Maeve Jackson

The artist talk by Maeve Jackson was interesting in that there was no clear definition or meaning of her work. This was interesting because most of her work where literal representations of the subject/object in the image. Examples include videos of some people doing normal everyday things, pictures of people raking the grass, and a video of her recording her window while on a train. Many of these things are just what they are at first glance. What really caught me off-guard was that this is what she wanted us to do. Instead of creating a "beautiful painting which represent the emotions pain we all feel," the work she records/creates is a representation of everything in life. Everything that is depicted are things we all seen in life. The installation of the TV on the wheel barrel according to Maeve Jackson was created after seeing the same image all her life. She made what was present in the past into a work of art. Now when I saw it, I did not recognize something like that in my life, but a part of me has a feeling that I may have come across it at some point. Looking at it now, all of her works where taken by video or camera, which are tools to preserve time and space into a medium. She made her past into a work of art that people can somewhat relate too. This connect directly to a quote by Marshall McLuhan when he said "The past went that-a-way. When faced with a totally new situation, we tend always to attach ourselves to the objects, to the flavor of the most recent past" (74). Maeve Jackson did this perfectly creating a work of art, that is familiar to all and has different meanings based on every persons past experience. This idea that everything when given a reason by a human can become art relates to our current discussion in class with experimental video art done by many artists as work of art. Sometimes they may seem like they have no reason, some seem crazy, and some makes a lot of sense. But in the end, all can be a work of art based on the views of the artist and the community.