The Art of Technology

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Jack Parrott

The Art of Technology

BA (Hons) Fine Art Critical and Curatorial

2013

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The Art of Technology

Submitted by Jack Parrott to Plymouth College of Art in

partnership with the Open University as a written research

project towards the degree of Bachelor of Arts by study in

BA (Hons) Fine Art Critical and Curatorial Practices on

April 19th 2013.

I certify that all material in this dissertation which is not my

own work has been identified ………..

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Abstract

This research project explores how the use of technology in art has developed

through history. It looks in depth at 1960s artists who used the medium of video

technology to expand their practices and asks how contemporary artists have

incorporated it into their work today. The artists who have been examined include

Bruce Nauman, Vito Acconci, Andy Warhol, Nam June Paik and Shigeko Kubota.

Through exploring the various works and methods of these artists it is apparent they

all have individual relationships with the medium, and their work has developed

alongside video technology. Contemporary artists have expanded their practices in

the same way by using the technology that is now available to them, such as the

iPad and the internet.

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List of Contents

3 Abstract

4 List of Contents

5 List of Illustrations

6 – 7 Introduction

8 – 11 Chapter One: Emerging Video Technology

12 – 22 Chapter Two: The Artists Who Used It

23 – 26 Chapter Three: Contemporary Technology

27 - 28 Conclusion

29 – 30 Bibliography

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List of Illustrations

Figure 1: Bruce Nauman, 1968, Revolving Upside Down – Image available at:

http://www.moma.org/collection/object.php?object_id=120629

Figure 2: Vito Acconci, 1973, Theme Song – Image available at:

http://www.vdb.org/artists/vito-acconci

Figure 3: Nam June Paik, 1965, Moon is the Oldest TV – Image available at:

http://www.orbit.zkm.de/?q=node/26

http://www.moma.org/collection/object.php?object_id=120629

http://www.vdb.org/artists/vito-acconci

http://www.orbit.zkm.de/?q=node/26

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Introduction

Throughout art history, artists have used the most advantageous means of creating

art that is available for them. David Hockney is an artist who has been an early

adopter of technology that has become available for public use throughout his career.

Hockney is a believer in the idea that both the paintbrush and the iPad are both

different forms of technology that artists have used in their practices (Wroe, 2012).

Although they are very different forms of technology, they are both tools artists have

adopted to expand and further their practices.

A clear example of artists adopting a new technology is in the 19th century when

photography began to replace established artistic mediums such as painting and

sculpture (Gernsheim, 1986). The photography process gave artists a way of

creating clearer and more detailed depictions of their subject matters. Black and

white photography was then replaced with colour, giving artists a whole new way of

representing subject matters. These transitions benefited artists greatly and showed

that they will use whatever medium that is available and is most advantageous to

their practice. This was also true in the 1960s when video technology became

available for the public to use and artists began to implement it in to their practices.

Artists of the 1960s used the technology available to them at the time to expand their

practices in a number of inventive and innovative ways. In this research project I

intend to analyse what technologies were becoming available to the public and

artists, to purchase and use. All the artists of the 1960s who decided to purchase

these new technologies, and apply them to their existing practices, changed the way

they worked in varying significant ways. This research project will explore selected

artists who did this and whether it was eventually beneficial.

Chapter one of this research project, titled Emerging Video Technology, looks into

the cultural climate pre-dating video technology which led to it becoming an

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established artistic medium and the first book to acknowledge video as an art form. It

also discusses the kind of technology which was becoming available for artists to use

in the 1960s, such as portable video recording devices. Chapter two of this research

project, titled The Artists Who Used It, details which 1960s artists used the emerging

video technology in their practices. The artists included in this chapter are Bruce

Nauman, Vito Acconci, Andy Warhol, Nam June Paik and his wife Shigeko Kubotas.

Each artist’s relationship with technology is analysed by looking at: how it was used

in their work; how it affected their practice; and how their practice evolved alongside

further emerging technology. Chapter three, titled Contemporary Technology,

examines how contemporary video artists now use technology to expand their

practices and if there are any similarities between how 1960s artists used

technology. Specific areas of contemporary technology which are examined include:

the iPad; internet spaces which allow an endless amount of space to display video

work; and art created specifically to be viewed on the internet.

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Chapter 1: Emerging Video Technology

The cultural climate for new technologies prior to video being adopted by artists in

the 1960s was applicable for expanding artistic expression. In the 1940s and 50s

artists had begun breaking away from conventional genre notions. Jackson Pollock

introduced performance into painting, John Cage used non-instrumental noises in his

scores, and Alan Kaprow involved the public in his performance events. Technology

then began to become embedded in art in the middle of the 1960s.

