Modernist Practices in Early Video Art

As detailed in Marita Sturken’s “Paradox in the Evolutions of an Art Form: Great Expectations and the Making of a History,” early video artists took many different approaches. The political climate of the 1960s and 1970s—when video technology became readily available—caused video art to be inherently political, however, as a new medium, they were not really sure how to use it. Sturken stated that, “for many, video represented a tool with which to ‘revolt’ against the establishment of commercial television. For others, it was an art medium with which to wage ‘war’ on the establishment of the commercial art world” (106-107). Video was directly associated with television, so artists used it to comment directly on mass media. (For example, Ant Farm’s Media Burn, in which they drove a Cadillac into a wall of television screens.) Other artists created pieces with the intention of having them broadcast, as a sort of alternative to mass-produced television. One way artists did this was to work with the technical aspects of video, experimenting with it as an artistic medium.

Many artists at the time, while concerned with the political relevance of their work, were primarily interested in this new electronic process of image creation. Video was not seen as an archival medium (whereas film was), it was instead associated with immediacy. Video is instantly reproducible, and for the first time, artists were able to be disseminated images to many different locations, simultaneously. Artists were not that concerned with getting high quality images, instead they were more interested in capturing reality in real time (Sturken 103). Along with immediacy of distribution, came the ability to manipulate the images artistically at the moment of capture. This allowed for artists to easily experiment with the aesthetic qualities of the medium, as they were recording. While all of this is tied to a cultural context, the artwork created by these artists was groundbreaking for purely aesthetic reasons.

Characteristic of explorations of the medium was a sort of self-reflexivity. This came partly from the instantaneous quality inherent to video, as well as the fact that they were testing the limits of medium—thus they had to directly address the medium itself. Artists would videotape themselves in their explorations of time and space (for example Bruce Nauman’s performance pieces, and Peter Campus’ work, such as Double Vision and Three Transitions), and they would use techniques only possible with simultaneous videotaping (again, see Campus’ Double Vision and Three Transitions). These qualities are exemplary of tendencies in Modernist art, and while Sturken argues against the validity of using Modernist formalist theories to analyze video art, I feel it is appropriate, especially with Garry Hill’s work.

All of Gary Hill’s videos (that we watched) reflect the medium itself, and the idea of an autonomous artist. Some are purely aesthetic manipulations of the video image (Mirror Road, Bathing), but in others he also directly addresses issues of authorship. For example, his series of videos (originally made with the intention of television broadcast) titled Soundings. The video is made up of a number of short pieces based on the visual and aural exploration of a loud speaker. He videotapes his interactions with the speaker as his recorded voice (played back through the speaker) describes the relationship between the sound, image, artist and viewer. While some of the segments can be almost absurd (“I have my finger on it. Moving it. … I want to put your finger on it.”), the artist’s description of his own actions is basically the most self-reflexive one can get (although it is not the most reflexive of the medium itself). There is no ambiguity about what he is trying to say, he is telling you directly what he is doing through, and to, the technology.

After the first couple segments, Hill starts to use other materials to interact with the speaker. The third or fourth segment starts with the speaker centered in the frame. It begins to repeat, “Bury the sound, imaging the skin space, underground,” in what becomes a melodic chant. As his recorded voice repeats the message, he starts to slowly poor sand onto the speaker. The vibrating speaker causes the sand to jump with his words, and as more sand is piled onto it, the sand settles and shifts, and the voice becomes muffled. He continues pouring sand onto it until the sound is entirely muted. By burying the speaker, he causes the viewer to see the actual sound waves, as he buries and stifles the sound itself. In the water piece (“Watering the sound, imaging the skin space.”) the transformation of sound into image is even more apparent.

Gary Hill's Soundings is exemplary of the self-consciousness of then new medium. It is necessary to use a formalist analysis to fully understand it, because he is directly addressing form. While video art definitely does need to be considered within its cultural context, as well as from a postmodernist point of view, there are benefits of using a formalist analysis, at least on earlier video art. The pieces were political, yes, but they were also experiments in a new medium. Artists were testing the formal qualities of video, and thus created self-reflexive pieces that have very interesting, purely aesthetic, qualities that deserve consideration in and of themselves.