tvideo lecture i

7/29/2019 TVIDEO Lecture I

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DUCHAMP, LAST WEEK Challenges notion of the sanctified art object

marks early shift toward conceptualism

Employs formal qualities inherent to machinevision

Engages in

optical

experimentation

akin to Gabo

& Moholy-Nagy


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The Bride Stripped Bare by herBachelors, Even (1915-23)

Impossible machinicinterface that conflates body& machine

Deferential instructionmanual, Green Box, outs itas a technical system ofabsurdities

Instantiation of the desiringmachine - Allegory forprofane love (the only kind of

love left in the 20th

century.)


3/32

Freud, via Lacan, on DESIRE

Born into a sense of LOSS, exacerbated inmirror stage

Spend life experiencing cycles of unfulfilleddesire

Technological devices figured as tool for over-

coming loss.


4/32

JOHN CAGE From painting to

composition

Dance and thePerformativity ofSound

Failure of 4'33

Turn to I-Ching Structuration of

Chance & Accident Williams Mix (1952)

Black Mountain

College


5/32

Happenings

Allan Kaprow claimedthat Pollock had destroyed

painting while creating anarena of action.

Rebelling againstcommercialization of artobject & commodityculture, turned furthertoward conceptualism

Collage of spontaneousaction that derives

meaning throughexperience.

18 Happenings in 6 Parts(1959) Reuben Gallery, NY.


6/32

International Network of Artists, FLUXUS

Neo-Dada, loosely knit,

non-conformist radicalavant-garde > GeorgeMaciunas

Anything, Anywhere, AnyAppearance Music,Performance, Film, VisualArt, Pamphlets, Tech, Mail

Art... Democratized art making

by destabilizing &dematerializing the art

object.

Flux Kit(1964-66)TOP

Yoko OnoCut Piece(1964)

RIGHT


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Art & Technology

ConceptualismMedia

INTER (NEW)MEDIA ARTS

Technology & Art Reunited (Mechanization, Experimentation.) Metaphorical & Formal Connections within Practice.

Through DADA, Duchamp andCage, to Happenings & Fluxus

Art Object Destabilized,Concept Takes Precedence

Technologicalprogress heraldedby Modernityfacilitates rapid

technologicalexpansion.


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TELEVISION


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Early Technologies &The Rise of Broadcasting

John Logie Baird discovers means forelectronically encoding the world

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UuE--w03vTc

Desire to broadcast caused early race forgreater definition arrived via Cathode RayTubehttps://www.youtube.com/watch?NR=1&v=pok

Rise of broadcasting > centralized

government agencies to monopoly of theairwaves
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UuE--w03vTchttps://www.youtube.com/watch?NR=1&v=pokRZfXzT-w&feature=fvwphttps://www.youtube.com/watch?NR=1&v=pokRZfXzT-w&feature=fvwphttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UuE--w03vTc


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TELEVISION ARTS

Wolf Vostell

Wanted to highlightconsumption that dominatedcultural production andreception of the time.

Encouraged audience to

highjack TV sets

6 TV De-Collage (1963) Smolin Gallery, New YorkAudience to alter balance

and frequency of televisionchannels

Reveals electronic source ofillusion

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zkDSJOmMgQE
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zkDSJOmMgQEhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zkDSJOmMgQE


11/32

NAM JUNE PAIKZen for TV (1963)

Exposition of Music Electronic Television

Reduced image to flat plane, a

meditative minimalistabstraction

Accomplished by modifying

scanner Shift from shallow

consumption totranscendental meditation


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Point of Light (1963)Altered signal into the

television set

Volume dial controlssize of the point

Influence of Cage

chance &indeterminacy


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Installation View


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The Moon is the Oldest TV (1964)

Further manipulation of televisual device altered placement oftubes

Addition of magnetic force to alter shape created moon-like phasesAltered consciousness


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Modernist desire

to dismantle &reveal culturalproduction ORRemoval of black-

box that gets builtup aroundtechnologicaldevices?