In 1963, artists such as Wolf Vostell and Nam June Paik started using television sets

as artistic materials. Paik used multiple television sets in his exhibition ‘Exposition of

Music-Electronic Television’ to show German television. As the programs were only

being broadcasted in the evening the Galerie Parnass in Wuppertal, where the

exhibition was shown, had to move its opening hours (Martin, 2006). Vostell used six

television sets with interfered pictures to represent his Decollage, which was the idea

of an image being created by cutting and tearing away pieces of an original image.

Television and moving image were already something viewers were accustomed to

by this point in time as cinema had been available to the public for more than half a

century, and television was something recognised on a global scale since the 1940s.

However, experimentation with television as a sculptural object and as a

broadcasting tool for artists was developing in more advanced ways. Gene

Youngblood’s book ‘Expanded Cinema’ is a significant documentation of how artists

in the 1960s were beginning to use technology. This was due to the book being

released in 1970 and the fact it was the first book to consider video as an art form.

Due to the limited development of certain technologies during the time period in

which the book was written, its attitudes to technology are very specific. For example,

Youngblood declares ‘until videotronic hardware becomes inexpensive enough for

individual use it is producers, directors and station managers who make today’s

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video art possible’ (Youngblood, 1970). Personal video recorders were not yet

available to the public, so artists wanting to use video recording equipment at the

time had to rely on the new generation of television management that Youngblood

refers to. In this book Youngblood interviews executive producer for Cultural Affairs

Programming at National Educational Television Brice Howard, who was also

administrator and organiser of The KQED Experimental Project. The project was set

up to answer two questions, which Youngblood poses to Howard about television:

‘What is the nature of the medium? Can an artist work in it?’ (Youngblood, 1970).

Howard explains that their process of experimentation with television consisted of

finding ways of using its technology that would enable it to be used as an artistic

medium. This was difficult because during this period of time television had only been

used as a broadcast system and its ‘technology and practice grow from the logic of

distribution’ (Youngblood, 1970).

After this experimentation with television, video technology began to emerge as the

new medium for artists to represent their work. Video was a different form of

technology to television and also film in significant ways. Film could only be seen

through the mechanical movement of a length of film on a projector which cast a

moving image on to a screen. The film was stored on 16 millimetre film reels, which

were made of celluloid, as a series of single images that could be seen by the naked

eye. Television existed as a media broadcasting tool which also stored its

programming on 16 millimetre film reels before airing.

The main way video differed from these two mediums was in how it was stored. The

audio and visual material of video is recorded and stored simultaneously on to

magnetic tape, and more recently on laser discs or similar storage media. During this

process the audio and visual material is rendered into analogue or digital code. In

contrast to how static images are stored on film reels, when examined, analogue

code is displayed in lines and digital code in pixels. In this form video retains a

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perpetual condition of availability and manipulability, unlike film which cannot be

changed once recorded on to celluloid strips. The unlimited manipulability of video

and the unrecognisable code that made up the images were technical steps which

took video away from the direct illustration of life that film and television portrayed.

It was towards the end of the 1960s that video art began to establish itself as a

recognised medium in art context. Artists such as Bruce Nauman, Nam June Paik,

Vitto Acconci and many others were beginning to engrain video into their practices.

Technological advances meant that artists such as these had the chance to expand

their practices in momentous ways. As video can be recorded and stored

simultaneously, artists making videos could instantly playback what they had

recorded, rather than having to wait for it to be developed into a film reel. Artists

could then edit their videos after recording them in a variety of ways, which became

more advanced and experimental as the medium developed. Alongside the

emergence of video technology came the availability of video recorders to the public.

In 1965, Sony released the Portapak, the first black-and-white portable video

recorder available for the public to purchase. Unlike the artists of The KQED

Experimental Project, who had to borrow television studio video recording equipment

to make videos, artists could now buy their own video recorders. The Portapak video

recorder was made up of a camera and a sound recorder that formed a singular

portable unit, which was different to cameras used to record film and television which

were contrastingly immobile. The Portapak cost less money to purchase and had a

far greater recording time than any film or television cameras of the time, making it

distinctly more advantageous for artists to use (Martin, 2006).

