On Video and Conceptual Video
For Professor Paul Sharits
1975
Video is a tool whose uses are determined by the person using it. The individual approaches to the medium are as varied as are the personalities of the artists. However, because of the complexity inherent in the technology as well as in the thought processes of human beings, many video artists today concentrate on the IDEA which they wish to express or on the electronics and technique behind the camera. The medium is so new that only a handful of artists have successfully merged content and technique while maintaining a clear expression of human sensitivity and thought. The work done in all areas of video is forming a vocabulary of affects and effects for us to better understand the individual artist as well as to understand the new medium.
Though I have suggested two categories of video art and artists, I find the terms “conceptual” art and “technique oriented” art ambiguous. This is because I feel that once a person is well acquainted with his or her vehicle for communicating, he or she is no longer discovering the techniques alone, he or she uses the technology to discover a particular reality within his or her mind. In Art Forum of December 1974, Hollis Frampton stated, “The images we make are part of our minds, they are living organisms that carry on our mental lives for us darkly, whether we pay them any mind or not.”[1]
With the help of our technological tools, our capabilities for expression are extended. The machines are dynamic reflections of the human mind and brain. The technology is created by human beings, understood by many, and the images generated are highly organized innovations symbolic of the inner workings of our gray matter. Also, without human beings to create and apply organization and programming, the machine is worthless. Human beings determine the programs and the machines do not.
It is evident that in the process of developing the necessary skills for using the tools, a person may concentrate mainly on how to control the machine. Here, one may wonder if a person is modeling his or her mind after the structure of the machine or whether the tool is actually reflecting the person’s mind. I feel that this is a transient stage, an educational necessity for creative activity in the medium.
Similarly, after some time of concentrating on what goes on in front of the camera and not on special effects behind it, techniques can easily be integrated into the work of art as a deepening wealth of information to be communicated. When an artist is familiar with a tool, spontaneity does not exclude experimentation with new aspects of it.
Thus, I feel that concept and technique will eventually merge within the term “conceptual” video art. Artists will use video as a tool and fluently create through it.
Nevertheless, it is interesting to study what is presently referred to as “Conceptual Video”. As with video in general, the approaches to Conceptual Video are many and varied, ranging from minimal expression of a single and/or simple profound idea to very involved perceptual and conceptual relationships and paradoxes in the world of illusion.
Regardless of the individual uses of the video tools, all video artists share the history of video art and the history of art. Video art history is being made now, since video is a recent phenomenon and product of technology. Many of the forms of expression are similar to the traditions of painting, literature, music, and film. However, due to the fact that video is a flexible electronic system, it has capabilities that extend to the limits of the imagination. Since there is no extensive history for artists to reap the benefits of, the medium is like a whole new universe where the artist is the creator of new and unique experiences.
In the past for “Art” to exist, it was normal to assume that there must be an interaction between three components of an art “triad.” The three essentials were: the artist, or maker of the art object, the art object, and the audience whose function it is to observe and judge the object and individual, and determine whether they are “art” and “artist” at all.
Since World War II, there has been a trend to break the rigid boundaries separating what were traditionally referred to as “art objects,” “artists”, and “audiences.” As the walls break down, events, symbols, and concepts previously not considered to be “art” are accepted by the art world. During the sixties, artists became increasingly aware of the ability of the media to distort and censor the works of artists. Around 1969-70, a great deal of the work now known as conceptual art began to appear. Radically anti-art in flavor, these works were oriented towards a systematic investigation of the nature of art itself, rather than any of its formal properties. In other words, an emphasis on essence and concept rather than on objects resulted in what Lucy Lippard termed the “de-materialization of art.” [2] Today, many people still feel that art is just an art object which has value apart from the artist. However, this attitude is less popular than it was fifty years ago.
Just what is “art”? A dictionary definition defines it as “an application of skill and taste to production according to aesthetic principles.” [3] As in the cliché, “beauty is in the eye of the beholder”, what is considered to be aesthetic is largely an individual opinion. Art can be events, symbols, and concepts. Conceptual art stresses the significance of thoughts and ideas. Concepts are defined as “mental images of thought”, and thoughts are the results of images (and other stimuli and sensations).
