A DUTTON

PAPERBACK

N E W A R TIST S V ID E O
A

C RITICA L

ANTHOLOGY

EDITED

G R E G O R Y BATICOCK

BY

N EW
A R T IS!
| |

VIDEC

CRITICAL

EDITED

GREGORY

ANTHOLO<

BY

B A TTC O

D 461
A DUTTON
PAPERBACK
ORIGINAL

In C a n a d a :

120

Stu a rt M

arshall

the work of the Im aginary to place the subject in a fictional coher

ence that fixes the subject to its self-delusory images. Signification
is a work and a process based on the establishment of position in
contradiction and difference. It is the business of the artist to pose
the subject in process as the site of the dialectic th a t is inherent in
signification.

VIDEA, VIDIOT,
VIDEOLOGY

NAM JUNE PAIK with CHARLOTTE MOORMAN

Nam June Paik was one of the first artists to concentrate on the video
medium. In collaboration with Charlotte Moorman, Paiks works have
been performed widely and frequently both in America, Europe and
Australia.
The following notes, some by Paik and some by other writers, were
original, ij printed over a time span of almost fifteen years; the most recent
was published in 1976. They document some of Paiks video works and,
.. more importantly, offer a glimpse into Paiks highly original thoughts
concerning video.
'
Venice is the most advanced city of the world . . . it has already
abolished automobiles.
John Cage in an Italian TV interview, 1958
Someday Walter Cronkite will come on the screen and say only one
word and leave: There is nothing new under the sun. Good night,
Chet!! . . . 29 minutes of blank and silence. . . .
From Maix to Spengler, from Tolstoy to Tocqueville, not a single
| prophet of the recent past predicted the greatest problem of today
. parking.

Videa, Vidiot, Videology

123

Vietnam war is the first war fought by computer

and
the first war lost by American.
Nietzsche said hundred years ago . . . God is dead. I say now
Paper is dead . . . except for toilet paper. If Joyce lived today,
surely he would have written his Finnegans Wake on video tape,
because of the vast possibility for manipulation in magnetic informa
tion storage.
This argument is settled for good.
TV commercials have all three.
Radio Free Europe is interesting and informative, but the noise,
which jams that station is also interesting and informative . . . en
joy both. Jam your TV station and make it Radio Free America.
Marshall McBird says . . . Wind is moving the flag.
Marshall McButterfly says . . . Flag is moving the wind.
Marshall McLuhan says . . . Your mind is moving.
Plato thought the word, or the conceptual, expresses the deepest
thing.
St. Augustine thought the sound, or the audible, expresses the
deepest thing.
^Spinoza thought the vision, or the visible, expresses the deepest
Nam June Paik: Self-Portrait, with "video commune.
Produced by WGBH-TV. Photograph: Eric Kroll.
A B S T R A C T T IM E
paul s c h im m e l : Could you tell me ab ou t your relation w ith C har
lotte Moorman? You did make T V Bra (1969) T V Cello (1971)
and T V B ed ( 1972) for her.
n a m j u n e p a ik : I consider her to b e a great video artist. Video art
w not just a TV screen and t a p e - i t is a whole life, a new w ay of life.
1he TV screen on her body is literally the em h o d y m en t of live video
yrt.
S PS: She becomes video.

Videa, Vidiot, Videology

n j p : T V Bra and T V Cello are interesting because Charlotte did
it. If any other lady cellist did it, it w ould have been just a gimmick.
C harlottes renow ned breast symbolizes the agony and achievem ent
of the.avant-garde for the p ast ten years. W hen given a choice b e
tw een truth and convenience, people always choose convenience.
Both artists and distributors are concentrating on video-tape-making,
w hich is more convenient, whereas my live video art w ith C har
lotte is expensive, clumsy, and, as an art object, almost u n sa la b le like a piece of truth. I t is about tim e th a t we m ake the distinction
betw een video art and videotaped art.
p s : H ow w ould you relate your Train
1973) w ith your TV
BraP
'
n j p : T he pair of two bras shows us the way to solve the energy
crisis and our current inflation-depression. I wish Charlotte had
been invited b y P resident F o rd to attend the economic summ it m eet
ing at the W hite House. T ransportation and communication are
generally considered as two separate issues; however, w e should ask
w h y people travel. People travel to com m unicate something, either
for pleasure or profit. In the case of pleasure driving, they are sub
consciously com m unicating w ith themselves via machine, since few
have th e courage to scrutinize their inner selves. Tireless indulgence
into video feedbacks by some video artists have the same motives.
The frequency of travel will reduce if the need to travel is reduced.
W hat we need is a substitute technology to travel. H ere the role of
video artists as the pioneer-experim enters in telecommunicationtransportalion trade-offs is great. Charlotte M oonnan showed us this
im pending conversion in the most elegant way, by adorning herself
with T V Bra a nd Train Bra.
PS: W h at is the m eaning of your T V B ed for Charlotte Moorman,
then?
n j p : I have b een working for T E L E -F U C K for a long time. I sent
the following letter to Billy Kliiver in 1965, which was printed in the
New York Collection for Stockholm (M oderna M useet).

Someday more elaborated scanning system and something similar to

matrix circuit and rectangle modulations system in color TV will
enable us to send much more information at single carrier band,
f.i. audio, video, pulse, temperature, moisture, pressure of your body

Nam June Paik with Charlotte Moorman: TV Bra for Living Sculpture.
1969. Courtesy Howard Wise Gallery, New York. Photograph: Gilles
Larrain.

Videa, Vidiot, Videology

127

combined. If combined with robot made of rubber, form expandableshrinkable cathode-ray tube, and if it is une petite robotine . . .
please, tele-fuck!
with your lover in RIO.
1965
Global promiscuity is the easiest guarantee for the w orld peace. If
100 top Americans have their tele-fuck-mates in U.S.S.R. (100 top
Russians w ives), wc can sleep a little bit safer. Video art is an art
ol social engagem ent, because it deals w ith energy and peace.
p s : W ithin the content of your video piecds; there seems to be an
interface betw een ritual-classical tradition and the m odern popular
culture. W hy is this?
1 *'.ke Jh.n C a8e R e a lise he took seriousness out of serious
art. T here is no difference betw een ritual, classical, high art and low
mass entertainm ent, and art. I livew hatever I like, I take.
PS: You come to video from music, w hereas many video artists
came from painting-sculpture. W h at is th e difference?
n j p : I think I understand tim e b etter than the video artists who
came from painting-sculpture. M usic is the m anipulation of time
All music forms have different structures and buildup. As painters
un deistan d ab stract space, I understand abstract time.
PS: D o you think your video will ever have mass appeal?
n j p : I couldnt care less about it. I enjoy my video. If people like
it, th at is their problem . This is w hy I sleep every M onday until
1:00 p .m . to show the world that I am independent. I am lazy. I tell
everybody not to call me on M onday.
p s . 1 h at w ay you don t have to w ear double-knits and go to work.
D id you ever have a steady job?
n j p ; No, not really. I just did w h at I thou gh t I should be doing.
p s : And y o u still do that?
n j p : A bum doesnt do anything he doesnt like. I do the same
thing.
p s : Do you th in k video as an a r t o b je ct w ill ev er tu rn into the
p ublic m ass m e d ia m a in stream , o r will it rem ain on th e frin g e of
society?
n j p : T he dem arcation line betw een high art and mass art is often

fuzzy, e.g., Buster Keaton and H um phrey Bogart w ere not consid
ered high a rt in the 1930s and 1940s, b u t now many highbrows con-