Hermine Freed was a video artist who in the 1960s studied and practiced as a

painter. But in 1972, prompted by the Everson Museum curator David Ross, she

began to expand her practice and create a new body of work using video to

represent female perception and self-image. Eventually her work became part of

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Ross’ significant video exhibition ‘Circuit: A Video Invitational,’ which staged over 28

hours of video artists’ work (Chicago, School of the Art Institute of, 2013). Freed

reflected in 1976 that ‘the Portapak would seem to have been invented specifically

for use by artists’ and the invention of it came at a crucial time for artists (Rush,

2003). The crucial time Freed refers to is in the 1960s when ‘artists were doing

performances but had nowhere to perform, formalism had run its course, artists felt

need to keep record of their performances’ (Rush, 2003). Freed is an exemplary

example of an artist who shifted their practice from formalism to video and benefitted

greatly from it. Therefore her reflections come from personal experience regarding

the importance of emerging video technology and the availability of video recording

devices for artists. The Portapak and new video technology were part of a new

medium 1960s artists had been searching for, not only to document their

performances but expand their practices in ways which had never been done before

and these technologies gave them the opportunity to do so. How they took

advantage of these opportunities is part of what I will be discussing in this research

project.

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Chapter 2: The Artists Who Used It

Five 1960s video artists who incorporated video technology into their practices were

Bruce Nauman, Vito Acconci, Andy Warhol, Nam June Paik and his wife Shigeko

Kubotas. All had different relationships with technology and had it affect their

practices in a different ways.

In the 1960s Bruce Nauman’s used the camera in his films and videos as a mirror

and frame work for his performances in his studio. For the viewer to experience a

performance piece such as Yves Klein’s ‘Anthropometry’ performance or one of Alan

Kaprow’s ‘Happenings’ of the 1950s, the viewer would need to be in the space and

there at the time of event to experience it. Nauman’s use of the camera however

gives the viewer a window into an event that has already happened and it can be

experienced on a wider scale.

Nauman’s relationship with video technology from a certain point of view could also

be described as limited. His video work of the 1960s did not fully utilise the editing

possibilities that came with the emerging technology. When working with videotapes

Nauman states ‘lots of times I would do a whole performance or tape a whole hour

and then change it. I don't think I would ever edit but I would redo the whole thing if I

didn't like it’ (Chicago, School of the Art Institute of, 2013). Video artists such as Nam

June Paik used new video editing techniques to stretch, compress and convert his

video images’ linear structures into other forms. Nauman did not use new video

technology in the same way as Paik, but this is due to the different relationship that

he has with it. Video was used by Nauman as a tool to document the process of his

performances, treating the camera as a kind of digital sketchbook. This is particularly

shown when Nauman describes how he would redo a performance if he did not like it

rather than editing it, thereby keeping a record of his process.

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Examples of Nauman’s 1960s films include ‘Bouncing Two Balls’, ‘Walking in an

Exaggerated Manner’ and ‘Violin Tuned D.E.A.D’ (Chicago, School of the Art Institute

of, 2013). All these films were shot between 1967 and 1968 in Nauman’s studios: a

former grocery shop in San Francisco; and a sublet from his university tutor in Mill

Valley (Wallace, 2012). In these two locations the films were shot on 16 millimetre

film reels which meant, due to the nature of the film reels, their maximum run time

was 10 minutes (Wallace, 2012). Nauman would perform a set of predetermined

movements that were in accordance with the films’ titles. They were filmed in real

time in front of a fixed static camera that was either mounted in an upright position or

an inverted one. By doing this, the shot of the camera defined the framework of the

video and the limits of his movements. In the case of the camera being inverted, it

meant his movements were presented as

being performed on the walls of his studio if

the camera was mounted on its side. If it was

mounted completely upside down his

movements were presents as if being

performed on the ceiling of his studio, such

as in Figure 1 from ‘Revolving Upside Down’.

In 1969 Nauman made the transition from film to video when his then current dealer

Leo Castelli, provided him with a portable video camera (Wallace, 2012).

Bruce Nauman’s 1960s videos such as ‘Revolving Upside Down,’ ‘Stamping in the

Studio’ and ‘Slow Angle Beckett Walk’ are examples of him first using video

technology in his work, rather than film (Chicago, School of the Art Institute of, 2013).

His transition from film to video affected his practice in a very significant way.

Nauman describes how, when working with film, he could only rent out filming

equipment that was available to the public for one or two days (Chicago, School of

the Art Institute of, 2013). This meant he had to scrupulously plan what he was going

Figure 1 –Still from video ‘Revolving Upside Down’

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to film so he could complete it in the time he had the equipment. Working with

videotapes gave him far more freedom to experiment with his practice. Nauman

states ‘with the videotapes, I had the equipment in the studio for almost a year; I

could make test tapes and look at them, watch myself on the monitor or have

somebody else there to help’ (Chicago, School of the Art Institute of, 2013). The

extended period of time he had with the video equipment meant he could be more

experimental with his performances due to him not needing to plan them as

rigorously as he had when he was working with film. This gave a more playful aspect

to his performances and also an endurance quality due to the run time being

extended to 60 minutes.

