Shunning tradition: a view on video art
Innately difficult to grasp – and sometimes to watch – video art can feel a little intimidating. So what is it all about, really?
Maybe, on a visit to a museum or gallery, you’ve sat down to watch a projection on a wall, and stared for 15 minutes at images of red ants crawling over a set of rosary beads. Or two sets of projected hands scrubbing themselves clean, over and over, in an endless loop. Or several screens playing footage of oversaturated, extremely close-up body parts mingling with the anatomy of plants.
And maybe you – sitting there, feeling a little uncomfortable – thought: what on earth am I watching? What is going on?
Video art has become “a requisite for any collecting modern and contemporary art institution”, writes Alina Cohen in Artsy in 2019. By its nature, however, video art is often slippery and obscure. It can be difficult both to comprehend and to watch.
What is video art? And why is it different from film?
In the most obvious sense, video art is a genre that makes use of video technology as an audiovisual medium. But then, so do the movies. What is it that separates video art from cinematic art? And what separates it from the masses of random clips, archival footage, snaps, etc, that float around the world today?
Most of the time, you will instinctively grasp that a piece of video art is not a regular movie. At the heart of the art form is a purposeful disregard for the conventions of traditional cinema making. Aspects such as
character development, plot line, comprehensive themes and a narrative arc are not necessarily taken into consideration in the making of a video-art piece.
In differentiating between video art and cinema, Rajendra Roy, the chief curator of film at New York’s Museum of Modern Art said: “The most practical difference between the two worlds has always been economic: unlimited multiples with audience-driven revenues [cinema] vs editioned copies.”
Cinema is produced for the enjoyment of the public, who pay to see the films. Video art, on the other hand, is not necessarily created to be distributed or enjoyed widely. Video artists display their work in a limited setting, usually in a gallery. Revenue is from selling one or two exclusive pieces to a collector, museum or gallery.
Film is almost always a collaborative effort; a large team of people is generally involved in the production of a movie. Video art, on the other hand, can be (and is very often) created by one artist.
Further, the quality of the video is less polished than that of film, which is part of its unconventional aesthetic.
That being said, video art can take a multitude of forms. Some critics separate the art form into two major categories: single channel and installation. The former comprises video footage displayed in a singular form, such as a TV screen or projection. The content of the moving images itself is art. You could watch a single-channel artwork by a video artist on your laptop at home.
Installation, on the other hand, comprises an environment where the video is used as part of a larger form. Perhaps there are multiple screens or projections, or maybe the video is a part of an assemblage or sculpture. It might also be used as part of a performance piece, projected behind or onto live action. Many consider newer forms of contemporary art – virtual reality pieces, video games or even apps – as part of the video art genre.
As Chris Meigh-Andrews points out in his History of Video Art: “The form itself seems paradoxically to defy the activity of classification whilst simultaneously requiring it”.
He argues later that the umbrella term video art is “often used as a way to describe and identify any moving image work presented within an art gallery”.
The history of video art
Video art first entered the scene in the 1960s and 1970s, largely because of advances in video-making technology. Where earlier models of television cameras were expensive and heavy, the release of the Sony DV-2400 portapak in 1967 (and other similar handheld video-making devices) meant that recording and editing video was more accessible to the individual.
With video-recording equipment being sold commercially, in a user-friendly format, experimental artists had a new toy to play with. The form offered these artists a unique and compelling immediacy; real life could be recorded and played back right away.
Wolf Vostell from Germany and Korean-American Nam June Paik are regarded as two of the first artists to delve into video as an art form. Both working across multiple fine art genres, these two pioneers brought an intertextual lens to their video-making practice.
Vostell and Paik were interested in the avant-garde music of composer John Cage, and the work of French artist Marcel Duchamp, both of whom influenced an art movement called Fluxus.
Fluxus is loosely defined as an international group of artists who were invested in debunking the art establishment and other cultural institutions. As the New York Times’s Martha Schwendener puts it, “The idea of art (or life) as a game in which the artist reconfigures the rules is central to Fluxus.” Overturning the rules was “a perfect metaphor for the ’60s and early ’70s”.
These ideas were key to Paik and Vostell’s work, and thus to the birth of video art.
Video had never been used as a tool before and did not have any of the formal burdens that came with more traditional forms of art. It was ripe for experimentation.
In step with the anti-establishment notions of Fluxus, video art was also in opposition to the easily consumable, mass-produced and polished aesthetic of mainstream, commercial television.
With this in mind, it follows that video art as a form is more difficult to watch and understand than most cinema and TV. Unlike film, video art is not so much about telling a refined and interesting story (that sells), it’s about provoking thought and interrogating the medium itself.
Because video art served as a break from art history tradition, it aligned well with artists whose work attempted to critique political and social issues of the time.
Many feminist artists used it as an entry point to dissect the male-dominated art world. Shigeko Kubota, a Japanese-American video artist (and wife of Nam June Paik), stated, “Video is Vengeance of Vagina. Video is Victory of Vagina.”
In a similar vein, artists, like those
Unlike film, video art is not so much about telling a refined and interesting story (that sells), it’s about provoking thought and interrogating the medium itself
involved in the Black Audio Film Collective, used it to examine issues of class and race.
Today’s video art continues to stay true to these primary concepts, despite the medium evolving rapidly with the development of new technologies. It is now considered, says Meigh-Andrews, as “arguably the most influential medium in contemporary art”.
Perhaps one of the most important things to point out about video art is the genre’s dependence on technology. It’s a cliché, but does life imitate art, or art imitate life? If we are living through the technological revolution, then, arguably, video art is the most accurate reflection of this moment in history in both its form and its multitudinous content. If we are living in a surveillance culture, then video art embodies the blurry line between watching and being watched.
Technology (and thus, video art) is innately ephemeral – it is difficult if not impossible to screen some earlier forms of video recordings. The technology used to create and replay them is out of date, or the installation they were a part of has been taken down.
Unlike a painting or sculpture, a piece of video art does not usually amass value as it gets older. Is that not a perfect reflection of the way that we consume information in our media-saturated today?
Compounded with its long-standing relationship with the avant garde, video art’s “nowness” is key to understanding contemporary art, and thus, the world around us. So how should we consume it?
There are two things to keep in mind when watching video art. The first is that the experience is not meant to be easily or quickly consumed. Most video art is conceptual; it is designed to make you look closer or think deeper.
Second, whereas most films are about storytelling and immersing viewers in another world separate from their own, video art as an experience happens in your own space. It generally makes you think about the moment that you are living through, whether that be the discomfort you feel looking at the screen/installation/virtual reality, or the historical moment.
If we think about video making as a sort of audiovisual sketchbook for experimental artists, the art form is saying: these are some ideas, do with them what you will.