Conceptual art deals with the breakdown of the art “triad” and other facets of human existence. Much of the art has used video passively for documentation of events. As I stated previously, a few artists have merged content and technique, and this is true of Conceptual artists as well, Peter Campus being a fine example. A relatively common characteristic is the emphasis on relationship between people, nature, video, abstract concepts (time, space, motion), other art forms and media, history, reflexively oneself, and therefore to whatever artists wish to express.
In the modern industrial age, plagued by a vast information explosion and “future shock”, there is a fear that technology will restrict our freedom and individuality. The manner in which the military uses machines is overwhelmingly dehumanizing and often inhumane, but the artists use the tools creatively. David Ross wrote in a newspaper called Televisions, “The appearance of collective groups like the Videofreex, Video Free America, Global Village, and Raindance, gave rise to great hopes for a future in which access to information would be a matter of individual choice and need, rather than the result of political or commercial expediency.” [4] Technology is not exactly neutral, as there is good and bad technology. But perhaps more importantly, it’s the people who make and use it who are not neutral. Most guns do not shoot themselves. I feel that freedom can be limited by technology, but it can also be enhanced, as it offers many possibilities for individual and collective expression which video art is exhibiting.
So many alternatives are offered to the inhabitant of the information-industrial society. Alvin Toffler wrote, “Whether man is prepared to cope with the increased choice of cultural wares available to him, is a totally different question. For there comes a time when choice, rather than freeing the individual, becomes so complex, difficult, and costly, that it turns into its opposite. There comes a time, in short, when choice turns into over-choice and freedom into un-freedom.” [5] One example of the freedom turning into un-freedom is the development of large, militaristic, war and terror producing machines to use against humanity. On another level, this could describe the plight of a factory worker repeating the same task endlessly.
As a result of over-choice, people attempting to adjust to constant change become increasingly aware of the environment, culture, themselves, and communication. Conceptual artists are dealing with these manifestations. The influences in their work are numerous. Philosophy, the history of art and music, literature, language, psychology, physiology, physics, mathematics, and other fields contribute to our rich world of thought. Video serves as a catalyst in combining the various media. Most of the videotapes that I have seen show the artist as an interdisciplinarian. At the same time I notice that the artist is liberating the traditional viewpoints towards “art,” “artist”, and “audience.”
It is impossible
to talk about video art without mentioning Nam Jun Paik. Paik was one of the
first artists to use the television medium for experimentation and expression.
He developed not only one of the first video synthesizers, but also stimulated
activity in closed-circuit video environments, sculptural pieces, and what Gene
Youngblood calls “synaesthetic” video (an aesthetic language based on the
nature of the medium). Paik’s works are usually satirical and reveal a great
deal about his Eastern philosophy. He says of his own work, “my experimental
television is not always interesting, but it is not always uninteresting: like
nature, which is beautiful not because it changes beautifully, but simply because
it changes.”
[6] He
attacks television and ridicules it. He is not exactly anti-art or
anti-technology, he is anti-anti. This means that rather than react to
information overload by being minimal, Paik uses technology to combat itself.
He states, “the real issue in Art and Technology is not to make another
scientific toy, but how to humanize the technology and the electronic medium,
which is progressing too rapidly.”
[7] So
Nam Jun Paik combined his Western electronics and Eastern Zen into some of
the most startling tapes and performances, the most satirical of which were his
sculptural pieces. In TV Bra for Living Sculpture, he covered Charlotte
Moorman’s breasts with two monitors, and the images were modulated by the cello
she was playing. Paik called this “another attempt to humanize technology.” He
also built a chair with a TV set for a seat so that a person could sit on their
favorite TV show. He has put together a Video Crucifix, and carefully
positioned a video monitor so that it appeared to look through a photo of a
vulva. These associations are powerful and perceptive criticisms of
television’s impact on our culture. He is so clear in his communication that
one is forced to re-evaluate one’s own relationship to the medium, as well as
to one-self. “Art”, says
John Baldessari is a Conceptual Video artist who started out as a painter. During the sixties, he exhibited with artists involved with the dematerialization of art, a quest to escape the making of objects. At first he had a sign painter paint the freely associated words he uttered onto canvas. To remove himself further from the static object, he tried successive photographs. In 1968, he discovered video. One of his “Polaroid movies” deals with his observation that people will watch anything at all on TV, and that the reason for it could be found in the audio track. In studying the soundtrack, he decided to select still photographs and have a friend match the music to them for the strongest impact.
