The Case for Video Art

video art what is it even moving pictures that someone somewhere decided

to call Art distinct from all the other moving pictures that are apparently not art the explosion of technology that has

reshaped our lives so dramatically in the past 50 odd years has also had a

profound impact on the lives of artists since the 1960s artists have picked up

video cameras for numerous reasons and involved moving images in their work in

countless ways but what of it why does it need

special designation and what sets apart these moving pictures from all the

others this is the case for video art the first mechanisms for recording moving pictures were not terribly

portable and even when they became more so they weren't easy to buy or use early

Cinema was experimental because well there was no other way to do it no one

had done this before they were making up what it was that should be done with

this technology and figuring out how we'd watch it whether it should be

served to the public one by one or in a communal setting Cinema caught fire and

took hold and as it evolved artists made films too Italian futurists made films

and dadaists made films as abstraction was explored in painting so it was in

Moving Pictures Marcel Duchamp experimented with the medium as did

abstract painter fernal Le whose non-narrative ballet mechanique made expert use of found footage Cinema was used to great effect by the surrealist

as well bringing to startling life their trippy Visions art and film have always

been intertwined without clear boundaries dividing them but it wasn't

until the Sony portapack was introduced in the mid 1960s that video art was

truly born battery powered and self-contained the camera and recorder

system could be carried and operated by a single person requiring neither Studio

nor crew artists loved it especially early adopters namjun p and Shu Kubota

although P was no stranger to the moving image his 1964 work Zen for film is

composed of an upright piano a double bass and a home movie screen onto which

is projected 30 minutes of clear unprocessed 16 mm film it was a about as

minimal as film could be nothing appearing on the screen except for the

dust and scratches inevitable in the projection process no images to get lost

in just the mechanism itself to consider and behold P was captivated by the

technologies that proliferated in Modern Life in the 60s and7 70s and he was

unafraid to use them as raw material reimagining and re-engineering them into

Hybrid Works bridging video sculpture experimental music and performance he

collaborated with Charlotte Mormon on his TV cello which Mormon performed by

running her bow across a stack of TVs that played pre-recorded images of her

doing the same television entered the lives and consciousness of many in the

Years following World War II and artists were eager to think through its

implications Joan Jonas's 1972 vertical role is titled after the technological

glitch common to TV at the time she structured a performance in front of the

camera that accounted for the video's rolling which fragments her body into disjointed frames Jonas and others used the medium

to consider and critique how women were represented in film and on TV taking

control of the means of production and distribution with the Advent of the

Porta Pac making moving pictures became cheap and easy women and people of color

and artists living around the world could pick up a camera and make a moving

picture and you didn't need the blessing of the narrow art World To Do It video

art appeared at a time of a great intermingling of media when artists

unabashedly combin the traditional Arts of painting sculpture and drawing with

theater dance music and film experimentation came from all directions

filmmaker Stan vanderbeek called it expanded Cinema when films exited movie

theaters entered unusual spaces and challenged the role of the passive

spectator carolly schneeman 1967 work snows involved performers film slides

strobe lights and a revolving light sculpture the movement of audience

members in certain seats would trip an electronic system that activated

elements of the installation art wasn't just sitting there anymore and you

weren't supposed to either video has allowed artists to document performances

that are fleeting and seen by few giving it form allowing it to live on and be

represented in museums galleries libraries and archives some of these

performances were public and others private performed by the artist only for

the audience of the camera Bruce nman made a number of films in the late 60s

in his studio just him and the camera recording his actions as he performed

self-directed tasks like bouncing in the corner or walking in an exaggerated

manner around the perimeter of a square his rationale was if I was an artist and

I was in the studio then whatever I was doing in the studio must be art here the

artist body was the raw material and the process of making the work

itself from the beginning video art has excelled at an anzing itself and the

technologies that create it Anthony McCall's 1973 line describing a cone is

just that an animated film of a white dot on a black background that traces a

circle and becomes a thin arcing white line it's projected onto a wall in a

room with mist from a smoke machine and the beam of light forms a

three-dimensional Hollow cone unlike traditional Cinema consumed by a reclining spectator these moving pictures are sculptural filling the

whole room and begging the viewer to walk around and even through the

projection but video art doesn't just examine its own existence and it lives

far outside galleries since its Inception it's been able to exist in

public spaces of many kinds able to integrate into life in ways a single

fragile oil painting simply cannot for Dar burn bomb's work technology

transformation Wonder Woman she isolated and repeated the moment in the TV show

when Linda Carter as Diana Prince transforms into a superhero the piece

was first shown not in an art context but broadcast on cable TV for the first

time new technologies made possible the remix culture that in time would become

second nature artists pulled from the ocean of existing media and freely

adapted it for their own purposes this was not TV as a device for Conformity

and control but as a means of expression and opposition video can follow artists

out in the world documenting Gilla performances and recording actions of

all kinds it can share voices and images and stories of those far from the

centers of the art World it has allowed artists to share personal accounts like

howardena pel's 1980 recounting of the instances of racism she'd encountered in

life like no other medium video has been an enormously powerful and elastic tool

for addressing and exploring identity and reconsidering histories as technology has progressed Way Beyond the Porta Pac artists have pushed available

Technologies to do remarkable things and make possible images and experiences

that far far outstrip blurry little images on monitors although those can be

pretty cool too the internet has allowed video art to not only be shared far and

wide but to also exist within and through online platforms the category

has expanded to include experiences in Virtual and augmented reality and the

line between video art and not video art is blurrier than ever celebrities are

important cies are important but it's always been blurry that haziness is a

reminder that art doesn't belong on to galleries or museums and it isn't

created by people who are fundamentally different than you art is what we

collectively decide it is and artists are people who make art including you

honey I'm home so when you see a glow emerging from a darkened gallery or a

pair of headphones dangling seductively from a hook take a leap into the unknown

Revel in not knowing what will happen next trust that it can widen your

understanding of what can be done with new technologies Beyond what's

prescribed by our corporate overlords let it help you get to know your world a

little better to understand what film is what TV is what digital moving images

are and begin to Fathom the complexity of the layered tabbed archived digital

atmosphere we're all breathing pipilotti wrist has likened her video

installations to handbags because she says there's room in them for everything

painting technology language music lousy flowing pictures poetry commotion premonitions of death sex and friendliness video art doesn't really

describe what this is very well but neither do any of the other names really

video is a catchall term describing a moving image captured on Magnetic Tape

or in digital format but video comes from Latin meaning I see and in the way

it reflects How We Now understand and process and see the world it works well

enough I want to love you and treat you right I to

love and together with the roof right over our heads we share the

shelter single B we share the room of