International video artist Chris Oakley has launched a website aiming to redefine the way video art is traded and consumed. The website offers the facility to preview Chris Oakley’s videos online, with the option to download high-resolution digital video files of the artist’s videos. Out of frustration with existing sales and distribution models, Chris Oakley built the website in part as a way of taking control of the distribution of his work and as a response to internet piracy of his videos. Previously, commercial galleries selling exclusive high-priced artist’s editions, typically 5-10 DVDs, to private collectors, drove video art sales. Chris Oakley aims to offer a more democratic model for video art sales based global access to specialist. Emerging models for the distribution of video offer a new means for artists to challenge the commoditization of video and new media forms by the contemporary art market.

An artist based in the UK and working with video and digital imaging, Chris Oakley’s concerns are focused on mediated experience in its many forms, including mainstream media, amateur photography and mass communications.
In the past 3 years, Oakley’s works have received widespread media attention within Europe and beyond. His works have been shown alongside those of established masters such as Tony Oursler, Jozef Robakowski, and Pipilotti Rist, and at major media arts festivals, in gallery exhibitions and on television. He is currently working on a feature length artist’s video to be completed in summer 2007.

Home page of Chris Oakley
video artist, digital artist, filmmaker
www.chrisoakley.com
submission date: November 13, 2006