Here you will find PDFs of essays commissioned by the Video Data Bank on the subject of video art and artists, as well as a range of essays about individual artists' work.

We will be adding more content here on a regular basis, so check back often!
Title Author
Beyond the Dust: Colonial Legacy in the Desert Martí Madaula Esquirol
Ilene Segalove: Whatever Happened to the Future? Emily Martin
Doldrums: On the Uncanny Domestic Elise Schierbeek
Notes on Black Video: 1987–2001 Emily Martin
Stories from a Generation: Video Art at the Woman's Building Cecilia Dougherty
Ironic Nostalgia: an Interview with Nelson Henricks Mike Hoolboom
REWIND: A Guide to Surveying the First Decade: Video Art and Alternative Media in the U.S., 1968-1980 Video Data Bank
Tom Rubnitz / Dynasty Handbag Jibz Cameron, Josh Lubin-Levy, Bryan Bauman, John Kelly, Lady Bunny, Nicholas De Villiers and Joe E. Jeffreys
Consuming Passions: The Video Art of Ximena Cuevas Steve Seid
MoMA Projects 100: Akram Zaatari Eva Respini and Ana Janevski
Doug Ischar: Recent Films Doug Iscar
Kate Horsfield: The Early Years of the Video Data Bank and On Art and Artists Faye Gleisser
‘This isn’t Charlie Rose’: The Making of On Art and Artists and the Politics of Information Distribution Faye Gleisser
Primate Cinema: Apes as Family [eBook] Rachel Mayeri and Matthew Fuller
Association of Moving Image Archivists Poster: Video Data Bank Digitization Project Kristin MacDonough
Feminism and Video: A View from the Village Joan Braderman
Busting the Tube: A Brief History of Video Art Kate Horsfield
Grow Gills and Swim: The Evolution of Activist Video Gregg Bordowitz
Other Solutions Carrie Lambert
Surveying the First Decade: Video Art and Alternative Media in the U.S. 1968-1980: Attention! Production! Audience! Performing Video in its First Decade, 1968-1980 Chris Hill
Koken Ergun: Personal Works of Public Ceremonies. Ian White
Perception as Transcendence: Interview with Paweł Wojtasik Scott MacDonald
Two or three things I know about him Mark Westmoreland
Video Art Was Born Subversive Davidson Gigliotti
Radical Closure Akram Zaatari
Underground Man Gene Youngblood
A Work Aesthetic: The Films of Kevin Jerome Everson Monica McTighe
Eyes to See With Laura Marks
The Prayers and Tears of Paul Chan: Profane Illumination and the Post-Secular in BAGHDAD IN NO PARTICULAR ORDER and Now promise now threat Yates Mckee
Guillermo Gómez-Peña: Sophisticated Seduction Carol Becker
The Persistence of the Archive: The Documentary Fictions of Daniel Eisenberg Scott Durham
I Say I Am: Women's Performance Video from the 1970s Maria Troy