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?
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