MEDIUM
The way, that we kind of see DIS.art is sort of like a – it’s like a research lab, it’s like a testing like center or laboratory or something like that, where we kind of like play with ideas and things, like that. And we hope, that someday, there is like a kind of like a parallel like you know, street, where we can actually make things bigger and like possibly actually be on Netflix, you know. But we’ll always be looking towards the conversations that happening on DIS.art to kind of feel that bigger project, that like major work as well. And I think, we’re obsessed with TV, you know. I don’t know, I think, we really like it as a format and as a medium and certainly, like many other artists before us, have played with that for communication as well.
The different formats are kind of just like – it’s like case by case. Sometimes it’s directed more by the artist and sometimes it’s directed by us in terms of what we’re going to do. If you look at something like, you know, Will Benedict. Like we didn’t ask him for a cooking show, that’s, what he wanted to do. And we were like: „Great, let’s do a cooking show.“ So, that’s obviously something, that’s like really popular in general, like cooking shows. But maybe doesn’t feel like internet cultury. With something like Hannah Black, like What’s in the Box? with Hannah Black, it’s like – the format is, the introduction – I mean, it’s two things: it’s like late-night TV, but it’s also like unboxing videos. But instead of unboxing a product like a new Apple computer or a toy or whatever, a gadget, she’s unboxing like theory and ideas and things like that. And she is talking about the egg or whatever.
And then there is for instance like Ilana Harris Babou, who – again this is directed by her, you know, we don’t have to – often we don’t have to tell people, what to do, to get exactly, what we want. They kind of already come to DIS, knowing, what we’re, like what we are like or into, but she has been doing videos for a long time with her mother. And they were always these kinds of like, very like dry, satirical, like commentary on like branded content, particularly like restauration hardware, which is like a huge furniture and like artefact kind of company in the states, which is like expansive and you can get things, that look like they came from another culture whatever. So, it’s about appropriation and things like that. So, she appropriates how their YouTube channel like functions to advertise. Except for instead of advertising furniture she is talking about like reparations for African Americans. So, it’s always just sort of like this kind of like inversions that are happening in all these places.
So, the exhibitions for us are really like a physical representation of our online platform like in a kind of – that’s like almost in a straightforward way. Like, we find different ways of doing them and kind of they are sight specific as well, but there are these kinds of like, especially today, you know, there are these kind of like experiential like immersive spaces for learning in a way. We like that the videos – they seem to – I mean, we’re very – we’re pretty considerate of the time a person has. You know, they are giving us their time to be there and to watch a video and a lot like artist videos can, you know, drag on and like they can be kind of like big – you know, they take another approach perhaps more politic, perhaps more, you know, just like drawn out. And what we try to do is, we try to kind of like edit a presentation of a lot of videos together. So, nothing’s more than probably like five to seven minutes and they kind of like one leads into another. Often times we’ll even design a kind of like avatar, that will like, you know, kind of transition between the videos. So, they kind of have a like, you know, there is a thread, and then it leaps back around. And people can kind of just hopefully recreate an environment, that’s comfortable and they can sit, and they can watch, longer than they would, if they were just on their computer. And I think it’s true that people do watch longer, and they watch more, when they are in that kind of setting in a way.
