Video art

art.[2][3] In March 1963 Nam June Paik showed at the Galerie Parnass in Wuppertal the Exposition of Music Electronic Television.[4][5] In May 1963 Wolf Vostell showed
the installation 6 TV D-coll/age at the Smolin Gallery
in New York and created the video Sun in your head in
Cologne. Originally Sun in your head was made on 16mm
lm and transferred 1967 to videotape.[6][7][8]
Video art is often said to have begun when Paik used
his new Sony Portapak to shoot footage of Pope Paul
VI's procession through New York City in the autumn of
1965[9] Later that same day, across town in a Greenwich
Village cafe, Paik played the tapes and video art was born.
Nam June Paik's Electronic Superhighway: Continental U.S.,
Alaska, Hawaii 1995

Video art is an art form which relies on moving pictures in a visual and audio medium. Video art came
into existence during the late 1960s and early 1970s as
new consumer video technology became available outside
corporate broadcasting. Video art can take many forms:
recordings that are broadcast; installations viewed in galleries or museums; works streamed online, distributed
as video tapes, or DVDs; and performances which may
incorporate one or more television sets, video monitors,
and projections, displaying live or recorded images and A Sony AV-3400 Portapak
sounds;.[1]
Video art is named after the original analog video tape,
which was most commonly used recording technology in
the forms early years. With the advent of digital record- Prior to the introduction of consumer video equiping equipment, many artists began to explore digital tech- ment, moving image production was only available noncommercially via 8mm lm and 16mm lm. After the
nology as a new way of expression.
Portapaks introduction and its subsequent update every
One of the key dierences between video art and the- few years, many artists began exploring the new technolatrical cinema is that video art does not necessarily rely ogy.
on many of the conventions that dene theatrical cinema.
Video art may not employ the use of actors, may contain Many of the early prominent video artists were those inno dialogue, may have no discernible narrative or plot, volved with concurrent movements in conceptual art, peror adhere to any of the other conventions that generally formance, and experimental lm. These include Ameridene motion pictures as entertainment. This distinction cans Vito Acconci, Valie Export, John Baldessari, Peter
also distinguishes video art from cinemas subcategories Campus, Doris Totten Chase, Maureen Connor, Norman
(avant garde cinema, short lms, or experimental lms, Cowie, Dimitri Devyatkin, Dan Graham, Joan Jonas,
Bruce Nauman, Nam June Paik, Bill Viola, Shigeko Kubetc.).
ota, Martha Rosler, William Wegman, Gary Hill, and
many others. There were also those such as Steina and
Woody Vasulka who were interested in the formal qual1 Early history
ities of video and employed video synthesizers to create abstract works. Kate Craig,[10] Vera Frenkel[11] and
Nam June Paik, a Korean-American artist who studied Michael Snow[12] were important to the development of
in Germany, is widely regarded as a pioneer in video video art in Canada.
1

Video art in the 1970s

Much video art in the mediums heyday experimented

formally with the limitations of the video format. For
example, American artist Peter Campus' Double Vision
combined the video signals from two Sony Portapaks
through an electronic mixer, resulting in a distorted and
radically dissonant image. Another representative piece,
Joan Jonas' Vertical Roll, involved recording previouslyrecorded material of Jonas dancing while playing the
videos back on a television, resulting in a layered and
complex representation of mediation.

NOTABLE VIDEO ART ORGANIZATIONS

Facing a Family (1971) was one of the rst instances

of television intervention and broadcasting video art. The
video, originally broadcast on the Austrian television program Kontakte February 2, 1971,[11] shows a bourgeois Austrian family watching TV while eating dinner,
creating a mirroring eect for many members of the audience who were doing the same thing. Export believed the
television could complicate the relationship between subject, spectator, and television.[13] In the United Kingdom
David Hall's TV Interruptions (1971) were transmitted intentionally unannounced and uncredited on Scottish
TV, the rst artist interventions on British television.