Videa, Vidiot, Videology

129

sider them to b e im portant artists. On the other hand, quite a few

high art pieces, including some Picassos, are now cliches.
Paul Schimmel

T V B R A F O R L IV IN G SC U L P T U R E (1969)
N a m June PaikCharlotte Moorman
In this case, the sound of the cello she plays will change, m odu
late, regenerate th e picture on her. T V BRA.
T he real issue im plied in Art and Technology is not to make
another scientific toy, b u t how to hum anize the technology and the
electronic m edium , w hich is progressing rapidlytoo rapidly. Prog
ress has already outstripped ability to program. I would suggest
Silent TV Station. This is TV station for highbrows, which trans
mits most of time only beautiful mood art in th e sense of mood
music. W h a t I am aiming at is TV version of Vivaldi . . . or elec
tronic Compoz, to soothe every hysteric woman through air, and
to calm down the nervous tension of every businessman through air.
In th a t w ay L ight Art will becom e a perm an ent asset or even col
lection of million people. Silent T V Station will simply be there,
not intruding on other activities . . . and being looked at exactly
like a landscape . . . or beautiful bath ing n u de of Renoir, and in
that case, everybody enjoys the original . . . and not a reproduc
tion . . .
T V Brassiere for L iving Sculpture (C harlotte M oorm an) is also
one sharp example to hum anize electronics . . . and technology. By
using TV as b ra . . . th e most intim ate belonging of hum an beings,
we will dem onstrate the hum an use of technology, and also stimulate
viewers N O T for something m ean b u t stim ulate their fantasy to look
for the new, imaginative, and hum anistic ways of using our tech
nology.

v:

1963. T he following essay was w ritten im mediately after my ex|ge: hibit of electronic television at Galerie Parnasse, W uppertal, Ger1,: many in M arch 1963. It was printed in the June 1964 issue of the
FLUXUS N ew spaper, N ew York.

130

N a m J u n e P a ik w i t h C h a r l o t t e M o o r m a n

(1 )

I can compose something, w hich lies

higher ( ? ) than m y personality,
or
lower (?) than my personality.

My experimental TV is
not always interesting
but
not always uninteresting
like nature, w hich is beautiful,
not because it changes beautifully,
b u t simply because it changes.

The core of the b eau ty of nature is th a t the limitless QUANTITY

of nature disarm ed the category of QUALITY, which is used u n
consciously mixed and confused w ith double meanings.
t ) character
j&) Value.
In my experim ental TV, th e w ord Q U A L IT Y m eans only the
CHARACTER, b u t ifot the VALUE.
A is different from B,
b u t not that
A is b etter than B.
Sometimes I need red apple
Sometimes I need red lips.
(2 )))
2 My experim ental TV is the first ART ( ? ) , in w hich the perfect
crime is possible. . . . I h ad pu t just a diode into opposite direc
tion, and got a w aving negative television. If my epigons do the
same trick, the result will be completely the same (unlike W ebern
and W ebem -ep ig on s) . . . th at is . . .
My TV is N O T the expression of my personality, b u t merely
a PHYSICAL M U SIC
-

like my FLU X U S cham pion contest, in w hich th e longestpissing-time record holder is honored with his national hymn (the
first champion: F. Trow bridge. U.S.A. 59.7 seconds).
My TV is more (? ) than the art,
or
less (? ) than the art.

Videa, Vidiot, Videology

it

Therefore ( ? ) , perhaps therefore, the working process and the

finalI result has little to do
and therefore, . . by no previous
w oik was I so happy working as in these TV experiments.
n usual compositions, we have first the approxim ate vision of the
com pleted work ( th e pre-imaged ideal, or ID EA , in the sense of
P tato). lh e n , the working process means the torturing endeavor
to approach to this ideal ID EA . But in the experimental TV the
thing is com pletely revised. Usually I dont, or cannot h av e any
pre-im aged V ISIO N before working. F irst I seek the W A Y of
which I cannot foresee w here it leads to. T he WAY, . . . that
means to study th e circuit, to try various FEED BA CKS, to cut
some places and feed the different waves there, to change the phase
of waves, e tc , . . . whose technical details I will publish in the
next essay
. Anyway, w hat I need is approximately the same
kind of ID E A th a t American ad agency used to use, . . just a
Cy t0 something NEW . This m odern (?) usage of
q Z u t , . 11,011 t0 do w ith T R U T H , "ETERN ITY, C O N
SUMM ATION, ideal IDEA, which P la to -H e g e l ascribed to this
celebrated classical terminology. ( ID E A ) =

KUNST 1ST D IE E R S C H E IN U N G D E R ID E E .
Art
is
appearance
of the idea.
( H egelSchiller.)
This^difference should be underlined, because the Fetishism of
Idea seems to me the main critical criterion in the contemporary
art, lik e. Nobility and Simplicity in the Greek art ( W inckelm ann)
or tam ous five pairs of categories of Wolfflin in Renaissance and
Baroque art.

132

N a m J u k e P a ik w i t h C h a r l o t t e M o o r m a n

4
IN D E T E R M IN IS M and VARIABILITY is the very U N D E R D E
V ELO PE D p aram eter in the optical art, although this has been the
central problem in music for the last ten years (just as param eter
SEX is very underdeveloped in music, as opposed to literature and
optical a r t ).
a) I utilized intensely the live-transmission of normal program,
w hich is th e most variable optical and semantical event in 1960s.
'1 he beauty of distorted Kennedy is different from the' beauty of
football hero, or qfot always pretty b u t always stupid female an
nouncer.
V " tj
b ) Second dim ension of variability.
Thirteen sets suffered thirteen sorts of variation in their VIDEOIIO RIZO N TA L-V ERTICA L units. I am proud to be able to say that
all thirteen sets actually changed their inner circuits. No two sets
had the same kipd of technical operation. Not one is the simple blur,
w hich occurs' w hen you turn the vertical- and horizontal-control
buttons at home. I enjoyed very m uch the study of electronics, which
I began in 1961, and some life danger I m et while w orking with
fifteen kilovolts. I h ad the luck to m eet nice collaborators: H ID E O
U C IIID A (president of U chida Radio Research Institute), a genial
avant-garde eleetronician, who discovered the principle of transistor
two years earlier than the Americans, and SHUYA ABE, all-mighty
politechnician, w ho knows th a t the science is m ore a b eauty than
the logic. U C H ID A is now trying to prove the telepathy and proph
ecy electromagnetically.
c) As the third dimension of variability, the waves from various
generators, tape recorders, and radios are fed to various points to
give different rhythm s to each other.' This rather old-typed beauty,
w hich is not essentially com bined w ith high-frequency technique,
was easier to understand to the normal audience, m aybe because it
h a d some hum anistic aspects.
d) There arc as m any sorts of TV circuits as French cheese sorts.
F.i. some old models of 1952 do certain kind of variation, which
new models w ith autom atic frequency control cannot do.

