Author Archives: Christopher Agostino

YouTube has age-restricted my video and I don’t know why

This is the message you get when YouTube restricts a video:

“The YouTube Community has flagged one or more of your videos as inappropriate. Once a video is flagged, it is reviewed by the YouTube Team against our Community Guidelines. Upon review, we have determined that the following video(s) contain content that may not be suitable for all viewers:  2008 Transformations by Christopher Agostino

As a result, we have age-restricted this content.  For more information on YouTube’s Community Guidelines and how they are enforced, please visit the help center http://www.google.com/support/youtube/bin/answer.py?answer=92486.  “

You can check out the video, or my post about it:

45,000 Views — 2008 Transformations    http://wp.me/p1sRkg-tD

I am very glad that they have only age-restricted it, and not removed it completely. Below is the relevant section of their guidelines, I think, which explains that things deemed inappropriate by Community Guidelines may still be allowed for artistic content with the age-restriction warning.  I was talking just yesterday about online censorship issues (before getting this message) with my very slashdot savvy son, who has a much wider understanding than I do about just how many problem areas there about what some people post, and that therefor there do need to be some lines draw as to what is or isn’t appropriate, especially on a completely open platform like YouTube.

I do remain concerned, as an artist, that judgement on my video here is only in the hands of a “YouTube Team” and they don’t offer me a chance to ask why? Where is their line? What image is ok, what is not? Can I take an image or two out and get the age-restriction removed?

I am also concerned that the process is initiated by some anonymous  viewer deeming my work inappropriate and flagging it by clicking a button. I think that is too easy, clicking a button. I invite whoever flagged it to send me a message explaining what images are inappropriate and why—I’d like to be able to add your side of this to the discussion. Or you can add your viewpoint as  a comment here if you prefer. (I won’t get into a  fight with you, you can say your piece and I’ll leave it at that)

From YouTube’s site:

“When videos violate our Community Guidelines, we remove them. Some videos don’t violate our policies, but may not be appropriate for all audiences. We age-restrict these.  When a video is age-restricted, a warning screen displays before the video plays. Only users 18 years of age or older can then proceed to view the material. In order to reduce the chances of users accidentally stumbling across these videos, they are not shown in certain sections of YouTube (e.g. honors pages like ‘Most Viewed’).

In deciding whether to age restrict content we consider issues such as violence, disturbing imagery, nudity, sexually suggestive content, and portrayal of dangerous or illegal activities.

Notable Exceptions

There are exceptions for some educational, artistic, documentary and scientificcontent (e.g. health education, documenting human rights issues, etc.), but only if this is the sole purpose of the video and it is not gratuitously graphic. For example, a documentary on breast cancer would be appropriate, but posting clips out of context from a documentary might not be. Videos that qualify as educational, artistic, documentary or scientific that would otherwise have been removed are typically age-restricted instead.”

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To see some more possibly inappropriate fine art bodypainting:   https://thestorybehindthefaces.com/body-painting/

A few related posts about censorship of bodypainting images:

84-  Breast Cancer Awareness Body Painting Project  and  SURVIVORS Magazine    http://wp.me/p1sRkg-r0 

85-  Body Painting on TV in a Superbowl Ad, a Good Thing, Right?  http://wp.me/p1sRkg-rx   

86-  What really bothers me about this…  http://wp.me/p1sRkg-rH  

87-  Nipples    http://wp.me/s1sRkg-nipples 

88-  Is this ok, Twitter?    http://wp.me/p1sRkg-sg  

The Kinetic Art of Face Painting — Pt.1: Sending Art off into the World

by Christopher Agostino

 This is the distinctive difference of painting faces as an art, isn’t it, that the art we create moves and is alive—and, once painted, the art we create has a life of its own. Unlike a Calder mobile or other kinetic sculptures, the work of art we create is on an independent, conscious life form who then puts the art into motion following their own determinations. Once painted, we have no control over the art we have created and it just goes off into the world to have its own adventure. Face painting is a kinetic art, an art that moves, with a will of its own.

