to remind us of the intricacies of the parts of life which we take for granted, through her work she wants to return normative things to a nuanced state of existence even if it is just momentarily.

In terms of situating Rist within the context of other video artists I am reminded of Loïe Fuller’s Serpentine Dance. Loïe skilfully explores the movement of colour, a parallel I see with Rist’s work. Perhaps, it is the impossibility of colours, both Loïe and Rist’s works don’t quite resemble reality because the colours are so poetic and artificial. Both artists exhibit the way video can change our perception of colour and movement. I also see a connection between Georges Méliès’ 1902 A Trip to the Moon because it implicitly asks the viewer what the distinction between art and entertainment or comedy are as Rist does. Video enables its creators to generate audience euphoria from artificial and fictitious visuals, adding to the foundations laid by theatre. Both Rist’s ‘Ever is all Over’ and ‘A Trip to the Moon’ are examples of cinema that is both entertainment and art asking its viewer, is there a distinction between the two? From these comparisons to previous industry pioneers it is clear that Rist both takes on board their traditions and moves forwards to create her own. Still, both her contemporary work and that of her predecessors ask the same fundamental questions of their viewers. In that way, Rist is a truly valuable visual and emotive artist both on her own and within the context of electronic art history.

References The Colorful Worlds of Pipilotti Rist The New

MCA - Pipilotti Rist: Sip My Ocean

Ever Is All Over - Youtube Clip

Pipilotti Rist Interview: Color is Dangerous

Pipilotti Rist, Pioneer of Video Art | Brilliant Ideas Ep. 55

Voyage Dans La Lune (A Trip to the Moon) (1902)