At Arm's Length: (Taking a Good Hard Look at) Artists' Video

More documents

Recommendations

Info

however has been proffered either by or towards television, and the relationship hasinvariably been one of opposition. Especially for artists in the United States, television hasoffered a target for attack, critique, pastiche, appropriation and subversion, as well as(occasionally) envy. And for critics television has been the object against which video can bedefined and defended. (It should be noted that these remarks are prompted by the history ofvideo art in the United States. Broadcast television has been less central, though stillsignificant, to artists' video outside the USA, in part at least because the mainstreammedium has exhibited far greater variety in Europe and elsewhere.)The inadequacies of the formalist legitimation has been considered elsewhere,notably by Rosier in her important essay, "Shedding the Utopian Moment" (Rosier: 250).This essay concerns the origins and the problems of video's legitimation against television.There is no doubt that the essential opposition between video and television has been centralboth to the preoccupation and achievements of many artists working with video and to muchof the discussion about video art. But my concern is to argue that this idea was, as itremains, grounded in a narrow and limited critique of television; that it has contributedconsiderably to the video art world's far from fruitful hermeticism; and (perhaps mostimportantly) that it could prevent artists from recognizing contemporary changes withintelevision and the possibilities that these may open up.That television has been profoundly important in shaping the development of videoart is accepted by most commentators on the medium. As the myths that pass as historyhave it, television and artists' video were entangled from the earliest emergence of theyounger form. Most historical surveys of video art begin with the exhibitions by Wolf2
Vostell (in Cologne in 1959, remounted in New York in 1963) and Nam June Paik(Wuppertal, 1963 and New York, 1965) which incorporated television sets into artworks.These artists' fascination with television and their simultaneous rejection of it (Paikdistorted the images; Vostell broke, daubed with paint and even shot at the sets) were soon tobecome familiar concerns for many creators.As video art has developed, many writers, including numerous artists, haveaccepted and asserted video's essential opposition to television. For some, this is an article offaith, as it was for the artist and critic Douglas Davis back in 1970: "The greatest honor wecan pay television is to reject it" (Davis 1978: 33). Others are equally emphatic, if a littleless blunt. In a recent study of artists' video, the Dutch critic Rob Perree states, "There is afundamental incompatibility of interests and principles between the artist and the televisionmaker" (Perree 1988: 53). And the curator Kathy Huffman writes in 1984, "Video art isfundamentally different from broadcast television and has been since its inception. Wherebroadcast television addresses a mass audience, video art is intensely personal—areflection of individual passions and consciousness" (Huffman: 1984).These commentators, along with many others, speak of television as if it were amedium defined by a single essence. They fail to recognize that their remarks draw on onlyone conception of the medium. This conception, unsurprisingly, is derived fromunderstandings of the model of commercial network television in the United States in the1960s and 1970s, and from the particular intellectual climate of the time, which wasbroadly antagonistic to popular culture.3
Page 5 and 6: PREFACEWhen my mom wanted to get a
Page 7 and 8: Jon Burris is a video artist and ad
Page 9 and 10: is neither entirely good or bad. Bu
Page 11: COMING TO TERMS WITH THEFRIGHTFUL P
Page 15 and 16: Media Burn is more than twice as lo
Page 17: Kennedy's Federal Communications Co
Page 21 and 22: TV, in a highly visual culture, dri
Page 23 and 24: with its knowing re-framing of a do
Page 25 and 26: If the reception of television can
Page 27 and 28: The production of programming prima
Page 29 and 30: In part precisely because of video
Page 31 and 32: Sanborn and Perillo's work is seen
Page 33 and 34: Brecht, Bertolt. "The Radio as an A
Page 35: Five Answers to the Question: What
Page 108 and 109:
aise genuine issues however much th
Page 110 and 111:
In the USA politics most times invo
Page 112 and 113:
What is video?Of the numerous dimen
Page 114 and 115:
...the video camera...is openly, tr
Page 116 and 117:
espectability " in which these couc
Page 118 and 119:
that politically radical video is d
Page 120 and 121:
...the recognition that there can b
Page 122 and 123:
themselves, talking to other farmer
Page 124 and 125:
"How long would it take?"(silence)"
Page 126 and 127:
the last member of the last nation
Page 128 and 129:
working high up on the pole with mu
Page 130 and 131:
Voyage Of Dreams uses animation and
Page 132 and 133:
to justify obscurantism and persona
Page 134 and 135:
It does not seek to simplify the is
Page 136 and 137:
celebrate the increase of democracy
Page 138 and 139:
Downing, John (1988). "The alternat
Page 140 and 141:
There has never been enough discuss
Page 142 and 143:
personal, non-commercial uses of te
Page 144 and 145:
of artists. Public funding inherent
Page 146 and 147:
Infrastructure and Institutionaliza
Page 148 and 149:
Apart from the Works Projects Admin
Page 150 and 151:
This outlook was shared by John Hig
Page 152 and 153:
In short order nearly all the organ
Page 154 and 155:
to provide: a subsidy of the field
Page 156 and 157:
implication being that certain film
Page 158 and 159:
change have an almost inherent ambi
Page 160 and 161:
High-Tech Equipment and Broadcast T
Page 162 and 163:
High technology is inherently expen
Page 164 and 165:
told that the only way to exist is
Page 166 and 167:
Part of the problem is that the con
Page 168 and 169:
In sharp contrast to conventional d
Page 170 and 171:
irthing is contextualized by an aut
Page 172 and 173:
higher. Fellowship awards to indivi
Page 174 and 175:
For the most part, attempts to obta
Page 176 and 177:
Tight money means "Back to basics!"
Page 178 and 179:
New York State's media infrastructu
Page 180 and 181:
patronage as part of the natural or
Page 182 and 183:
ReferencesAnonymous, Interview with
Page 184:
CONTRIBUTORSJon Burris is a photogr
show all

At Arm's Length: (Taking a Good Hard Look at) Artists' Video

You also want an ePaper? Increase the reach of your titles

Delete template?

Save as template?