"Television, Furniture, and Sculpture: The Room with an American View" by Vitto Acconci AND "Phototropic" by Tony Ourselor

This reading starts off with an analogy relating the television to a fishbowl, pointing out how they are a world within a world. The TV makes faces on screen roughly the same size as the viewer in real life which is contrary to a movie in the theater which is roughly 15 times life-sized. It also connects the entire country by having the same programs broadcasted in one location as another. It relates furniture to sculpture and in turn television to furniture. The television viewers are like producers, deciding what should be on at any given time.

Television is a working sculpture that nearly every household in the country possesses. They are microcosms that exist in our homes that are windows into other worlds and other parts of our world. It connects us as a people and is one of the most high tech devices that is in the home.

Q: How has the field of sculpture advanced since the television has been introduced into it?

“Video in Relation to Architecture” by Dan Graham

The writing starts off discussing the impact that television had on the family unit in the 1950s and how they saw it as a form of escapism from their daily lives. TV also held an unrealistic mirror to the family, showing them a group of people similar to themselves but with very different lives. Programs began showing up on the television that demonstrated themes of the nuclear family being pulled apart. As they began to build lavish public places they decided to keep them under surveillance. Video was used as signs, mirrors, and windows.

TV was promoted as a commodity for every need. It began popping up in every aspect of life. Every family had one and their purpose began evolving. They were used as a way of escape, for surveillance, advertisement, and as a mirror to the public.

Q: Where would the field of video art be if the TV had never blown up in popularity the way that it had?

"The Cultural Logic of Video" by Maureen Turim

The essay starts out questioning the relationship of cultural forms and their "logic" or functioning and goes on to ask what cultural logic does an artistic practice embody today. The logic can be presented as an active figure or passively, they can both be equally seductive but formalists often deny either an active or passive relationship with artwork. It discusses postmodernism and Lyotard who defined the ideas of legitimation and delegitmation. Lyotard strategically updates and reworks an analysis of avant-gardes and of the sublime. The reading moves on to David Antin and his views on video. He was discussing it in its early stages and said that it was in a "pleasantly shabby technical state" although later it has become much more refined. It mentions that in terms of video the singular element of psychoanalysis has been narcissism, citing Krauss and her idea of the camera and monitor as electronic mirrors. The essay states justifications for both sides of the question it introduced at the beginning.

Yet again we are introduced to this view of video being a narcissistic medium and again I'd be inclined to agree. Video is very much an exploration of self, either through the viewing of another individual or yourself through a live feed. With cameras and monitors acting as mirrors it is easy to see the connection.


A question that might come about from this reading might be how do you feel your personal video work fits into the active or passive logic debate introduced by Turim?

"Performance, Video, and Trouble in the Home" by Kathy O'Dell

The article starts by describing the popular 1950s television show "The Honeymooners"as performance art. It goes on to justify the statement by referencing the steps it made in redefining gender roles within the bounds of marriage. The show was also very performative in that it was it dealt heavily with the idea of the body, from the home structure to the actual physical qualities of the main character. The body later became one of the main focal points in not only performance but also video art. It says that identification is a multilevel process that involves both the viewer and the viewed. It mentions that "I" is very subjective and differs from person to person and cites artists such as Dan Graham who used this ideology in their works. O'Dell argues that performance art often links us to our home environments due to its importance on the human body which referenced the domestic site.

The idea of a mask is brought up and its significance to the idea of self identification. The types of masks have changed over time, from the medieval caricature masks to the modern day masks that are primarily to disguise identity, specifically recalling Joan Jonas's "Vertical Roll" where she wears a translucent mask at times in order to hide her real appearance only to reveal it later pointing out the unrealistic qualities of the mask.

Obviously the idea of the mask is very fascinating to me. The presence of this object that both reflects the features of the human face as well as augmenting it at the same time is a very powerful tool. It can disguise identity, highlight a quality, be a caricature to emphasize uniqueness, etc. I think that it is a relatively untapped area of video art. With the exception of a few famous artists like Jonas, masks have not staked a big claim in video art which is very surprising to me since it is a medium that is so heavy on the self and identity.

A question I would pose is what are some other ways that masks could be introduced into the field to further utilize their meaning?

Video: The Aesthetics of Narcissism by Krauss

The reading starts out discussing the Vito Acconcio video piece entitled "Centers". In it, Acconci used a video monitor as a mirror and points at it. The viewer is placed inside of the eyes of Acconci pointing back at himself. This brings up the idea of video art being based on narcissism. It relates video to the idea of a spiritual medium; it reasons that there is both simultaneous reception and projection of an image and the human psyche is used as a conduit for this. Since video art has the ability to act as a mirror, the human body has often been used as the subject in the work and many times that human happens to be the artist. Through further examples of work from Acconci and from Holt, we are introduced to the idea of being surrounded by one's self. When the reading asks what is the difference between portraying yourself in a video piece and some other art form like a paint it answers, "Reflection, when it is a case of mirroring, is a move toward an external symmetry; while reflexiveness is a strategy to achieve a radical asymmetry, from within." I took this to mean that the act of reflection is a time-based idea that you can interact with and that reflectiveness is often a one-sided means of achieving a point of view. Three ideas that run counter to the main argument of the article are (1) criticizing the medium by exploiting it, (2) depictions of an assault on video to break out of its hold, and (3) installations that use it as a subspecies of other art forms. It wraps up with discussing Campus's art. It is described as a way for him to break down the world into smaller groups and reassert himself as the object.



