Video Art
Ganesh Video Art
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What is Video Art?
Video art includes single channel video work (art that is to be played through a single monitor) or multi channel work (which demands multipul monitors all playing at the same time.) It can also include video installation art in which video may be a componant in a larger sculpture and video as a part of a performance or dance piece.
When did it all begin?
Since the early sixties a number of artists have been making art using the
dominant communication form of the late twentieth century as their medium.
Although the television set had found it’s way into installations art
events in the Fifties, video art is generally dated from the introduction
of the Sony Portapak. This not very light weight portable deck and camera
were seized upon by artists eager generate images that they could edit as
videos or include in performances, dance or sculpture. From the beginning
video was used in two major ways. The first was as an artistic medium for
display in a gallery or museum setting and second as an information
gathering tool in a guerella documentary sense. An example of the former is
the artist Nam June Paik, one of the originators of video as an artform and
an important Fluxus figure. He made sculptures with video, used it in
performances (the famous TV bra he made for cellist Charlotte Moorman) and
created single channel work. Early guerella video was exemplified by the
video collectives which formed to disseminate infromation that mainstream
media ignored. Videofreex and Raindance in New York and Ant Farm and Video
Free America on the west coast are just a few.
Early video art found a source of succor and help in the public television
stations where a few television producers were sympethetic to their work.
Through some grants from the Rockefeller foundation, three national video
labrotories sprang up. They were at WGBH-TV, Boston WNET-TV, New York and
KQED-TV in San Francisco. Through these centers came the most influentioal
early video artists. Video art has expanded from these early beginnings to
the far corners of the globe.
How is video different from other art forms?
Since its inception, video has been a growing part of our culture.
Video is seemlessly integrated into our daily lives, even more so with
the advent of digital video, the Internet, and home video editing.
Video artists are working with a medium that is in most homes, and
in people’s daily lives. Video can take several seconds, or several
years to make. It is as instant as a Big Mac, and as omnipresent as your
television, vcr, or computer. Video can be easily duplicated, and
as the Internet gains in its capacity, even more easily distributed.
These factors can’t help but play a large factor in how video art
is made, screened, viewed, and perceived.