Videa, Vidiot, Videology

133

D IS A S T E R IN N E W Y O R K
v n ! Paiu iS CUrrCI,ltl>' havi g two simultaneous exhibitions
m N ew Yoik galleries, and people who know something about art
are saym g th a t both of the exhibitions are disasters
H owever, despite the poor receptions and confused critiques, Paik
continues to offer im portant new ideas for video art.
Paik is a consistently confusing and irreverent artist

w b f en malcixig technological and video artworks for many

years. He has been closely identified w ith video art ever since there
U ll
/T o t?
n g - Hls new exhibition rtf video art at the Bonino
Gallery (1976) is consistent w ith his earlier works in that it is
preposterous, serious, and quite funny indeed.
In one of his earlier exhibitions Paik designed a video cello
Concerto for T V Cello (1971), for cellist Charlotte Moorman. Ms
.,W re a complex device consisting of several television
monitors piled one on top of another to form a cello shape. Moor
m an d s o hap pened to be physically w ired to these devices and, as
she played her video cello of piled-up television sets, various
shapes occurred on the screens of the sets. Although Moorman
didn t seem w orried m the least about getting electrocuted ( Paik
w o u ld n t let that h app en to me ), she frequently com plained about
the effects of exposure to w hat she called television radiation.
In the T V Cello w hat h app en ed was th a t by playing her instru
m ent th e perform er caused images on the screens to change. Thus
as performer, Ms. Moorman was directing the images on her sets.
It was an extraordinary conception and a theoretical masterpiece,
because instead of ffieing on television, the televisions were, in
fact, on C harlotte Moorman.
Another work by Paik, involving Charlotte Moorman, was called
Th T O D w a s m a d e , m conjunction w ith a piece called Train Bra.
he T \ Bra consisted of two m iniature television sets affixed to
M lorm an s breasts; the Train Bra was two little train engines fixed
m atte WOm
Moorman, or worn by anybody else for that
There is a connection betw een T V Bra and Train Bra. According
I
f Vlde? art,sts are Pioneer-experimenters in telecommunication-transportation trade-offs, a situation illustrated . . . in a most

Nam June Paik: Concerto for Heaven and Earth. 1976. Installation
Bonino Gallery, New York. Courtesy Bonino Gallery, New York. Photo
graph: Eric Kroll.

Nam June Paik: Fish Flies on the Sky. 1976. Color, with sound, 30 mins.
Courtesy Bonino Gallery, New York.

Videa, Vidiot, Videology

137

elegant w ay by Ms. M oorm an adorning herself w ith T V Bra and

Train Bra.
T he two exhibitions by Paik currently displayed in N ew York
consist of M oon Is the O ldest T V Set at the Rene Block Gallery (in
which fifteen or so television monitors each display a different stage
of th e m oon) and a piece at the Bonino Gallery called Fish Flies
on the Sky.
W h at w e have at Bonino is ab ou t thirty color monitors fixed to the
ceiling, face-down. A rt lovers are invited to lie on the floor to get a
more com fortable view of the monitors above. Thus the traditional
vertical gravity-oriented top-and-bottom direction o,video viewing,
which has its origins in painting of the D uecento, is, for the very first
time since Michelangelo attem p ted his Vatican ceilings, subverted.
T he subversion of vertical top-bottom viewing goes hand in hand
with the subversion of vertical looking. M odern painting, from its
origins in the D uecento until the present, has relied upon a major
precondition, or perhaps limitation, and th a t is that it be viewed
from a vertical or standing-up position. W ith th e change to a lyingdown position, and the change in view point th a t goes along, art,
viewing, and video move significantly into a new era.
It is as though video art has discovered its relationship w ith h ig h
way architecture and drive-in cinema.
T here are two tapes program m ed on Paiks color monitors. A p
proximately one-half of the monitors show a tape of tropical fish
swimming around. The other half show jet aircraft flying around.
Thus the subject m atter of b oth tapes m ay be read as m etaphor for
the concept of natural transportation, such as that perform ed by
fish, and on the other hand, th e concept of artificial transportation,
such as th a t associated w ith all aircraft, particularly m ilitary aircraft.
Betw een the airplanes flying above and the fish swimming below
is, of course, the surface of the w ater upon which boats float. And,
according to Paik, the perfect video is the steamship.
Paik s m etaphors concerning video experimentation and theory
represent some of th e m ost original and entertaining ideas presented
through and about video art. I t is, perhaps, for this reason th at he is
recognized as the dean of art video.
Gregory Battcock
Nam June Paik: Fish TV. 1976. Installation Bonino Gallery, New York
Courtesy Bonino Gallery, New York. Photograph: Eric Kroll.

A Provisional Overview of Artists Television

A PROVISIONAL
OVERVIEW OF ARTISTS
TELEVISION IN THE U.S.
/DAVID ROSS

/
In this article David Ross, deputy director for television/film at the Long
Beach Museum of Art, traces the recent historical development of video
art in America. He sees the earliest artworks incorporating video as having
been realized by Nam June Paik and Wolf Vostell, in collaboration with
Karlheinz Stockhausen,' at the experimental center of the West German
radio network in Coldgne in the 1960s.
It was the introduction by the Sony Corporation of low-price half-inch
portable recording and camera equipment in 1965 that marked the begin
ning of the use of video by artists. Prior to 1965 television tools were
used almost exclusively by large corporations and major political parlies
for one-way delivery of prepackaged information.
Video art, according to Ross, allows the artist the opportunity to make
an essentially personal statement [that] can be relayed . . . in a mode
that is as singular and personal . . . as face-to-face communication.
Basically, Ross notes, video artists are involved in a generalized explora
tion of the nature of communication.
The history of art is the history of the purpose of art.
John Graham, 1932
T he simple fact that contemporary artists are actively working with
tools of television production and distribution is no longer a source
of w idespread bemusem ent. In general, m aking video tapes has be
come as common an activity as printmaking, photography, and draw
138

