Video +/- Art: A Screening Series
This semester, I’m going to be teaching a course on a subject I love: video art. I perceived this topic to be pretty esoteric, especially outside of the art school context (I’ll be teaching this class at a big research university), so I was surprised that the class filled up, and that there are even students on the wait list!
I guess I shouldn’t be too shocked, given the absolute dominance of video, particularly short-form video, as a medium these days. Every media platform is saturated with video, and I think when we look closely we’ll see the traces of the early video artists’ innovations (from video synthesizers and other forms of manipulation, to self-portraits and confessionals, social critique and documentary, surveillance and protest) throughout the format’s contemporary expression.
To prep for the class I’ve been presenting a series of screenings of the relevant material I could find publicly online (which is a lot! Thank you, various youtubers!). These screenings are more-or-less a historical timeline of video’s evolution as a technology and as an artistic medium, and I tried to group works and artists together that I thought had some kind of commonality. I plan to present these screening programs here, as well as in my class, so if you’d like to follow along, please do.
Finally, a word on image quality, and the use of unauthorized copies. The image quality on these works mostly sucks. Video was not meant to be (and for many of its early years was unable to be) projected. Projection tends to dull the image and make it blurrier and harder to read than it would be on a CRT monitor. And early video was not very sharp to begin with, often looking like it was shot through a pair of more-or-less opaque pantyhose depending on the light levels. In the case of these videos, they’ve also been dubbed from an unknown quality original and unknown number of times, and finally compressed for the web (mostly Youtube). Some works are documentation of installation, in those cases they are occasionally shot from someone’s phone, with the attendant quality issues. Regarding unauthorized copies, I am a strong proponent of the idea that works are better preserved in circulation. These works are being seen because someone took the time to find, digitize, and upload them, often adding relevant information.
Without further ado, here’s the first screening program!
Video +/- Art: Screening Programs
Weeks 1 & 2: The Birth of Video Art: Feedback & Broadcast
Early Video Art Pioneers: Part 1
Total Runtime: ~74 minutes
Note: Select works will be shown in excerpt form
In the 1960s and early 1970s, the introduction of portable video equipment — particularly Sony’s Portapak in 1967 — revolutionized artistic practice by making video technology accessible to individuals for the first time. Before this, moving image production was limited to film (which required expensive equipment and processing) or television (controlled by large institutions and corporations). The Portapak offered something entirely new: immediate playback, reusable tapes, and the ability to record both image and sound with a single operator.
Early Experimenters Take on TV
TV Buddha (1974), Nam June Paik
Video installation with CCTV camera and monitor
Installation documentation, various lengths
A seminal work where a Buddha statue contemplates its own live image on a CCTV monitor, creating a closed-circuit meditation on self-reflection and technology. This piece established many of the core themes that would define video art: real-time feedback, the relationship between object and image, and the contemplation of technology’s role in perception.
Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8s6imG7UJ1Q
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Global Groove (1973), Nam June Paik
Video
28:30 minutes
A fast-paced collage of cultural imagery, dance, commercials, and manipulated broadcast footage that predicted the future of global media culture. Through rapid editing and image processing, Paik creates a prescient vision of today’s media landscape, where cultural signals mix and transform in an endless electronic stream.
Source: https://vimeo.com/558372601
Source: https://youtu.be/xnCF5smgXXA?si=mFdk9-eD2bhQquNS
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Sun in Your Head (1963), Wolf Vostell
16mm film transferred to video
7:10 minutes, b&w, silent
Single frame sequences of TV and film images, with periodic distortions. The images include airplanes, women, men interspersed with text like ‘silence, genius at work’ and ‘ich liebe dich.’ Originally filmed by cameraman Edo Jansen capturing distorted TV images from a screen, this work presents Vostell’s “décollage” principle of creation through destruction.
Source: https://youtu.be/VJaMHGIw188?si=zNgjjGQuwujebg19
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TV Dé-coll/age (1961), Wolf Vostell
Installation: Six cathode-ray tube monitors, canvas, and painted plywood
99 × 134 × 32" (251.5 × 340.4 × 81.3 cm)
Installation documentation, duration variable
An installation made up of 6 TV sets equipped with auxiliary electromotors that move objects over the glass-strewn floor. Slides showing earlier happenings and works by Vostell are sometimes projected on the walls.