Baldessari is interested in his own perceptions and expressions as well. About his relationship to video as a medium, he says, “Video is a tool that is there for the artist…I want to find out what TV is about for myself and my work. Why am I using the medium, is it because it’s cheap movies or because of the inherent qualities of video? There are certain things that video lends itself to, like real time…but the space in film is different than in video. I know I would shoot the same scene differently in video than I would in film. I’m mostly talking to my colleagues in my work, but I’m very aware of how video can be boring, the only way for TV to go on as an entertaining habit is to be aware of the audience and how you can flirt with but not cater to them. To have progress in TV, the medium must be as neutral as a pencil.” [9]
Indeed, John Baldessari’s work is a radical break from the traditional views towards art, artist, and audience. There is no “object”, just documentation of events related to his personal perception of the video medium. There is an audience, but the audience is comprised mainly of fellow artists. The content of the art is the content of the video and himself. He finds out more about video by questioning his own perceptions of the “Polaroid movie.”
In Art Herstory, Hermine Freed explores the nature of the video medium itself as well as looking to the history of women in painting in order to better understand her position in the history of women in art. As Nam Jun Paik said, “Artists use the past as a step to the discovery of purpose and meaning of a new medium…to find out what the difference is between older art forms and new art forms…eventually all art forms will merge into one.” [10]
Hermine Freed takes advantage of special effects in video to insert an image of herself over slides of historical paintings of women. She makes the images contemporary to the extent that the comparison of herself to roles of women in the past deserves long overdue attention. She points out that the roles of women in the arts have gone from being one of “object” to one of artist well able to use technology for creative expression. As an artist in Art Herstory, she creates an illusion of herself being an “object”, but simultaneously documents her reactions and the activities during the production of the tape. She is not narrating or telling a story in the traditional sense, she is documenting her perceptions and experiences in the process of working with the medium. So, the tape is about herself dealing with video and the history of women’s roles in the past.
Bill Wegman uses the intimacy and real-time nature of video to document his own scenarios and performances. He carries on a conversation with his dog, Man Ray, who appears to understand all that is said. Wegman tries to teach the dog English as though it was a child. There is a paradox, for indeed Man Ray cannot converse on the same complex and abstract level that Bill Wegman can, yet the animal appears to be doing so. Ironically, the subject of the exchange has to do with the ambiguities in the English language (puns), which make it difficult for people to communicate clearly. Wegman seems quite serious, and this is the strangest aspect of his tape, he is serious about something that cannot always be taken seriously.
7 Poems is a videotape by Frank Gillete. After having read his book, Tetragrammaton, [11] I feel that his tape suggests that we can learn about systems in nature, ourselves, and technology (cybernetics) by using video to combine natural images and motions. He uses the zoom capability to fuse his own natural body movements with images of forests and the ocean. For example, given a forest, he "scoops out" a tree or leaf, and then an obviously hand-held camera zooms out to show the whole forest. I feel that he is telling us that the whole is made up of essential parts, but the whole is greater than the sum of the parts. The forest looks whole from a distance, too, and the cumulative visual information becomes a complete and complex system, functioning differently than each of the individual parts (trees, rocks, dirt, water, air, etc). His addition of video creates a whole new system, a meta-system, and his concepts about relationships and order in nature are communicated more effectively by the use of his own motions within that system. His expression is also “synaesthetic.”