139

ing. As John Baldessari said: to have progress in TV, the m edium

m ust b e as neutral as a pencil. Clearly, the advent of this kind of
artm aking has provided artists w ith a set of tools for dealing w ith
some of the m ore interesting philosophical and pragm atic problems
confronting them today. Though these issues are only peripherally
related to television p er se, there is a real correspondence betw een
the em erging political and aesthetic philosophies th a t have accom
panied recent radical activity in art and mass communications.
E lie Faure, th e pioneering film aesthetician w riting in the 1920s,
noted th a t film essentially constituted an architecture of movement.
Perhaps it is becom ing increasingly possible to se^ video as an archi
tecture as wellan architecture of intention and a provisional archi
tecture too. Its history, like that of art itself, is the history' of its
purpose. Television is no longer viewed as an activity of the culture
bu t rather one that is the culture. As a result, the video work that
has em erged in the past ten years has tended to reflect both a direc
tion and m ood in many ways broad and undefined.
Video allows the artist the opportunity to address a num ber of
vital concerns in relation to the viewer. F irst of all, an essentially'
personal statem ent can be relayed (in a very direct w ay) in a mode
that is as singular and personal (in scale and intensity) as face-toface communication. F urther, the time-based nature of the state
m ent adds a captivating element to the message th at the artist can
either exploit (b y extension over a long period of time, creating a
resultant bo redo m /tension /release cycle) or bypass (b y creating
w ork th at is im m ediately gratifying). In other words, the real-time
consciousness of the viewer becomes the blank canvas, w hich can
obviously be dealt w ith in a variety of ways. On a sociopolitical
level, video is an effective and nonprecious activity aimed, primarily,
at extending tire range and bread th of the artists com m itm ent to,
and relations with, the audience. The notions of a dem aterialized art,
w hich united a highly' diverse group of sculptors, dancers, poets,
painters, and docum entarians in eclectic m ultim edia investigations
into the nature of art, seem to have gelled into a set of activities
called (fairly ineffectively) video art. W ithin this set, the creation
of video tapes accounts for a great deal of the activity, although it is
im portant to note th a t many' im portant video works involve the
sculptural manipulation of video tools themselves, live performances,
or, in some instances, the m anipulation of com plete television sys

140

D a v i d R oss

tems from production to broadcasting. As coequals, w orking w ith a

m edium th a t has little traditional grounding, video artists ( a term
some consider derisive) find themselves involved in a generalized
exploration of the nature of com munication rath er than tire nature
of the m edium itself. Some artists m ay explore the relative qualities
of illusion draw n betw een video and other forms of docum entation,
while others m ay work w ith the kind of light em itted by a television
tu b e or w ith the similarities betw een video systems and neurological
processes.
W hichever approach is adopted w hen working w ith video tape,
the artist cannot ignore either the presence of the display monitor
or th e potential of indiscriminate anarchitectural delivery of the
w ork to an isolated, yet com fortable and secure audience. Video
works created w ith an understanding of the audience often seem out
of place in the context of .an art gallerythe works becom e filmic ( in
delivery) and their original intention is easily perverted. This is a
problem th at will persist until museum advocacy for this kind of
artist-public com munion reaches the point whore it will be as com
monplace for museums to have their own television channels as it
is for them to h o u se 'a n d maintain gallery spaces. Nam June Paik
sum m ed up the basis for this kind of thinking in a 1972 collage Do
You K now (d edicated to Ray Johnson, one of the first correspond
ence artists). Paik added a few lines to an early 1940s magazine ad
that queried: H ow soon after the w ar will television be available
for the average home? Ilis response becomes a leading question for
the 1970s: H ow soon will artists have their own TV channels? The
point to b e m ade here is th a t in the midst of a deepening political,
economic, and ecological crisis, we are witnessing a very real revo
lution in areas of communications and controla revolution as pow
erful as that which followed the introduction of movable type.
Communications systems have outgrow n the need for m ediating in
stitutions; museums must stop translating and start transmitting.
Artists have recognized their right and responsibility to create not
only works of art, b u t the support and distribution system th at serves
as the context for the work as well.
I had a seven-channel childhood.
-B ill Viola, 1973

A Provisional Overview of Artists Television

141

W h a t exactly is m eant by th e term video art? W e can attem pt to

define it as any artw ork involving video tools: television cameras,
video sets, videotape recorders or projectors, and a variety of im age
processing devices or television systems in general. Sculptural works
th a t m ake use of video tools are still primarily sculpture, dealing
w ith spatial, temporal, and systemic problem s and often w ith psy
chological and metaphysical attitudes as well. The term video m ight
be applied to video tapes shown in the closed-circuit context of a
museum, the commercial gallery, or a collectors home, while the
same video ta p e shown through open-circuit transmission via broad
cast or cable TV m ight be called television purely affthe result of the
basic socioeconomic difference betw een the two.
Though contemporaneous w ith the heyday of the somewhat fad
dist art and technology m ovem ent of th e early 1960s, the origins of
video art now seem far rem oved from all th a t activity. Video art
did not develop only as a result of artists fascination w ith the tech
nology of video per se. I t w ould seem rath er to have resulted from
the m ore or less random coalescence of a w ider range of specific
aesthetic issues that eventually led to the developm ent of a general
ized orientation away from the making of a rt objects.
T he earliest artworks incorporating video w ere realized by Nam
June Paik and W olf Vostell, working in collaboration w ith Karlheinz
Stockhausen at the experimental center of th e W est German radio
network ( W D R ) in Cologne. Paik and Vostell w ere am ong a rapidly
growing num ber of artists who brought musical and theatrical con
cerns w ith structured time and its obverse, randomness and indeter
minacy, to the visual arts. These artists, who regarded Marcel
D ucham p, cybernetician N orbert W iener, and John Cage as some
how central to their concerns, form ed Fluxus, a loosely knit group,
in N ew York; it h ad first flourished in Europe. Paik, originally a
com poser/m usician, began his experim entation w ith TV by distort
ing the television im age mechanically, placing magnets on the screen
and maladjusting com ponents within th e set itself, preparing the
television set in an electronic analogy to Cages prepared piano.
Vostell an d Paik first used prepared televisions in de-collage p er
formances (Vostells b ran d of H ap pen in g) late in 1959. By 1963
Paik was exhibiting his p repared televisions at the Gallery Parnasse
in W uppertal, and Vostell was displaying his own de-collaged ( i.e.,
partially dem olished) sets at New Yorks Smolin Gallery.

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D a v i d R oss

Paik himself h a d been in N ew York for barely a year w hen the

Sony Corporation announced their intention to m arket a portable
television cam era and recorder at approxim ately one-tw entieth the
cost of all previous television-production equipm ent. Paik m ade
arrangem ents to buy the first u nit to b e delivered for sale in New
York, in late 1965, th e sam e year th at M arshall M cL uhan published
U nderstanding Media.
T he situation th a t existed before the introduction of relatively in
expensive consum er-grade half-inch equipm ent was analogous to
th a t of a culture possessing a tightly controlled radio industry and
no telephone service a t all. Until 1965 television tools w ere used
almost exclusively by large corporations and major political parties
for one-way delivery of prepackaged inform ation; no provisions ex
isted for the use of "the fam e tools and delivery system for com mu
nications relating to the needs of the individual. T he half-inch
revolution not only led to th e possibility of utilizing decentialized
distribution systems such as cable TV, ad ap ted to m inority needs in
a pluralistic society; it, also greatly expanded the potential of video
as a m edium for m aking art.
By this tim e Fluxus events and the H appenings organized by
artists such as Allan K aprow, Charles Frazier, Claes Oldenburg,
R obert W hitm an, and Jim D ine h ad opened u p new attitudes in
American art tow ard interdisciplinary works, em phasizing the need
for an art th a t was inform ed by the general culture as well as in
form ing the culture. These early events in Americaand in Europe
an d Japan during the crucial decade of 1956-66are th e precursors
of m ost video and perform ance activity currently taking place in the
U nited States.
T he period from 1969 to 1970 saw th e beginning of official art
w orld recognition of artists work in video. In late 1969, Nicholas
W ilder, a Los Angeles art dealer, m ade the first sale of an artists
-video tape in the U nited S tates-B ru ce N aum ans V ideo Pieces A -N
- t o a E uropean collector. In the same season, N ew York dealer
H ow ard W ise (w hose gallery was the home of a great deal of the
kinetic art of th e early 1960s) held an impressive exhibition of
young video artists working in N ew York entitled TV as a Creative
M edium, including works by Paik, F rank Gillette, Ira Schneider,
P aul Ryan, E ric Siegel, and others. In contrast to N au m a n s early
video work, w hich was an extension of his body-oriented post-

