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As opposed to film and theatrical cinema,
video art is a subset of artistic works which relies on "moving pictures" and is comprised of video and/or audio data. The
precise medium of storing this data is variable and at the discretion of the artist;
the medium of storage is usually magnetic video tape although the data may also be stored as a computer file (or files) on a hard disk or CD-ROM, or on film. (NOTE: There is some debate about the use of film. Film is expensive and
requires a certain technical expertise, both of which were reasons for the harsh criticism many early video artists aimed at that
medium.)
One of the key differences between video art and theatrical cinema is that video art does not rely on many of the conventions
that define theatrical cinema. Video art does not necessarily use actors, may not contain dialogue, may have no discernible
narrative or plot, or adhere to any of the other comfortable conventions that construct cinema as entertainment. This distinction
is important because it delineates video art not only from cinema but also from the sub-categories where those definitions may
become muddy (as in the case of avant garde or short films). Perhaps the
simplest, most straightforward defining distinction in this respect would then be to say that cinema's ultimate goal is to
entertain (i.e., to get someone to watch the film) whereas video art's intentions are more varied -- be they to simply explore
the boundaries of the medium itself (e.g., Peter Campus, "Double Vision") or to rigorously attack the viewer's expectations of video as shaped by
conventional cinema (e.g., Joan
Jonas, "Organic Honey's Vertical Roll").
Video art is said to have begun when Nam June Paik used his new
Sony Portapak to shoot footage
of Pope Paul VI's procession through New York City. That same day, across town in a Greenwich Village cafe, Paik played the tapes and (so legend goes) video art was born. Prior to the
introduction of the Sony Portapak, motion picture technology was only available to the consumer (or the artist for that matter)
by way of 8mm film -- which was not only more expensive but did not provide the
instant playback that video tape technologies offered. Consequently, many artists found video more appealing than film -- even
more so when the greater accessibility was coupled with the technologies with which it could be combined. The two examples
mentioned above both made use of "low
tech tricks" to produce seminal video art works. Peter Campus' "Double Vision" combined the video signals from two Sony Portapaks through an electronic
mixer, resulting in a distorted and radically dissonant image. Jonas'
"Organic Honey's Vertical Roll" involved recording previously recorded material as it was played back on a television -- with the
vertical hold setting intentionally in error. Video art saw its heyday during the 1960s
and 1970s and it must not be forgotten that important video art simultaneously emerged in
EUROPE with work by Wojciech Bruszewski (Poland), Wolf Kahlen (Germany), Peter Weibel (Austria), David Hall (UK) and others - for key early British work see the website http://ukvideoart.tripod.com . Although it continues to be produced, it
is most frequently combined with other media and is subsumed by the greater whole of an installation (see installation art) or performance (see performance art).
Video artists
Notable artists that have contributed to video art include:
- Blake Kensington
- Vito Acconci
- Wojciech
Bruszewski
- Peter Campus
- Tony Conrad
- Juan Downey
- David Hall
- Gary Hill
- Wolf Kahlen
- Joan Jonas
- Paul McCarthy
- Bruce Nauman
- Graham Nicholls
- Erik-Christopher Seidenglanz
- Adam
Shaening-Pokrasso
- Justin Costanzo
- Nam June Paik
- Steina and Woody Vasulka
- Bill Viola
- Andy Warhol
- Peter Weibel
Video art organizations
Video art institutions and distributors:
- LUX, London, England
- Post Video Art , New York
- Electronic Arts Intermix, New York
- Netherlands Media Art Institute, Amsterdam, The Netherlands
- Park 4DTV, Amsterdam, The Netherlands
- Video Data Bank,
Chicago
- [1]
, San Francisco
- SnackOnÄrt TV each episode is curated by a video artist, New York
References
- Cinovid , database for experimental film and video art
- New Media in Late 20th-Century Art by Michael Rush (Thames & Hudson, 1999).
See also:
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