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

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Canal Plus and La Sept have demonstrated remarkable possibilities for the funding andexhibition of a very wide range of work.Political, economic and technological forces working on television todaythroughout the world are bringing a greater differentiation and variety to the medium thanever before. To some degree, since the changes are taking place at a dizzying pace, such astatement has to be as much article of faith as informed and accurate analysis. But as thenumber of services throughout the world proliferates, and as audiences fragment into amultitude of new configurations, many new possibilities—for artists, just as for othermoving image makers—are opened up. The appetite of this vast industry is voracious, andelements of it no longer need to appeal, as did the American networks, to the largest massaudiences. Indeed, services will increasingly target specific demographic and particularinterest groups. To attract these audiences, they will also need to define and presentthemselves as distinct alternatives to the dominant structures.Moreover, distribution will no longer be constrained by broadcasting models andtechnologies which carry their own impetus towards maximizing an audience. The idea oftelevision already encompasses more than just what comes out of the air or down thecable. Cassettes and video games have begun to give us a quite new sense of thepossibilities of the box in the corner, and this is likely to develop rapidly with, for example,the introduction of interactive compact disc (CD-I) systems in the next two years. CD-I,backed by Sony and Phillips, offers the possibility of interactive moving images for thedomestic set. A wide range of uses are envisaged, including educational discs, games andinteractive dramas.16
The production of programming primarily intended for broadcast will inevitablycontinue. But this seems likely to be increasingly lower cost (or comparatively so), rapidturn-over programming, such as game shows, soaps, sports and news. Alongside this,production and distribution of discrete programs like dramas and documentaries, as well asartists' tapes, may follow more and more closely a publishing, rather than a broadcasting,model. Different sources of finance will be brought together to fund a single production,and a wide range of distribution outlets may be possible. Television exhibition may beone of these, but so, for example, will cassette or video disc distribution.Such broad strokes of speculation can suggest that in the coming decade therewill be (at least in an international context) a far greater variety of production funding andfinancing, the number and range of distribution systems will continue to increase, as willpossibilities for exhibition, and relationships between televisions and audiences will beunderstood in new ways. All of which should offer important opportunities andchallenges for everyone, including artists, working with moving images.In crudely commercial terms, artists are in many ways well-placed to exploit theopportunities which are opening up. As sources of novel, distinctive and powerfullypresentedideas and images, they should be sought after by at least some of the newtelevision structures. And as artisanal producers, their costs are often (comparatively) low,and copyrights and ownership are (comparatively) straightforward.For two reasons, however, this essay is not intended to conjure up the vision of anew television utopia for artists' video. The first reason is, obviously, that most of the new17
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 and 12: COMING TO TERMS WITH THEFRIGHTFUL P
Page 13 and 14: Vostell (in Cologne in 1959, remoun
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: If the reception of television can
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
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aise genuine issues however much th
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In the USA politics most times invo
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What is video?Of the numerous dimen
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...the video camera...is openly, tr
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espectability " in which these couc
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that politically radical video is d
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...the recognition that there can b
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themselves, talking to other farmer
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"How long would it take?"(silence)"
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the last member of the last nation
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working high up on the pole with mu
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Voyage Of Dreams uses animation and
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to justify obscurantism and persona
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It does not seek to simplify the is
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celebrate the increase of democracy
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Downing, John (1988). "The alternat
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There has never been enough discuss
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personal, non-commercial uses of te
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of artists. Public funding inherent
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Infrastructure and Institutionaliza
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Apart from the Works Projects Admin
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This outlook was shared by John Hig
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In short order nearly all the organ
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to provide: a subsidy of the field
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implication being that certain film
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change have an almost inherent ambi
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High-Tech Equipment and Broadcast T
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High technology is inherently expen
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told that the only way to exist is
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Part of the problem is that the con
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In sharp contrast to conventional d
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irthing is contextualized by an aut
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higher. Fellowship awards to indivi
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For the most part, attempts to obta
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Tight money means "Back to basics!"
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New York State's media infrastructu
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patronage as part of the natural or
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ReferencesAnonymous, Interview with
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CONTRIBUTORSJon Burris is a photogr
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At Arm's Length: (Taking a Good Hard Look at) Artists' Video

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