Allan Kaprow: Rates of Exchange. 1975. Black & white, with sound, 45
inins. Courtesy Anna Canepa Video Distribution, Inc., New York. Photo
graph: Harry Shunk.

144

D a v i d R oss

minimalist sculptural activities, th e works in the W ise exhibition

tended to be m ore openly involved either w ith the sociopolitical
aspects of television as the dom inant inform ation system or w ith the
technical possibilities of synthesizing television im ages w ith com
puters and similar electronic devices. T he split betw een those artists
who w ere prim arily involved in th e relationship betw een art and the
culture, seeing television as a w ay to integrate the two, and those
who merely ad o p ted these new ly developed techniques as y et an
other tool on w hich the artist m ight draw , seemed form idable at that
time. Interestingly, in the past year or so that dichotomy seems vir
tually to have disappeared. M any more sociologically inclined art
ists such as Beryl Korot have found it necessary to tighten and
expand the formal elements in their work, w hile a more formal
sculptor, Richard Serra, produced the purely didactic Television
Delivers People in 1973. 'j " jj
T he W ise exhibition featured one work th at remains interesting
to date, though no t for.vreasons th a t w ere obvious in 1970. W ip e
Cycle, a m ultim onitor work by F rank Gillette and Ira Schneider,
was ( as Schneider noted at the tim e ) an attem pt to integrate the au
dience into the inform ation. T h a t integration included m anipulation
of the audiences sense of tim e and space, giving the work the com
bined im pact of a live perform ance and a cybernetic sculpture. The
piece consisted of a bank of nine monitors program m ed into four
distinct cycles including two prerecorded tape inputs, a live camera
on an eight- and sixteen-second delay loop, a mix of off-the-air pro
grams, and a unifying gray w ipe th a t sw ept the field counterclock
wise every few seconds. At the time, it was felt by critics like Richard
Kostelanetz th at the piece was an investigation into the nature of
information, concerned primarily w ith the effect of shifting time
orientation. Now the piece seems to underscore the peculiarity of
the naivete dem onstrated by American video artists w ho saw the
ability to produce video work on low-cost video equipm entdi
vorced from any consideration of real distributionas a revolution
ary occurrence. W ip e Cycle can now b e seen as a clear statem ent
of the artists continuing position well after the fact in relation to
w hat m ay be televisions most significant aspect and salient feature
-in d iscrim in ate transmission. F urtherm ore, the piece, by its elab
orate structure (im itatin g industrial m ultim edia displays in form,
bu t surpassing them in com plexity) was one of the first to indicate

A Provisional Overview of Artists Television

145

th a t in lieu of broadcast access and in consideration of the condi

tions im posed by the gallery, installation works involving technical
capabilities of television not possible in transmission could be em
ployed to somehow correct the out-of-placeness of television in such
a loaded context.
By 1970 the first American m useum exhibition of video art h ad
been organized by Russell Connor and m ounted at the Rose Art
M useum of Brandeis University outside Boston. At that time, the
predom inant attitu de of artists working w ith television can perhaps
be sum m ed up in a line from G ene Youngbloods E xpanded Cinema:
contem porary artists have realized th a t television, for the first time
in history, provides the means by w hich one can control the move
m ent of inform ation throughout the environm ent^ Partially in re
sponse to the rap id popularization of the w ork of Buckminster
Fuller, and partially to the em ergence of ecological consciousness
in general, early video work tended to reflect an emphasis on and
understanding of the environm ental im pact and capabilities of tele
vision in the broadest sense. The Brandeis exhibition occurred al
most exactly a year after G eriy Schum broadcast the film L and Art,
inaugurating his pioneering video gallery, w hich was less concerned
w ith video than it was w ith broadcasting prim ary inform ation about
artists work directly to the home. A year later the first museum
video departm ent was established at the Everson M useum in Syra
cuse, N ew York, nam ing this w riter as its first curator. T he Everson
opened a closed-circuit gallery specially designed for video viewing,
and continues its series of video-oriented exhibitions, w hich offer a
wide range of work.
T he phenom enon of museum involvem ent with television and
video came about in response to two factors: the growing interest of
artists in the m edium , an d the growing involvement of museums
themselves w ith social issues beyond a purely aesthetic contextan
involvement th a t has been prom pting museums to reevaluate their
role as a com munity resource. W hile the Everson Museum and the
Long Beach Museum of Art in California are as y et the only such
institutions w ith separate video departm ents, an increasing num ber
of museums thro ug ho ut th e country have h ad at least a fleeting re
lationship with television in the form of closed-circuit in-house
exhibits. Several larger institutions, including T h e M etropolitan M u
seum of A rt in New York and the Cleveland Museum, produce edu-

146

D a v i d R oss

cational television b ased on their collections, w hile the Boston

Museum of F ine Arts continues to produce a series of broadcast
programs on a rt initiated in 1953.
W ith the exception of the new L ong Beach M useum, now under
construction, m useum s hav e yet to extend their involvem ent w ith
television to include their own broadcast stations, or cable television
systems using low-cost equipm ent, in an attem p t to redefine the
basic elements of m useum architecture broadly enough to include
such an obvious feature of the environm ent. In this respect, m u
seums rank far behind banks and theatres, w hich have at least fig
ured out how to m ake their architecture responsive to changes in
architecture necessitated by the American dependence on the auto
mobile.
At the 1975 conference of the American Association of Museums
in Los Angeles, the issue of^validating m odern art was discussed at
length by a panel off m useum directors representing some of the
most prestigious m odern-art m useum s in E u rope and America. Al
though they differed on m any points, most seem ed to agree that
museums do play a significant role in validating a small segm ent of
the vast am ount of an t th a t is produced in the w orld today, by giving
their tacit or indirect approval of a particular artist or a specific
school. T he point w as never m ade, however, that the validating
process is reciprocal: Artists validate m useum s and galleries just as
collectors do, etc., etc. T he character of m uch recent postobject art
has tended, paradoxically, to intensify the self-referential and closed
n atu re of this system, at the same time m aking its tautological as
pects uncom fortably clear. T hough this has not led so far to any
significant change in th e operation of the m useum /gallery/collector
system, it seems increasingly probable th at the art itself will some
how obviate the entire validating process. Since video, like much
conceptual perform ance work, is essentially uncollectable, its pa
trons m ust focus on th e sponsorship of inquisitive rath er tfian ac
quisitive activity. T he role of the museum in regard to video art
may w ell becom e th a t of a catalyst for the developm ent of museumoperated art-specialized television channels, as well as an imme
diate though tem porary physical location for th e exhibition of the
video w ork of P eter C am pus, Frank Gillette, Ira Sclineider, Paul Kos,
John G raham , et al.
If American museums are in a unique position to encourage this