Joan Logue is an artist who started out in photography. Now, she uses video as a passive, documentary tool to emphasize the intimate, real time, and evolutionary quality of feedback in her work. In Videoportraits, she simply sets up a camera in a room with nothing other than a person in it. The person is left alone for the duration of the taping. “Because there is not a date or time, the person isn’t interpreted with anything. I’m celebrating the person. Since there is no context, they become the most important. The more the person comes back, the looser they feel in front of the camera.” [12] She is interested in the evolving nature of events and people; the transformations are necessary for understanding the subject. The concept, person, or individual is often so complex that in order to perceive it in actuality, all except the individual person or event must be removed from the scene.
Another accomplished artist-technologist is Peter Campus. In his endeavors he has applied his working skills in video to his formal education in film and psychology. Much of his work has been in the area of perception, as well as in video environments.
In Campus’ tape, Set of Coincidence, he explores the power of perceptual relativity, with the aid of a video camera and chroma-key effect. He inserts an image of himself into a slide of a room with a chair in it, twice, in one he is small relative to the chair, and in the second generation he is large relative to the chair. Though the background is static, it also appears to change size. We are forced to decide which is closer and which is farther away. But, since the image plane is flat and two dimensional, and all of the images are relatively equal in resolution, our cues for perceiving depth are few. We are given size and position (overlapping) relativity as cues. The objects in the frame appear to be side by side in two dimensions. In three dimensions, the smallest is farthest away, and the largest is closest. Campus has strategically positioned himself so that he always appears to be beside the chair, while the camera zooms him in and out. The second generation is another key, so his image always is in front of the image on the first tape. Another perceptual paradox results when an unusually small man seems to be in front of an unusually large man. A paradox occurs and we reject the image, yet the brain is still trying to interpret it. Even more generations of images appear. By standing in one place, and on each successive generation zooming out on Campus and keying a smaller image over the last one, an impossible row of Peters results. We do know how large he is, and in the perception of the image, we are forced to decide which Peter Campus is farthest away.
In another tape, Peter Campus uses chroma-key to create the illusion of taking off many masks of his own face, and making many generations of this. He paints chroma-key blue on his face, and only where the blue is, is the image inserted. In the second generation, the same event occurs, but the camera is zoomed in on Campus to that his head is bigger than the first one. Then the first tape appears only where there is blue, and that is on Peter Campus’ face and the blue walls around him. So, it looks as though he peels off his first skin or mask, and finds another one which also peels off. The effect is most startling! He generates a vast amount of associations with the concept of mask. He seems to be telling us that he has no mask at all! He tells me that he is trying to take off whatever mask he might have again and again, like a cleansing of the soul. This particular work reminds me very much of the directness of Nam Jun Paik’s sculptures, though it is far less satirical. The expression is like a Zen Koan, it is so precise and perceptive, that experiencing it expands one’s awareness conceivably to the point of enlightenment. To me, this image stands out as a fine union of technique, aesthetic, and concept.
Peter Campus has made other tapes as well, one called RGB which explores possibilities for color in video, both optically and electronically. The combined tapes of Peter Campus demonstrate his fluency in the language of video. He is a good example of a “Conceptual-Technical Artist” of the future.
There are many other artists in this field who I have not yet mentioned in this paper. As I stated previously, the work done in all areas of video is generating a language of effects and affects in order to better to understand the artist and video. The technology cannot be used effectively without a working knowledge of the medium, and for the medium to be expressive, one must also have an idea or concept to express, whether it be based upon the logic put into the machines by human beings, or on another idea altogether. Expressions of innovations based on machines, is the result of human concepts and decisions. The resulting images and output are therefore never without some association to the human mind, thought, and perception. Concept and technique co-exist, and in video, one cannot exist without the other.
Footnotes and
References
[1] Hollis Frampton, ART FORUM, December, 1974
[2]Lucy Lippard , Six Years: The Dematerialization of Art, 1973
[3] Webstre’s New Collegiate Dictionary, 1961, p. 50
[4] David Ross, TELEVISIONS, May 2, 1975, p. 6
[5] Alvin Toffler, FUTURE SHOCK, 1970, p. 241-242
[6]
[7]
[8] Gene Youngblood, EXPANDED CINEMA, 1970, p. 308
[9] Geraldine Wurzburg, TELEVISIONS, March, 1975
[10]
[11] Frank Gillette, TETRAGRAMMATRON