If we compare two pieces of Nauman’s work, such as ‘Walking in an Exaggerated

Manner’ which was filmed on 16mm film reel and ‘Revolving Upside Down’ which

was filmed on to videotape, we can see notable differences. In ‘Walking in an

Exaggerated Manner’ Nauman is seen walking around a square he has created with

tape on the ground. By doing this he has created the parameters for his own

movements, unlike ‘Revolving Upside Down’ which lets the shot of camera define

them. Also, by creating this square, Nauman shows prior planning and thought to his

performance which is not apparent in ‘Revolving Upside Down.’ Both performances

last the maximum run time of their recording device’s capabilities; ‘Walking in an

Exaggerated Manner’ ten minutes and ‘Revolving Upside Down’ a full hour (Chicago,

School of the Art Institute of, 2013). The extended recording time of videotape turns a

simple movement like revolving on one leg into a test of Nauman’s endurance and

also a wider variety of movements come naturally from his gradual fatigue.

The way Nauman’s practice has evolved alongside technology is not in the way he

films his videos or edits them, but in how he presents them in installations.

Technologically, his process of recording has not altered in a significant way since

his change from film to video. In an installation piece of his such as ‘Live/Taped

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Video Corridor’ we can see Nauman beginning to use video to incorporate audience

participation and create a different form of disorientation to viewers. This installation

involves two monitors stacked on top of one another at the end of a narrow corridor,

with one screen showing an empty room and the other a live image of the viewer in

the corridor. The further down the corridor the viewer went, the smaller their image

appeared on the monitor. He uses the surveillance aspect of video to involve the

audience in this piece. Each viewer who goes into the corridor has his or her own

personal experience within the piece and becomes part of it. Much like Nauman’s

inverted performance videos, in which he appears to be on the ceiling or the wall of

his studio, this use of video disorientates the viewer. The monitor confusingly reflects

the viewer’s progress down the corridor, challenging their point of reference and

mental security (Rush, 2003).

In more recent works of his Nauman has taken influence from some of 1960s videos

and created new ones using new technology. In 2001 he exhibited ‘Mapping the

Studio with Colour Shift, Flip and Flip/Flop (Fat Chance John Cage)’. This was an

installation piece involving seven videos projected onto as many walls of Nauman’s

empty studio. It takes inspiration from his 1960s videos where he would record

himself in his studio performing for the maximum run time of his camera, which was

around an hour. This piece also runs for its maximum recording time, but Nauman

used a digital camera with infra-red lenses so was able to record his studio for over

five hours. These videos focus on the studio without the artist, rather than the artist’s

body, showing inanimate objects strewn about the space and a cat moving through it

occasionally. This piece is a fitting example of how Nauman has evolved his practice

alongside technology. If he tried to recreate his studio performances using the

maximum five hour run time of a digital camera, it would prove nearly impossible. He

has instead used new video technology to examine another aspect of his practice

that he started developing over thirty years before.

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Vito Acconci’s relationship with technology was similar in ways to Nauman’s. His

1960s and 70s videos were presentations of his experimentation in defining his body

inside a space. His videos were mostly filmed in real time, meaning he did not use

emerging video editing techniques and the camera in any other way than to

document performances. Like Nauman, Acconci used his body as a material to

create conceptual performances which tested the emotional limits the human body

was capable of expressing (Martin, 2006). In his video piece ‘Sound Board’ Acconci

lays down naked on a set of speakers while a collaborator moves his body parts in

time with jazz music playing from the speakers. His body is shown in a literal sense

as an instrument, which is the recurring theme throughout his videos in varying

degrees.

Acconci would use a video camera as a medium of reflection, rather than a

technological tool. The camera lens was used as an interface between the private

and the public domain. In his video pieces Acconci attempted to breakdown the

distinction between the two through his public and private performances. He did this

by having the camera filming his performances in a fixed, static position, like

Nauman’s performance videos. This gave the impression of him being alone with the

camera and having a very intimate experience with a piece of technology.

Consequently, the viewer could observe these private moments the artist had with

his camera by watching the videos and become part of it. However, in doing this

Acconci was pointing out the futility of being able to have a real intimate experience

from watching something on a television, or even from experiencing art in general.