!
I

148

D a v i d R oss

kind of disinterested patronage, they can also contribute substan

tially to the much-needed task of defining and protecting the rights
of the visual artist in relationship to the rest of society. In all the
other arts, the artists prerogative to maintain some degree of control
over the way his or her work is used for the commercial or political
benefit of other individuals or institutions is generally accepted;
these rights are even defined by law. So far as video is concerned,
the rights of the artist can easily be protected by a well-written con
tract not substantially different from those currently used in the
recording and publishing industries. As for other kinds of visual art,
including more traditional, object-based forms, the particular exam
ple of video art may help.fo. focus attention upon the problem and
to provide a model for the exercise of this urgent and significant
responsibility.
J
Most of the video wotk being made by artists in the U.S. today
can roughly be divided into three major categories: varieties of
video tape, performance pieces involving video tools either directly
or as secondary material, and sculptural constructions. These seem
ingly clear-cut distinctions are, unfortunately, significantly blurred
by the fact that many works contain elements of more than one
category, with economic and other contingencies determining the
nature of any particular presentation. Frank Gillettes video tape
Tidal Flats, for instance, was installed as a part of a complex instal
lation ( Q uidditas) that featured twelve segments of tape playing
asynchronically on three distinct video systems aligned to create a
montage of three congruent images in constant flux. At another
time, segments were seen in a single-monitor version, when all the
work was broadcast on public television. Similarly, a number of
tapes are either records of performance pieces or, like Vito Acconcis
Claim Excerpts (1973), were originally simultaneous video docu
mentations of performances where the action was visible to the
audience, within which we pigeonhole the works of artists using
video tools often purely for the convenience of critical discussion,
and in no way reflecting a priori decisions by the artist.
Still, it is important to remember that the physiological phenom
ena of television viewing play a significant role in determining the
relationship between the viewer and the work. The sociological im
plications of a medium designed and developed for casual homeoriented serendipitous access are in a way perverted when video

A Provisional Overview of Artists Television

149

tapes are shown in a public gallery space. While these sociological

and psychological factors are only rarely the subject of artistic in
quiry into the medium, they often bear heavily upon the artists
piimary intention. This nearly inescapable distortion of intention
must b e acknowledged and suffered, as the ideal situation for view
ing artists video tapes is yet to come.
r tJ n \e ^ ame
elation to ownership and the noncommodity
status of much video. One of the most interesting uses of video has
Comared to th111 ?
? the exPeriences of Performance works.
Gompaied to the ephemeral nature of performance a r t- a p a r t from
lesidue such as documentary material or preparatory scoresand^deTs6 I n ?
1 be * fai,rly Permanent record of activities
and ideas. In leahty, however, the shelf life of video tape as vet
undetermined, is estimated at ten to fifty years The video image

.< b" - 3 s
f n ? ^ ccnc^ *s a*? artist who uses video in conjunction with peronnance. A poet of the New York School in the early and middle
1960s, Acconci became widely known at the end of th at decade for
a r t 1H ? e Slnw PerS n r1 Performance P'cces, then term ed body
it His e m p h atic use of auto b io g raph ical inform ation stylized into

both
1
exploration of his physical self, has been presented
niece
performances and as sculptural installations The latter
L t a nr S T
S me kin,d f Prerecorded narrative infor
mation. At first this was on audio tape or film; more recently
L f e W illfam W eg0 USe,Vide0 taPe a,n d elosed-circuit video systems.
Like William \\ egman, Acconci works with the particularly intense
and intimate relationship that can be generated between a lone
te x to rIhcknofllt r tant T
aTVn Wer regardlcss f * e surrounding con
text or lack of context. Unlike Wegman, however, Acconci d o ls not
to n in g t o ?M m
i ? * * dffVelP s- Rather do he intensify it,
turning it on full blast m an effort to transfer the full intensity of
the experience. In Pryings, one of his earliest and least verbal tapes
f il<U e'S SSC1r tryinS to force open and gain entry into any and all
"imoofii T
*T ?
H 1*
E Z n l
time of the tape, as does the persistence of the woman under attack

150

D a v i d R oss

who manages to persevere in her attem pt to guard her metaphysical

privacy. In later tapes Acconci developed his use of th e m edium s
psychodramatic possibilities still further. In Undertone, he is able
to pry into his own subconscious and at the same time monitor the
viewers concurrent prying, while Face O ff reveals, through the art
ists rather monotonous yet direct monologue, the intimacies of a
sexual activity throughout the entire tape.
In a way related to Acconci, Terry Foxs C hildrens Tapes (1974)
demonstrates the artists commitment to the ritual aspects of per
formance, divorced from the perform ers physical presence. Fox
sought a way to translate his performance activities into video,
maintaining the involving immediacy of the experience. H e decided
to follow a series of interesting, if somewhat slow-moving, tapes
docum enting his perform ances-(sho t by George Bolling) w ith a
tape of his own. Fox reasoned that the taped piece m ight be suc
cessful if it could appeabfo his young son, whose response to a tele
vised experience was instinctive for one familiar with the medium
since birth. Using m uch of the same symbolic lexicon present in
most of his perform ance works, Fox created a series of active ta b
leaux involving, amofig other things, a spoon, a burning candle,
small bits of cloth, and a tin bowl. By interweaving these elements,
Fox illustrated a series of basic scientific postulates involving bal
ance, evaporation, expansion, and in the case of the rudimentary
flytrap, a slapstick illustration of behavioral psychology. The results
are amusing and engrossing, leading the viewer well beyond the
literal activity to an elegant and understated view of a very private
world.
Yet another relationship betw een perform ance and video is ex
plored by Bruce Nauman, the first artist to show video tapes in an
exhibition in the U.S. In Lip Sync, Nauman, like Acconci, used his
own body as primary material for the creation of a gestalt, attem pt
ing to link the sculptural tradition to the phenomenological aspects
of avant-garde dance and related body-movement work. This sixtyminute tape, originally presented at the Nicholas W ilder Gallery in
Los Angeles playing continuously on a m onitor m ounted on top of a
sculpture pedestal, was not necessarily m eant to b e viewed from
start to finish, b u t could be approached and contem plated as a
sculptural object. Clearly, N aum an was not unaw are of the timebased nature of the medium, nor did he decline to explore the effect

jr v
Harr Shunk"3

iupes. r a iq.
Wmie, witn sound, 30 min:
pa Vide Distnbution> Inc., New York. Photograph

