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Animation 2

Keith Sonnier

1974 00:26:05 United StatesEnglishColorMono4:3Video

Description

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 of making the video.

“This tape is about media, and it seems totally unedited, because we hear him talking over the intercom with the engineer… The engineer interjects, ‘Do you want to save any of this stuff?’ Yes, indeed; Sonnier saves and shows it all, the whole process.”

—Jonathan Price, “Video Art: a Medium Discovering Itself,” Art News 76 (January 1977)

This title was in the original Castelli-Sonnabend video art collection.

About Keith Sonnier

Having worked extensively in neon sculpture, Keith Sonnier introduced video to his work in the 1970s as a representation of a medium working with and against itself. Sonnier began experimenting with the formal properties of computer-generated video by using a Scanimate computer, and his work exploits feedback, amplification, and transmitted light’s tactile quality. As an artist who embraced technology, Sonnier’s work challenges artistic conventions and opens new channels of communication at the cutting edge of technology.