Video +/- Art Screenings: Performance & Documentation, Pt 1
Body/Camera/Monitor/Architecture Relations
How the body relates to the camera, how the camera relates to the monitor, how everything relates to architecture.
Note: Select works will be shown in excerpt form. Some works are installation documentation. Some works contain disturbing content. Some works have flashing effects. Not all works are guaranteed to be available in perpetuity. This is not a 1–1 representation of what was screened in my class
Youtube playlist: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLlPMdCCayZxtSYmHeBbpSjfqEyUKJgavb&si=cNZKDr2ApY2Eu12H
Juan Downey Plato Now, 1973, (documentation of re-install)
“Radical Software published a statement about Downey’s 1973 video performance Plato Now, a work presented originally at the Everson Museum of Art in Syracuse, NY and restaged for the first time as part of the Tanks opening programme. The 1973 event consisted of nine participants (including the artist Bill Viola and the curator David Ross) meditating with their backs to the audience. A row of nine video monitors positioned between the meditators and the audience allowed spectators to view the faces of the performers on closed-circuit television while shadows of the public animated the wall behind.”
Juan Downey — Plato Now | The Tanks
https://www.tate.org.uk/whats-on/tate-modern/juan-downey
Shigeko Kubota, Video Mirror, originally 1975, reinstalled 2024 (installation documentation)
Part of Duchampiana: Marcel Duchamp’s Grave, 1972–1975, originally shown at The Kitchen, New York in 1975
Shigeko Kubota: Video Mirror | Fergus McCaffrey — I
Valie Export, Facing a Family, b&w 16mm film, 1971
“Austrian viewers tuning into their evening television program on February 28, 1971, found themselves faced with a surprising sight: a family, bathed in the light of a TV set, impassively looking back at them. VALIE EXPORT described her video, Facing a Family, as an “imaginary screen,” an “expanded movie,” and a “TV action” in which both families — one on screen, the other presumably at home — were participants. Commissioned by the Austrian Broadcasting Corporation, EXPORT’s meditation on “television in the family; the family in television” tapped into cultural shifts around a medium that was drawing new lines between private and public imagery.”
https://www.moma.org/magazine/articles/676
1971 Valie Export Facing a Family
Vito Acconci, Centers (1971), b&w video 22:28 minutes
In this foundational work of video performance, Acconci sits in front of a fixed camera, pointing at its center for the duration of the tape. His gesture creates a direct confrontation with the viewer through the medium of video, demonstrating the unique properties of the medium for creating psychological tension and exploring viewer-artist relationships.
Acconci Vito Centers 1971
Vito Acconci, Claim Excerpts, b&w video (1971)
“This video documents a three-hour performance by Vito Acconci in 1971, in which he sat blindfolded at the bottom of the stairs in the basement of 93 Grand Street in Manhattan’s SoHo neighborhood. Throughout the performance, Acconci swung a crowbar or lead pipes at anyone who dared to come near him and spoke to himself, voicing his increasingly violent desire to be left alone: “. . .I’m alone in the basement. . .I don’t want anybody to come down into the basement with me. . .” A video monitor was placed at the top of the stairs relaying Acconci’s actions live, so that visitors could either watch the artist from a distance or venture downstairs at their own risk. The territorial defense of personal space in this notoriously aggressive performance articulates a sense of isolation felt by many artists during this period of dramatic social change.”
https://whitney.org/collection/works/12739
Acconci Vito Claim excerpts 1971
Bruce Nauman, Live-Taped Video Corridor (1970), (re-Installation documentation)
Originally created at the University of Wisconsin, this installation used closed-circuit video to create a disorienting spatial experience. As viewers walk down a narrow corridor, they see themselves from behind on a monitor, creating a disconnect between physical experience and video representation. The work marks a crucial development in video installation and body awareness.
Source: https://youtu.be/5ujlefWcY-w?si=kBhm2cAT46MeRPSo
Bruce Nauman Stamping In the Studio, b&w video (excerpt)
Bruce Nauman-Stampin in the studio 1968
Dan Graham, Performer/Audience/Mirror, b&w video, (1975)
“Graham stands in front of a mirrored wall facing a seated audience; he describes the audience’s movements and what they signify. He then turns and describes himself and the audience in the mirror. Graham writes: “Through the use of the mirror the audience is able to instantaneously perceive itself as a public mass (as a unity), offsetting its definition by the performer (‘s discourse). The audience sees itself reflected by the mirror instantly while the performer’s comments are slightly delayed. First, a person in the audience sees himself ‘objectively’ (‘subjectively’) perceived by himself, next he hears himself described ‘objectively’ (‘subjectively’) in terms of the performer’s perception.”
https://www.eai.org/titles/performer-audience-mirror
Performer/Audience/Mirror by Dan Graham (1975)
Dan Graham, Time Delay Room (1974), Installation documentation
Graham’s installation uses time-delayed video feeds to create a complex system of observation and self-awareness. Viewers become both observers and observed, experiencing their own image with an 8-second delay. The work exemplifies Graham’s interest in perception, architecture, and social behavior.
Dan Graham — « Time Delay Room (documentation) »
VALIE EXPORT, Adjungierte Dislokationen, (1973), 10:44 minutes (film)
EXPORT straps cameras to her body, creating a multi-perspective documentation of her movement through space, while also being recorded herself.
Valie Export, Clips from Adjungierte Dislokationen 1973
Martha Rosler Semiotics of the Kitchen (1975), b&w video, 6:09 minutes
Rosler performs an alphabet of kitchen implements with increasingly aggressive gestures, creating a feminist critique of domestic roles through the language of instructional television. The work shows how artists used video to combine performance, critique, and media analysis.
Martha Rosler — Semiotics of the Kitchen 1975
Ana Mendieta, Señal de Sangre, №2, (1974) color video, 1:20 minutes (installation documentation)
“This action is called, crystal-clearly, “Blood Sign / Body Traces” and within a minute, Mendieta dressed in street clothes, without any priestly or art muse-like attitude, stands in front of a blank wall with a gesture of sacrifice (maybe even crucifixion), leaves the blood on the wall and walks away. A simple, direct act… and for some reason, feminine.
The performance results in a painting in its most traditional definition: color on a support. Only in this case the pigment is blood.”
(auto-translated from Spanish — see this site for the original text)
ana mendieta, señal de sangre no. 2