I use technology in order to hate it more properly


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Introducing the SONYPORTAPAK

k

1967 Militaristic &Managerial

Beginnings Democratization ofMoving Image

Material Limits of theDevice


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Real-Time Work Paik follows papal

procession, screeningvideo in a GreenwichVillage Cafe Thenarrative marks the birth

of video art. (Debated.) Nam June Paik, Button

Happening (1965)

Video Veritas capturesthe likeness of nature, notin content, mass orappearance, but in its

intimate time structure.


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Social & Cultural Environment

Time of great social protest &change

Artists looking for a way tointervene and create encountersas immediate as the social andpolitical upheaval around them.

Obsolescence andDematerialization of the ArtObject

Ability to accurately capture and disseminate politicalnarrative, paired with ephemerality made video IDEAL

medium for its era.


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Video Veritas & the Documentation of Performance.

Death of the Author takes hold, birth of the

non-hierarchical performance event By the mid-60s, video used as chief medium of

and for documentation of performance.

Video Camera pulled numerous disparateelements together to form intermedia arts, andcrystalize ideas of the time.

Eleanor AntinRepresentational Painting1971


20/32

Other artist were looking at video in relation towhat Peter Weibel lists at the ephemeral video

medium's inherent attributes. Namely:1. Self-reference

2. Instant Time

3. Transformation

4. Box

5. Synthetics

While not explicit, Elwes walks us throughnumerous examples that speak to these

categories...

Bruce Nauman


21/32

Bruce Nauman

Walking in an Exaggerated Manner Around the Perimeter

of a Square (1967-68) Video as experimental tool

Objectification of the Artist's Body in relation to: studio,cultural context, AND technological mediator.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qml505hxp_c
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qml505hxp_chttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qml505hxp_c


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Stamping the Studio (1968-1970)

Artist & Subject become one and the same

Maps artist's agency


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Wall Floor Positions (1968)

Minimalist Prop Sculpture Body as Investigatory Material

Monitor as a Space of Containment

http://www.vdb.org/titles/wallfloor-positions

Ula & Marina Abramo i
http://www.vdb.org/titles/wallfloor-positionshttp://www.vdb.org/titles/wallfloor-positions


24/32

Ulay & Marina Abramovi

AAA AAA (1978) Tests the limits of the body through exhaustion & proximity

Calls attention to discrepancy between bodily subject andstorage device.http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=iAIfLnQ26JY
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=iAIfLnQ26JYhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=iAIfLnQ26JY


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PETER CAMPUS

Dynamic Field Series,Pt. 1 (1971)

Camera attached toceiling-mounted pulley

system

Calls attention todiffering fields of vision

In front and behindcamera simultaneously

Camera as participatory


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Joan Jonas


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VitoAcconci

Corrections (1970)

Closed-circuits provided immediate feedback Video as a medium for rehearsing the body

New visions of the self ability to reflect on howothers see you.


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Centers (1971) Closed-circuit loop with indexical point promotes

explicit condition of self-reflection

Aesthetic of Narcissism Rosalind Krauss

Theme Song (1973)


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Theme Song (1973)

I can feel your body right next to me...I know

I'm only kidding myself...You're not here Promise of immediacy denied

Re-instantiation

of the desiring

machine.

htt ://www. outube.com/watch?v=mAf6zKRb1wI

Peter Campus Three Transitions (1973)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mAf6zKRb1wIhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mAf6zKRb1wI


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Peter Campus

Use of formal editing

techniques to furtherdelve into video-ed self(through a sequence ofriddles.)

Repetitive renewal ofself, then transition awayfrom this process of

mimetic representation.

Three Transitions (1973)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ar99AfOJ2o8

Steina & Woody Vasulka
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ar99AfOJ2o8http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ar99AfOJ2o8


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Steina & Woody Vasulka

Acutely aware of technological mediation, used video andinstallation practice to draw attention to this.

Distant Activities (Steina 1972) Homemade TV (Woody 1974) Used feedback devices to reverberate sound and video waves Used electronic signals and feedback to expose internal

structures of video

Video with a Camera > Pure Signalhttp://www.fondation-langlois.org/html/e/page.php?NumPage=419
http://www.fondation-langlois.org/html/e/page.php?NumPage=419http://www.fondation-langlois.org/html/e/page.php?NumPage=419


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Mary Lucier

Dawn Burn (1975)

Tests the material

limits of the device Elwes > fault in the

technology (?)

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