According to Vostell, the room contains ‘Multiple, multilayer mixed layers, superimpositions and events mobile collages and dé-coll/ages.’ The installation was originally displayed at the 1968 Venice Biennale.
In this film by David Vostell, the installation piece is being shown at the ‘Kunst wird Material’ exhibition at the Neue Nationalgalerie Berlin, 1982.
Source: https://youtu.be/hxSLs7QEcZI?si=tXoQgaX-_VTBw6dB
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Wipe Cycle (1969), Frank Gillette and Ira Schneider
Multi-channel video installation with camera
Installation documentation — duration variable
Working at Howard Wise Gallery, Gillette and Schneider created one of the first video installations to use multiple monitors and time delay. Their work with the Raindance Corporation and the journal Radical Software helped establish video art’s theoretical foundation.
A groundbreaking nine-monitor installation (arguably the first work of video sculpture) combining live feedback via a surveillance camera, broadcast television, and pre-recorded content in synchronized cycles. Viewers see themselves at three different time delays across eight spatial locations, interwoven with broadcast imagery. The work creates a complex meditation on time, media consumption, self-perception, and surveillance.
Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oOsDpg364_U
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Television Delivers People (1973), Richard Serra and Carlota Fay Schoolman
Video
6 minutes
A seminal critique of commercial television that uses the medium’s own form (at the time — scrolling blue text, Muzak soundtrack) to expose its corporate structure and implicit messaging. The work presents a series of declarative statements about television’s role in society, creating a powerful commentary on media consumption and control.
Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LvZYwaQlJsg
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Facing a Family (1971), VALIE EXPORT
Video broadcast
5:10 minutes
Originally broadcast on Austrian television, this pioneering work presents one family watching another family watching television. The piece creates a feedback loop that analyzes not the program itself but the reaction it produces, revealing the TV medium’s coding of reality and perception.
Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sUjdINipz_A
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Manipulating the Image
Noisefields (1974), Steina and Woody Vasulka
Video
12:05 minutes
The video materially visualizes the deflected energy of electronic signals, switching between two sources to create a flickering effect. A circular form on screen presents a division between inner and outer space, with sustained pulsation throughout. The work demonstrates the Vasulkas’ pioneering exploration of electronic image processing.
Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qCYpNtRMh_g
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The Endless Sandwich (1969), Peter Weibel
Video
10 minutes
A pioneering work of video feedback where Weibel creates endless recursive loops of himself eating, creating a visual “sandwich” of layered imagery. The piece explores the relationship between media consumption and self-reflection through its innovative use of video feedback techniques.
Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xi_cYCqf8tg
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Magnetic Scramble (1968), Toshio Matsumoto
Manipulated video
5 minutes
Matsumoto’s first video work manipulates television images of student demonstrations against the U.S.-Japan Security Pact using a magnetic coil held next to the monitor. The piece was later incorporated into his film Funeral Parade of Roses (1969).
Source: https://www.eai.org/titles/magnetic-scramble
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Metastasis (1971), Toshio Matsumoto
Manipulated video — 16mm transferred to video
8:08 minutes
“This film focuses on the Western-style toilet. A wide range of variations in light, shade, and color seems to bring to life the toilet’s static image. The film was produced with a data color system, which makes use of an electronic measuring device (RGB format) to convert black-and-white images to color.”
Source: https://youtu.be/Oautz2QQNhg?si=makVYqoSUpx3NXQa
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Mona Lisa (1973), Toshio Matsumoto
Manipulated video
3:30 minutes
“This work was produced with the Scanimate video synthesizer, which was invented by Toyo Laboratory. For the main image, Matsumoto scanned Leonardo da Vinci’s painting and processed it in a variety of ways, making consummate use of the functions of the Scanimate analogue computer. The work was introduced at the world’s first video art symposium, which was held at the Museum of Modern Art in New York in 1974.
Production, screenplay, direction, and music by Matsumoto Toshio; material photography by Suzuki Tatsuo and Sugiyama Akichika; technical production by Toyo Laboratory (now Imagica); music by Ohno Matsuo.”
Source: https://youtu.be/i9-QETgf1Vs?si=T6SGqSTI6e2JQSf2
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Important Notes:
Several works in this program are video sculptures or installations. What we will see are historical or contemporary documentation videos of these works, which can only partially convey the original spatial and interactive elements of the pieces.