A Provisional Overview of Artists Television

tio n Z H

E S S 0* f V UCh exPjoration is implicit in the situa-

tl^M cali^tv of fifm T

6 Wan,ted t0 av id connectins with the

m K L 'S S b r f l f 4
* p o ril
of
d e liw lf T

i T

' y f

of *

video tape
^

el 1 f " d * > to

. e d S W f r i * ,L L* S o t a i d t f ,

153

a S

, S

. S

fT
JF
l ? * C 1 ,p!ex ' d >P stndy containing

.ieo$;t*h:s f r of,beurb b-J '

Of ? t a p e Vofd a tapfe VertiCa\ Roll>J a* Jonas presents not just a tape

or a tape of a performance, b u t records the im age of that tane on a
Fane tT m om tor_the P a y b a c k undergoing a slow vertical roll The
tape thus contains a continuous circumstance, the playback roll
wrthm a specific time frame, creating a kind of temporal topo J a p h y
iT F rsF h T
gT n t
time in thiS w0rk is both disturbing in that
t jars the sense of propriety in the visual image, and reassuriL in

rhy,bmic~

&

,a,uman: ToniJ Sinking into the Floor (faceup and facedown).

1973. Color, with sound, 60 mins. Courtesy Castelli-Sonnabend Tapes
and Films, New York.
immediate access to relived psychotic episodes th at deliver an in
g c o 7nSxUtCh m re eaS% aPPrehended - he safety
ttoo S^occur
V Vth atZ heightens
r - n ^the bone-bare
SP1CG all
WS a kinde l of
immersion
reductive
ements of a
ichard Landry work like Quad S u ite -a tape focusing in a four-way

154

D a v i d R oss

split screen on the lips and fingers of a L andry flute piece, double
tracked in stereo video and audio. In curious contrast, Charlem agne
Palestines videotaped perform ance works B ody M usic I and Body
M usic 11 (b o th produced in Florence at A rt/T a p e s/2 2 ) illustrate
how an intensity can be generated by the integration of th e cam era
into the core of the w ork rather than establishing the cam era eye
as a neutral observer to the action. In B ody M usic II, Palestine
transform ed w h at in B ody W ork I reached th e view er as the ob
servation of an observers view by locating th e cam era w ithin his
ow n actionliterally extending his eye to include the viewer as well.
In contrast, N ancy H olt ( U nderscan, 1974), and Beryl Korot and
Ira Schneider (F ourth of July in Saugerties), employ a traditional
literary arrangem ent to portray differing points in historical time.
T he basis of H olts worWas a recollection of family history, while
Korot an d Schneider (coeditfcrs of the alternative m edia journal
Radical So ftw a re) havd borrow ed from the kino-eye theories of
early Russian revolutionary filmmakers like D ziga Vertov, investi
gating aspects of video reality in relationship to real time and place
in this case, the experience of a patriotic celebration in a small
town two hours north of New York City.
It is interesting to: note that in m ultiple-m onitor works like Beryl
Korots Dachau 1974, w here a short real-time activity is separated
into four tim e strands an d then rewoven w ith the precision of a
complex weaving, the artists are once again dealing w ith the fact
th at the work is being shown in a gallery situation closer to theatri
cality ( in its publicness) than television should be. This underscores
the curiously sculptural qualities th at the television set assumes
w hen taken out of the normative home context.
Paul Kos, a San Francisco artist closely associated w ith video
installation work, created C ym bals/Sym bols: Pilot B utte at the
De Young Museum in San Francisco. In this piece, Kos integrated
the soundtrack of the piece (a t one point the pun: T here are tiny
sounds in the desert; there arent any sounds in the desert ) w ith a
pair of tin sheets that had been rigged to act as loudspeakers. The
tin speakers literally and figuratively com pleted th e wordplay, and
in a real sense served to m aterialize the notion of opposition at work.
In his most recent work, T okyo Rose (1975-76), Kos again ex
tends th e field of his tape by surrounding it w ith a sculptural context
that uses th e television im age as bait to lure and capture the viewer.

Nancy Holt: Underscan. 1974 Black & w hito

tesy Castelli-Sonnabend Tapes a n d Film s New York

A Provisional Overview of Artists Television

157

Approaching a large mesh cage lit from angles so oblique that one
can hardly see inside, the viewer hears a droning seductive voice
(Marlene^ Kos, the w orks coauthor) coaxing: you cant resist
f 1" ' J:tc- s inside, you see her face, taped behind a screen
which flies land and take off, still enticing the viewer in sensual
rhythmic cadence to give up, stay with her, etc. Beyond the obvious
p ay of screen/m aterial and screen/video, the combination works in
a way like N aum ans screen room to heighten the viewers sense of
place and passive condition in relation to the work itself.
Juan Downeys multiple-channel works that comprise his Video
1 rans Americas series are built from tapes edited to be played
simultaneously in pairs Structured with incredible precision, works
like, Nazca, Inca and Cuzco develop temporal harmonies and disJhrn T
W1l n
Stere organizati<, f a d in g the viewer
t r o u g h an active experience of real-time apprehension in the
mystical spaces he seems to conjure rather than merely record. The
notion of the artist as cross-cultural communicant, as Downey de
scribes it, speaks to both the inherent architectural properties of
communications system s-even those as rudimentary as one in which
the artist makes tapes m a caravan, shooting in one town, editing on
S t r0a(r 1
showjng
work to the people of the next town His
<cknowledgment of the difficulty inherent in re-creating that kind
of experience in the gallery space that one senses in his highly
mannered end-works reconfirms the fact that artists must see video

Marlene and Paul Kos: Tokyo Rose. 1975-76. Black & white, with sound,
11 mins., 10 secs. Courtesy Castelli-Sonnabend Tapes and Films, New
York. Photograph: Paul Kos.

r S
aS. n , m0r\. thu n a funCti0n of a Peculiar architectural
equation involving both a sense of space and time.
In contrast to these artists who use the technical potential deW K w7 COmmercif 1 TV for phenomenological investigations,
William W egman employs its stylistic conventions like those of the
pitchman and stand-up comic. Taken out of context through the
use of low-resolution monochrome video and a kind of exaggerated
self-consciousness, these devices concentrate both on the aesthetic
; a i0r 1
reIatl0nship between the viewer and the work itself
and on the social factor of audience relationships with TV programs
m general. Wegmans tapes are authentically humorous in their
confrontation between traditional comic expectations and his droll
deadpan style. His interest in psychology, as well as his sense of
humor, is particularly evident in the tapes featuring his stoic
W eimaraner hound, Man Ray, which play on the dogs behavioral

A Provisional Overview of Artists Television

159

hav io ralp sy ch d o g y eLiSdT V hu m M -nge radlCally 0ur notins of beDoAu g k seD arv f 2 o h

