Early Video Art
Early Video Art is a collection of over 200 titles that are central to an understanding of the historical development of video art. This collection includes, but is not limited to, many titles from the original Castelli-Sonnabend collection, the first and most prominent collection of video art assembled in the United States. All of the work in this collection was produced between 1968 and 1980. These works represent important examples of the first experiments in video art, and include conceptual and feminist performances recorded on video, experiments with the video signal, and "guerilla" documentaries representing a counter-cultural view of the historical events of the 1960s and 70s. Many of these tapes represent a desire for a radically redefined television experience that is centered on the innovative, the personal, the political and the non-commercial.
  With the Watergate hearings as a backdrop, quotes from various newspapers and magazines--including the story of Robert Smithson's death in a plane crash--build a picture of the confusing and tragic events of July 1973. Sonnier uses appropriated...
Collection: Early Video Art, Single Titles Tags: animation, image processing, video history |
Concentrating on abstract shapes and color value, Animation 2 is a record of images manipulated through computer animation. By recording the data screens of the animators and the voices of the controllers, Sonnier discloses the process...
Collection: Early Video Art, Single Titles Tags: animation, film or videomaking, image processing, video history |
Through the testimonies of five women, this video lays out the complex problem of anorexia, detailing how the disease develops as a response to both personal and societal pressures. The common thread in these accounts is how the disease clusters...
Collection: Early Video Art, Single Titles Tags: body, health, performance |
Using highly-manipulated and over-processed images, Latham investigates the process of video as inherently fragmented. Weaving together various people’s impressions of the artist and her work, the work demonstrates important parallels between...
Collection: Early Video Art, Single Titles Tags: feminism, image processing, performance, video history |
“In her brilliant video Art Herstory, [Freed] has restaged art history, putting herself in the model’s role in numerous paintings.... Time dissolves under her humorous assault—one moment in the painting, then out of the canvas and into...
Collection: Early Video Art, Single Titles Tags: art history, feminism, humor, video history |
As a document of an early performance, this video details the process of orientating the body and self in space, providing a physical metaphor for the process of adjusting oneself in society. "Blindfolded, ears plugged: our goal is to...
Collection: Early Video Art, Single Titles Tags: body, conceptual art, performance, video history |
BAD is the mnemonic command for the B-Address register of the Buffer Oriented Digital Device, a tool for stretching or squeezing images. Starting with the register at zero and adding one level of distortion at a pre-programmed speed, the video...
Collection: Early Video Art, Single Titles Tags: image processing, video history |
"One of Baldessari’s most ambitious and risky efforts. Seated and holding a sheaf of papers, he proceeds to sing each of Sol LeWitt’s 35 conceptual statements to a different pop tune, after the model of Ella Fitzgerald Sings Cole Porter. What...
Collection: Early Video Art, Single Titles Tags: art criticism, conceptual art, humor, performance, video history |
The soundtrack begins with the artist stating the conditions: “An artist may construct a work and/or a work may be fabricated and/or a work need not be built. I elected five possibilities for videotape.” These possibilities are the actions...
Collection: Early Video Art, Single Titles Tags: performance, video history |