3 Notable video art organizations

AEC Ars Electronica Center, Linz, Austria
Video-art Investigation and Documentation Center,
La Neomudejar, Madrid, Spain
Demolden Video Project, Luis Bezeta, Santander,
Spain
Edith-Russ Haus for Media Art, Oldenbourg, Germany
Electronic Arts Intermix, New York, NY
A still from Jonas 1972 video

Much video art in America was produced out of New

York City, with The Kitchen, founded in 1972 by Steina
and Woody Vasulka (and assisted by video director
Dimitri Devyatkin and Shridhar Bapat), serving as a
nexus for many young artists. An early multi-channel
video art work (using several monitors or screens) was
Wipe Cycle by Ira Schneider and Frank Gillette. Wipe
Cycle was rst exhibited at the Howard Wise Gallery in
New York in 1969 as part of an exhibition titled TV
as a Creative Medium. An installation of nine television screens, Wipe Cycle combined live images of gallery
visitors, found footage from commercial television, and
shots from pre-recorded tapes. The material was alternated from one monitor to the next in an elaborate choreography.
On the West coast, the San Jose State television studios in
1970, Willoughby Sharp began the Videoviews series
of videotaped dialogues with artists. The Videoviews
series consists of Sharps dialogues with Bruce Nauman
(1970), Joseph Beuys (1972), Vito Acconci (1973), Chris
Burden (1973), Lowell Darling (1974), and Dennis Oppenheim (1974). Also in 1970, Sharp curated Body
Works, an exhibition of video works by Vito Acconci,
Terry Fox, Richard Serra, Keith Sonnier, Dennis Oppenheim and William Wegman which was presented at Tom
Marionis Museum of Conceptual Art, San Francisco,
California.
In Europe, Valie Export's groundbreaking video piece,

EMAF European Media Art Festival, Osnabrueck,

Germany
Experimental Television Center, New York
Goetz Collection, Munich, Germany
Imai inter media art institute, Dsseldorf
Impakt Festival, Utrecht
Julia Stoschek Collection, Dsseldorf, Germany
Kunstmuseum Bonn, large video art collection
LA Freewaves is an experimental media art festival
with video art, shorts and animation; exhibitions are
in Los Angeles and online.
LIMA, the former Netherlands Media Art Institute/Montevideo, Amsterdam, The Netherlands
Lumen Eclipse - Harvard Square, MA
LUX, London, UK
London Video Arts, London, UK
NBK Video-Forum, collection of video art, Neuer
Berliner Kunstverein, Berlin.
Perpetual art machine, New York
Port Actif, Ghent, Belgium
Raindance Foundation, New York

3
REWIND, Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art
and Design, Scotland. Research group of early
British and Italian Video Art.
Souvenirs from Earth, Art TV Station on European
Cable Networks (Paris, Cologne)
Ursula Blickle Video archive, Vienna, Austria
V tape, Toronto, Canada

Videography: Video Media as Art and Culture by

Sean Cubitt (MacMillan, 1993).

New Media in Late 20th-Century Art by Michael

Rush (Thames & Hudson, 1999).

Video Data Bank, Chicago, IL.

Winnipeg,

Videonale, Bonn, Germany

Making Video 'In' - The Contested Ground of Alternative Video On The West Coast Edited by Jennifer
Abbott (Satellite Video Exchange Society, 2000).

A History of Experimental Film and Video by A. L.

Rees (British Film Institute, 1999).

Video Art World, Hamptons, NY

Video Pool Media Art Centre,

Canada[14]

5 Further reading

Mirror Machine: Video and Identity, edited by

Janine Marchessault (Toronto: YYZ Books, 1995).

VIVO Media Arts Centre (Video In / Video Out

Distribution), Vancouver, Canada

Video Culture: A Critical Investigation, edited by

John G. Hanhardt (Visual Studies Workshop Press,
1986).

ZKM Center for Art and Media Karlsruhe, Germany

Video Art: A Guided Tour by Catherine Elwes (I.B.

Tauris, 2004).

See also
Artmedia
Experimental lm
INFERMENTAL
Interactive lm
List of video artists
Music visualization
New media art
Optical feedback
Real-time computer graphics
Scratch Video
Sound Art
Video jockey
Video poetry
Video sculpture
Video synthesizer
Vimeo, a video-sharing site that specializes in video
art
Visual music
VJ (video performance artist)
www.lindechag.com