This was an interesting reading. It allowed me to realize how the field could be categorized as narcissistic. Prior to reading I thought of narcissism with only a negative connotation in mind but I realized that through the guise of narcissism, self exploration is made possible. Through many of the works described in the article, artists were interacting with their own digital reflections: an exploration that would not have been able to occur had it not been through this relatively young medium.


Question: Reasoning that narcissism can be achieved in most, if not all, fields of art, why does video attract the most attention for it? Is it just the easiest medium to work with your own image or is there another reason?

Steina Reading

The reading starts with a short background on the artist Steina. She was a co-founder of The Kitchen, a place for electronic art in New York, in the 1970s. In her work she often manipulated electronic signal. She used multi-screen installations, videotapes, and computer generated arrangements of machines to prove the difference between video art and other fields.

Then the reading turns to Steina describing her work from her point of view. She discusses how she got her start in the field and the original techniques they had to use to edit film. Steina talked about her and Vasulka's work and installations. She made her audio match up with the images shown on tape and change as the visual content did. She didn't care for teaching but when she did she liked to break the molds the school had instilled in her students. Her art is mostly about communication with oneself. Finally she tells a story of a specific performance where she assigned 5 strings to 5 MIDI channels in order to manipulate an electronic signal.


This reading was a nice change of pace. It seemed to focus more on the history of an artist with first hand experience at the time of video's beginnings. It didn't go into technical language that was difficult to follow and it didn't try to convince us that the accepted history is incorrect. It was interesting and allowed you to relate to her work. There were numerous images that helped me to visualize her style. The most interesting part was at the end where she described the performance she did playing her instrument to create the artwork live in front of an audience.


Q: How did combining the two fields of music and video art compliment each other as in the case of her performative piece? Did having the two elements in the same piece handicap the final outcome or was it a success?

Didactic Video Reading

Didactic Video: Organizational Models of the Electronic Image starts out with a short bio of Woody Vasulka introducing him and giving a little back story. It then moves on to describe and document the Rutt/Etra video synthesizer that the authors of this article used to achieve video effects in their work. It then turns to discussing Vasulka's current work at the time of this publication. A specific work entitled "Time/Energy Structure of the Electronic Image" in the Statement section. The reading then displays images of the work and explains what is happening in each. It then goes on to discuss five lectures that Vasulka held at Media Study/Buffalo in 1976. He speaks about many facets of video art but at the end he comes to the conclusion that everyone uses the tools at their disposal to further learn about themselves.

This writing was rather lengthy and was full of information. At times it became difficult to focus because the of the incredibly detailed explanations and discussions of certain topics. The reading does everything from the giving a bio of the artist, to introducing technology, to details of the work, to the artist's personal beliefs about the field of video art.

Video: Shedding The Utopian Moment

The Martha Rosler reading is another origin story of video art. It mentions the portable equipment becoming available in the 1960s and that the early uses were a critique of Western art institutions. Video was a tool for rebellious people to fight back against the system they were a part of. The writing is split up into four sections: Prehistory, History, Myth, and Conclusion. Prehistory discusses the technology of the past that was the predecessor video capabilities and the people of the time's interaction with them. History discusses the varying levels of legitimacy that video art has been viewed of having. Myth is primarily an attack on Nam June Paik. It basically sets up the notion that everything traditional video art history credits Paik with doing is incorrect. It alludes to him working within the mass media that he claimed to be fighting against and taking control of. It went on to praise McLuhan for being more focused on the powers of the artist and not on that of mass media. Conclusion summed up the information that was given throughout the reading.



This reading is more accusatory than the others so far. It makes claims like that mass media has power over western culture and that artists were fighting in almost a warlike scenario of "the culture industry versus the consciousness industry. The part that mainly grabbed my attention was the Myth portion. I wouldn't call myself a huge Paik fan (I barely knew of him until a few weeks ago) but I found myself feeling almost defensive of him while reading. The author discredits many of the accomplishment he is traditionally known for making in the field. She makes it sound like he wasn't successful at all in fighting against television and mass media. I think regardless of your personal opinion of his work, he should at least be credited with being one of the first artists to make this a central concept in his work and bring it to the forefront of the medium.