The thought that my art goes on to its own adventures is a significant part of what keeps face painting exciting for me. As the commercial opportunities of artistic body painting begin to expand in the U.S. I have continued to focus primarily on painting faces because of the greater numbers of people it gives me a chance to transform. A painted body has quite an impact, but not as great, I think, as the dozens or hundreds of faces we can paint at a an event—and, of course, we are giving so many more people the experience being art, kinetic art, as they move through the event. I particularly appreciate painting like this at large public events, and have constructed my Transformations Facepainting company with this type of event in mind, because it affords the greatest opportunity to send a multitude of faces off into the world, leading to the surprising discoveries by passersby of painted people in everyday settings  (like the woman in the previous post telling me of looking for our faces throughout the village of Southampton), and remarkable juxtapositions like in my favorite “face in the Crowd” photo of the man in a face from Papua New Guinea eating potato chips on the roof of the Port Authority Bus Terminal with New York City in the background

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Alice and John at his reception

This past Sunday I was able to send one piece of my day’s kinetic art on a mission. I was painting at the Darwin Dayfestivities of the Long Island Ethical Humanist Society. As a woman sat down to be painted she asked for something appropriate to going to an art gallery, where she was heading to next, and after a few questions we realized  she was going to the opening reception of an exhibit by my friend and mentor, John Fink.

In Professor Fink's class I worked with the same themes that inspire my face and body designs

I had started the day disappointed that my gig prevented me from attending his reception and here came a serendipitous opportunity to be there at least in spirit. Alice was enthusiastic about being a human greeting card and I did a design based on cave paintings, like the work I had been doing in the last ceramics class I took with Professor Fink. Check at John Fink’s very playful sculptures, ceramics and constructions: www.johnfinkart.com

To learn more about our programs and performances:  http://www.agostinoarts.com

When I first started using cultural sources for face designs I recognized that they stand out in modern settings in a way that draws the attention of spectators and enhances the effectiveness of the transformation

Painting adults also draws more attention to the art, because it is more surprising to see a painted adult than to see a painted child

Another way in which a painted face is a kinetic art, as the movement of the face brings the design itself to life...more on this in a future post

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45,000 Views — 2008 Transformations

by Christopher Agostino

I was checking out a colleague’s video on You Tube when I saw one of mine come up in the column of suggested videos, and I was very surprised to see it had 45,811 views, way more than any of the others I’ve posted. [Shortly after this post, it was age restricted on YouTube, so here it is on Vimeo]

http://https://vimeo.com/48448368

2008 was an adventurous year. The impulse to start collecting faces in slideshow videos came in response to a comment by an artist I met while painting at a Parrish Art Museum event. She came in to the gallery where we were painting and told me she had seen our faces all through the village of Southampton on her way to the museum (there’s a few photos in this video from a Parrish Art Museum event.) What she wanted to tell me was that we were creating a “kinetic art form”—particularly, that the style of our facepainting, with very colorful faces and every one different, made her look for them as she saw the painted people moving through the village, wanting to see each face. “kinetic art is art that contains moving parts or depends on motion for its effect. The moving parts are generally powered by wind, a motor or the observer.” (from Wikipedia)

Facepainting at an event is a collective art. It is the sum total of the faces we paint that is the art form, rather than each individual face. Her description of this as a kinetic art had me thinking about this collection of faces in motion, and how to try to document that. That led to creating  “Every Face” videos, in which I photograph every face I paint at an event and put them in to a slideshow in the order painted, and that led to taking a selection to put a year together in 2008.

The music is “I am An Animal” by Pete Townshend. I felt ok using it because he gave it away as a free download on his web site, on an album of odds and ends and some unreleased “Scoop” tracks, which are the demo versions he recorded of his songs as he wrote them before bringing them into the studio to be done by The Who.

See more of our  Videos.

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