Response to Meigh-Andrews's Origins of Video

The reading on the Origins of Video Art is largely regarding the ways in which video was shaped by changing technology since it’s invention. This is not very difficult to believe, as video art is inherently based on technology. Video would not be possible without the video camera, which is a very recent development in technology itself.

Because video cameras only because available to the general artist population in the late 1960s and early 1970s, it had no history. This led many artists to consider video the salvation of art, as it had no defined rules, boundaries, or critiques. There was nothing that they had to conform to, which let them return to the point of all art, which is to express yourself in a manner that is stunningly different from anything anyone else has ever thought of. Video was the ultimate for of art to them because they were completely free to be artists within the medium. This would not have been the case if video was not technology that could not have been possible until much later than most other forms of art.

In addition to this, Meigh-Andrews spends a fair amount of time discussing how each new development in video technology created a wave of creativity after it. A quote he used from one of Hall’s articles said it best, “developing technology has undoubtedly influenced the nature of the product at all levels and wherever it is made” (Hall 1989). As porta-packs became more widespread, the art aspect of videography took off. Anyone could now make art with the freedom allowed by the new, portable technology. With the invention of more advanced editing capabilities, films could now be much more exact, more easily planned, and more gracefully executed. And advanced TVs allowed Nam June Paik to establish himself as “the father of video art though his knowledge of sound waves and technological manipulation, and his extremely artistic mind.

I chose Dirty Girl by Sanne Sannes because it is an excellent example of the montage style used by early videographers in the late 1960s. It creates a very notable feeling and is also an example of an artist transitioning from photography to video.  

http://www.ubu.com/film/sannes_dirty.html