A History of Video Art by Chris Meigh-Andrews

(Berg, 2006)
Diverse Practices: A Critical Reader on British Video
Art edited by Julia Knight (University of Luton/Arts
Council England, 1996)[15]
ARTFORUM FEB 1993 Travels In The New Flesh
by Howard Hampton (Printed by ARTFORUM INTERNATIONAL 1993)
Resolutions: Contemporary Video Practices, (eds.
Renov, Michael & Erika Suderburg) (London, Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press,1996).
Expanded Cinema by Gene Youngblood (New York:
E.P. Dutton & Company, 1970).
The Problematic of Video Art in the Museum 19681990 by Cyrus Manasseh (Cambria Press, 2009).
First Electronic Art Show by (Niranjan Rajah
& Hasnul J Saidon) (National Art Gallery, Kuala
Lumpur, 1997)
Expanded Cinema, (David Curtis, A. L. Rees,
Duncan White, and Steven Ball, eds), Tate Publishing, 2011[16]
Retrospektiv-Film-org videokunst| Norge 196090. Edited by Farhad Kalantary & Linn Lervik.
Atopia Stiftelse, Oslo, (April 2011).[17]
Experimental Film and Video, Jackie Hateld, Editor. (John Libbey Publishing, 2006; distributed in
North America by Indiana University Press)[18]
REWIND: British Artists Video in the 1970s &
1980s, (Sean Cubitt, and Stephen Partridge, eds),
John Libbey Publishing, 2012.[19]

6
Reaching Audiences: Distribution and Promotion of
Alternative Moving Image by Julia Knight and Peter
Thomas (Intellect, 2011)[20]
Wulf Herzogenrath: Videokunst der 60er Jahre in
Deutschland, Kunsthalle Bremen, 2006, (No ISBN).
Rudolf Frieling & Wulf Herzogenrath: 40jahrevideokunst.de: Digitales Erbe: Videokunst in Deutschland von 1963 bis heute, Hatje Cantz Verlag, 2006,
ISBN 978-3-7757-1717-5.
NBK Band 4. Time Pieces. Videokunst seit 1963.
Verlag der Buchhandlung Walther Knig, Kln,
2013, ISBN 978-3-86335-074-1.
Demolden Video Project: 2009-2014. Video Art
Gallery, Santander, Spain, 2016, ISBN 978-8416705-40-5.
Valentino Catrical, Laura Leuzzi, Cronologia
della videoarte italiana, in Marco Maria Gazzano,
KINEMA. Il cinema sulle tracce del cinema. Dal lm
alle arti elettroniche andata e ritorno, Exorma, Roma
2013.[21]

[13] Electronic Arts Intermix: Facing a Family, Valie Export. eai.org.

[14] Video Pool Media Arts Centre. Video Pool Media Arts
Centre.
[15] Cubitt, Sean (2012). REWIND British Artists Video in
the 1970s & 1980s. John Libbey Publishing. ISBN 9780861967063.
[16] Tate Online Shop. tate.org.uk.
[17] ATOPIA : Retrospective Exhibition. atopia.no.
[18] John Libbey Publishing - Animation book PublisherExperimental Film and Video Anthology.
johnlibbey.com.
[19] Cubitt, Sean (2012). REWIND British Artists Video in
the 1970s & 1980s. John Libbey Publishing. ISBN 9780861967063.
[20] Intellect. intellectbooks.co.uk.
[21] Valentino Catrical . Cronologia della videoarte italiana
1952-1992. academia.edu.

References

[1] Hartney, Mick. Video art, MoMA, accessed January

31, 2011
[2] http://www.vdb.org/sites/default/files/Kate%
20Horsfield%20-%20Busting%20the%20Tube;
%20A%20Brief%20History%20of%20Video%20Art.
pdf
[3] http://www.washingtonpost.
com/blogs/going-out-guide/post/
father-of-video-art-nam-june-paik-gets-american-art-museum-exhibit-photos/
2012/12/12/c16fa980-448b-11e2-8e70-e1993528222d_
blog.html
[4] Nam June Paik, Galerie Parnass, 1963
[5] Nam June Paik, Galerie Parnass, 1963
[6] NBK Band 4. Time Pieces. Videokunst seit 1963. Verlag
der Buchhandlung Walther Knig, Kln, 2013, ISBN 9783-86335-074-1
[7] Wolf Vostell, Smolin Gallery, New York, 1963
[8] Wolf Vostell, Sun in your head, 1963
[9] Laura Cumming (December 19, 2010), Nam June Paik
review Nam June Paik The Guardian.
[10] Marsh, James H (1985-01-01). The Canadian encyclopedia. Edmonton: Hurtig Publishers. ISBN 088830269X.
[11] Vera Frenkel: Archive Fevers - Canadian Art. Canadian Art. Retrieved 2016-10-22.
[12] Elwes, Catherine (2006-04-26). Video Art, A Guided
Tour: A Guided Tour. I.B.Tauris. ISBN 9780857735959.

REFERENCES

Text and image sources, contributors, and licenses

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