Origins of Video Response

As changing technology continually shapes how artists think about their work, changing technology helped elevate video as a medium into a different entity, referred to in this reading as video art. As camera equipment has become cheaper and more accessible, video artists can come from a greater variety of places (geographically and artistically) and their work can reach greater audiences. Video is no longer limited to big broadcast and productions teams screening their work on television. Video has the potential to be created anywhere, by whomever, and shown wherever. Extending the practice of video beyond real time documentation to art opens the door to endless creative possibilities. I found it interesting that even in its early years, video screenings weren’t restricted to traditional screens. Below I have attached a link to a piece I saw as part of an environmental light installation in Amsterdam (and later found as a recording on youtube – a video of a video). This projection, though spoken in Dutch, makes clear use of technology and artistic innovation to create a whimsical and unique experience that transcends that act of painting on which it is based and the location in which it was created. While Paik may have viewed this work as non-challenging, it spoke universally to the thousands of passerbys who found themselves in its audience; if his goal was to elevate video to be equal to painting or sculpture, I would say this installation met his mark.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i6XYU_gi_ks