"Introduction" and "Video Black--The Mortality of the Image"

The introduction's primarily purpose is to make the reader aware of the book's organization which was divided up into five groups. The History section focuses on the origin of the medium and the errors that come about from trying to declare one definitive history. The Furniture/Sculpture/Architecture section discusses the traditional devices that video art is shown on, like the television, and their purpose as a sculptural element, as well as discussing the locations that display the medium. Audience/Reception deals largely with the idea that despite video being a tool to capture a moment in time, it has plenty of room to misrepresent an event often by representing only "dominant ideologies." Syntax and Genre speaks to the formal aspects of a specific piece's properties and how it functions within the context of the field. Telling Stories seems to discuss how video has the power to express a certain meaning through its qualities.

Video Black starts off with an short anecdote to illustrate Viola's point which is that video by itself is not have the ability to do anything but mindlessly record and observe. He references sacred art and how the landscapes (which are physically "real") are much less important than the spiritual elements of the piece (which can't be confirmed as "real"). He mentions that "the inner and outer worlds have reversed their roles." Viola goes on to discuss that in video, time is the most important material. He mentions how fading to black is natural to humans because it mimics the blackness of our pupils and represents the idea of looking eye to eye while watching a piece.


Viola gives several examples of how video art, like all art, is not to be taken at face value. The religious art he referenced was a great example of how the literal landscape wasn't nearly as important as the spiritual elements of the piece, so much so that often times the landscape would be completely written out. The same can be said for video work; even though we are viewing something that may appear commonplace or "real" we must look past that and see the underlying message of the work. It gives you the opportunity to step into the artist's shoes and see things from their perspective. The idea of the fade to black being a reference to the pupil seemed like a stretch to me a first but the more I thought about it the more I realized that subconsciously I already acknowledged it in my traditional viewing practices. Perhaps I didn't feel that it was specifically the pupil but more so a blink or a final closing of the eyes before sleep; either of these ideologies seem to still fit with the general proposal that Viola offered. They form a bond between the eyes and the screen (which you are viewing with your eyes). This seems to veil the screen and bring on the feeling that you're witnessing these actions firsthand.

De-collage/Collage Reading

Right at the beginning of the reading it defined its thesis which was that video has been formed as an opposition to the dominant commercial television and as an international new form of art in the late 1950s and early 1960s. As it mentions in the thesis statement, TV had set the standard for video work both in the US and in Europe. When the portable videotape recorder and player became accessible in 1965 artists such as Nam June Paik and Wolf Vostell jumped on the new media and went on to set models of what video art was to be. Often times video pieces were ironically critical of things such as pop art, everyday gestures, and high society despite it's status as new technology. It became very much in tune with the anti-art movement Fluxus. "Happening events" that were large scale and involved an interaction with the space as a social environment became popular. Paik and Vostell above all else wanted their work to make the viewer question TV's hold on society and to create new tools out of video and television.


I agreed the reading very much. I personally feel that video art came about as a way to oppose mainstream media and television programming. To this day video art is usually focused on producing something that cannot be seen in everyday life even though you're usually viewing the same medium. This also ties in with the claim that it made about having critical agendas. Often in video pieces, a direct reference is made to conventional television, film, or everyday life and usually that is mocked or made light of in some form or another to point out the pitfalls of the traditional lifestyle.

Some of my Video Work

This video is entitled "Alone." It was a reference to the classic horror movie motif: it had an isolated girl that the audience identifies with who is being taunted by an intruder on her property. The sound of a beating heart keeps the emotion of the piece after each frightful occurrence takes place, strengthening your connection with the female character.




This video, titled "Alone Parody," is meant to be played immediately following "Alone." Its purpose is to make light of the first video and the horror film genre as a whole. Also to demonstrate the complete change in emotion of the work when a few simple elements are altered.


They are broken up into two different pieces because they are both standalone works but the viewer can get the most out of my message when they are played together.

Screening 1/6/10

Vertical Roll by Joan Jonas was a unique piece. Horizontal bars of video interference were continuously falling down the screen distorting the images that we were viewing. to me it was a very feminist piece. A female body was displayed throughout the video in various ways. The sound of a spoon pounding kept the rhythm of the piece. At the end, a woman's face was displayed above the horizontal bars. The spoon sound was reminiscent of the traditional female role of cook in the kitchen and the bars continually falling on her head seemed to reference a "glass ceiling" which kept her from rising to the top of the screen.


Moby Dick I by Guy Ben-Ner was a hard piece to watch. A home movie aesthetic paired with no audio made it difficult to hold you interest. It depicted a family, lead by the father, that reenacts the "Moby Dick" novel. While watching I became a little confused at the mix of video editing tricks and basic home video recording. After a while the concept became lost to me.

About Me

My name is Adam Thomas. I'm a third year Digital Media major at UF. Video has always been my main interest in the field and I'm looking forward to exploring it further in this course. In my short catalog of video work, I am usually drawn to a "horror movie" aesthetic. I'm very much interested in the psychological reasons for why individuals enjoy being scared and I like to explore that in my work, either by way of trying to insight the emotion of fear through a piece or by juxtaposing a horror movie scene with an opposite emotional response like humor.