"

relationships w ith television is

into his work a u n d e r s t a X g o T T h e ^ X c d a, ?

implications of video. In his A u lr ia n T a p is a r e l o r d o / a T v e S
form ance broadcast on Aiicfrta + i
5
d ot a ,lve perDavis specifically a t t a c f e t h e n * 2 * ^ sum m er of 1974,
in relation to both television and a
notlons of viewer passivity
actually acting o u t a direct e n c o l t ^ l w W
7 suggesting and
p articipan t is invited to undress in f r o T n f th e' p f w^ ' m w hich the
touch like parts of the bodv w t t w i ,
? the television screen and
la te n tfe a rs of the cold i l l
, t h e a r tls t> D avis a t once exploits
to-one natu re K
S
1? d .^ p h a s iz e s i J o n e contrast to the m v t i b S
/ lew m t o r relationship, in
w ho h av e so thoroughly exnlored aJ,dlence ) J ^ e r e are few artists
only Joseph Beuys and Hhns r r , asP.ect of the medium; perhaps

reality. H i s ^ o k r ta p e T l ^ T r a m U i o l T i 1 97 3 f * Ct functions of

William Wegmnn: Selected Works Reel * 6 . 1975. Black & white, with
sound, 20 mins. Courtesy Castelli-Sonnabend Tapes and Films, New
York.
th e V e w ^ X ^ r ^ e c te d 0 " T
T 1 duc8d exPe
e
directly, b m by X w ork S
^ by th artist nOT the viewer
time. Ly; ss d i i & e t
h
a
n

f
as a concentrated cluster of liehr i

r W01'ks, sev exists

space. T he video p r S o r is
f T g ,m & SeTerely darkened

* .

^ "s-^ ssfasss

A Provisional Overview of Artists Television

161

viewer a condition in w hich the notion of fixed points of reference

gives w ay to th e experience of m ultiple points of view and m ultiple
points in time. Anam nesis, probably m ore than any of Cam puss
earlier works, represents th e previous phase of this artist, originally
schooled in experimental psychology. In a w ay far more elegant and
surely m ore deeply m oving than tire illustrations used to illuminate
the theories of G estalt psychologists like E dg ar Rubin, K urt Koffka,
or W olfgang Kohler, Cam pus creates experim ental epistemologies
th a t provide the situation in w hich a participant will form ulate a
learning experience to support th e reality of his im m ediate p ercep
tions of the situation Campus has created. In Anam nesis (m eaning
to recollect or to reproduce in m em ory) the viewer enters a large
dark space to find one pool of light created by a narrow-focused
spotlight. U pon entering the lighted field, the viewer-participant
sees his or her im age video-projected, life-size, on the facing wall.
As the viewer stares at his or h er image, he is u naw are th a t it is
com posed of a live, real-time video signal as well as an im age taken
off a delay loop three seconds past and superim posed upon the live
image. It is only upon moving that the view er-participant discovers
th a t h e is pulling a three-second time trailer behind, at every instant
leading to some sort of m ediation betw een the two dissimilar though
simultaneously ap parent points in time and space.
With video you can do everything and still watchits a continuation
of your life.
Nam June Paik, 1975

Douglas Davis: Images from the Present Tense I. 1971. Black & white,
with sound, 30 mins. Courtesy Electronic Arts Intermix, Inc., New York.
Photograph: Peter Moore.

Finally, w e m ust consider T V Garden (1974), Nam June Paiks

tour d e force consisting of twenty-five color TV sets all playing
Paiks international version of American Bandstand, Global
Groove, in all colors, shades, and hues. In an essay w ritten in 1965,
Paik noted th a t C ybernated art is very im portant, b u t art for cyber
n ated life is more im portant, and the latter need not b e cybernated.
Com bining interests in Zen, cybernetics, painting, musical composi
tion, and a global politics devoted to survival and constant change,
Paik blazed the trail for a whole generation of video and conceptual
artists.
.
.
T he T V Garden featuring Global Groove is indicative of Paiks

162

D avid R oss

eclectic character. T he garden is indeed real, as th e array of tele

vision sets nestles am ong dozens of live greens, some of w hich
partially obscure the view of certain screens w hile others fram e as
many as three sets at a time. T he ta p e itself starts out w ith a B road
way version of a 1960s rock and roll dance set to Bill H aleys Rock
A round the Clock. The scene changes rapidly to a K orean drum
dancer, then to Allen G insberg as his face is distorted by a video
synthesis process invented b y Paik and the Japanese engineer Shuya
A be in 1969. T he tape continues to jum p wildly from a Navajo
Indian, to the Living T heatre, to a N igerian dancer, to a 1930s fan
dancer, and back to rock and roll. Originally prod uced t o ,h e a
broadcast on a U nited Nations satellite, the w hole collage was a
spoof on M arshall M cLuhanls notion of global village. Im plicit in
Paiks ta p e is th e threat/of the possible m isuse of global com m unica
tions systems in a comAercially overdosed fashion, analogous to th e
fate of U.S. telecom m unications ever since 90 percen t of all avail
able V H F broadcast frequencies w ere aw arded to commercial
developers w ay back in 1953. But on a far simpler level the work is
as enjoyable as Paik could m ake it; it is a concerted effort to m ake
a truly avant-garde form bo th entertaining and effective.
T here is no w ay in w hich a com pletely com prehensive view of
American video activity could be presented; b u t probably m ore im
portant, it is doubtful w hether such a view should be presented.
T he range of artists using television for one reason or another is not
enough to w arrant any categorical statem ent of their similarity based
on the use of a particular m edium . T here exists, after all, a tendency
tow ard th e narcissism of the p erform er as well as a tendency tow ard
th e anonym ity of the docum entarian; a tendency tow ard th e straight
forw ard representation of realities acknow ledged in any n um b er of
ways as well as the creation of abstract, nonrepresentational im
agery; and all of this w ithin w hat is too often simplistically labeled
video art. Clearly, the developm ent of artists use of television is
the result of a nu m ber of sim ultaneous phenom ena, some of which
are grounded in the advance of com munications technology, some
of w hich are grounded in arts recent tum ultuous history, an d some
of w hich are the direct result of a more general planetary malaise
involving politics, biology, and th e complex interface th a t links themboth. Like other forms of contem porary expression, the roots of
artists television in America are d eep and complex.

Nam June Paik: Allen Ginsberg

Photograph: Davidson Gigliotti.

A Provisional Overview of Artists Television

165

In 1934 W alter Benjamin, writing in his essay The Work of Art

in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction, noted that in the early part
of the twentieth century a good deal of futile thought was devoted
to the question of w hether or not photography was an art. The
primary question, Benjamin observed, had not been raised: H ad the
very invention of photography not transformed the entire nature of
art? Likewise, the current boom in video work should not prompt us
to debate over the legitimacy of this works claim to art-ness, but
should lead us to examine changes effected by video throughout
a rt-a n d , by extension, throughout the full range of our cybernated
society.
.

Chris Burden: Do You Believe in Television? 1976. Black & white. Photo
graph courtesy the artist.

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