A video piece of Acconci’s which particularly demonstrates his attempt to breakdown

public and private performance distinctions is ‘Theme Song’. In this video Acconci

positions his camera on the floor and lies down in front of it. As we can see from

Figure 2 he lies down with his face very close to the camera lens, almost touching it.

With music playing in the background, Acconci chain smokes cigarettes while

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enticing the camera to ‘come in close to me, I’m

all alone, wrap your legs around me, I’ll be honest

with you, really, come on’ (Rush, 2003). He uses

the camera in this video piece to speak directly to

the viewer and to convey a private moment which

would typically exist between only two people. By

trying to convey this private moment he points out the purposelessness of trying to

create a private moment using a camera to film it and a television to present it. Both

camera and television are tools designed for distribution to a numerous audience, so

the idea of these media tools creating intimacy contrasts with their nature.

Acconci also used his videos to not only test the emotional limits that the human

body was capable of expressing, but also the physical limits. His series of videos ‘3

Adaptation Studies’ are three different and unusual situations that Acconci puts

himself into. All are filmed on a super eight millimetre camera which is fixed in a

single framed shot, filmed in real time. The actions performed in these videos, like

Nauman’s performance videos, are in accordance with the films’ titles. ‘Blindfolded

Catching’ shows Acconci blindfolded and standing against a blank wall. A

collaborator then repeatedly throws a rubber ball at him, making his body react in a

way that suggests he is being attacked by an unseen figure. ‘Hand in Mouth’ is a

video which entails Acconci repeatedly attempting to put his hand as far down his

throat as he can. Acconci challenges his body to its limit in a task that pre-

determinately has no successful end result to create a sense of discomfort for the

viewer. The final video ‘Soap Eyes’ involves Acconci looking directly at the camera

and suddenly squirting soapy water into his own eyes. He continues doing this until

he unable to keep his eyes open, again challenging his body to its limit with no other

goal than to discomfort the viewer (Martin, 2006). In this trilogy of videos Acconci

uses the camera as a window, to make his past actions into something that is

Figure 2 - Still from video 'Theme Song'

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present to the viewer. However while Acconci does use the camera in this window-

like way, he also makes the viewer very aware of the distance that exists between

the performed action and its illustrative representation in video form.

Acconci’s practice was not as significantly affected by the emerging video technology

of the 1960s as Nauman’s practice was. Nauman’s switch from film to video changed

the aesthetics of his performance videos, whereas Acconci’s work had no such

change. In the late 1970s Acconci incorporated the editing technique of splicing

videos together to create longer running videos that were used as projected pieces.

His 1976 video ‘The Red Tapes’ is a piece divided into three parts that has a run time

of two hours and twenty minutes (Chicago, School of the Art Institute of, 2013). It

combines a number of Acconci’s videos using the editing technique of splicing. This

forms a longer running video and also creates a narrative which would not exist

within the videos as singular pieces. However, splicing videos together is not a

relatively complicated editing technique and was the limit of emerging technology that

Acconci used in his video work. Instead of evolving his practice alongside

technology, Acconci developed his work in the late 1970s into architectural and

installation pieces which existed in public spaces.

Andy Warhol was an artist in the 1960s whose experimentation with video notably

began to combine art and technology into one thing. He was an influential figure in

the New York art community in the 1960s and his use of new video technology in his

practice played a large part in its establishment as an artistic medium. It was this

influence that led to the beginning of his relationship with video technology. In 1965

he was asked by ‘Tape Recording’ magazine to experiment with a variety of portable

video cameras. He was given a Norelco slant-track video recorder, a remote-control

television camera with a zoom lens, and a Concord MTC II hand-held video camera

with a canon zoom lens (Rush, 2003). Warhol displayed the footage he recorded in a

New York Underground Railroad station and it was one of the first public showings of

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an artistic video tape. The location of the video’s presentation was an important

factor to how it was to be perceived. Being shown in a New York Underground

Railroad station gave it an underground aspect, which related to the new and

untested video recording technology that had captured the footage.

Warhol continued to use video in his work throughout the 1960s, but unlike Nauman

and Acconci he was not the subject of his videos. His experimentation with video was

not in filming or editing techniques, but in how he presented his videos. Warhol’s

1965 video piece ‘Outer and Inner Space’ displayed two video images displayed on a

split-screen projection. One video image showed a sequence from the film ‘Factory

Girl’ starring his personal friend Edie Sedgwick. The second video image showed

Sedgwick watching the same film sequence on a monitor, while she comments about

herself and the film (Martin, 2006). The split-screen projection of these videos was a

very new concept to video presentation and his incorporation of dialogue with the

video images added a meaningfully new aspect to the piece.

In 1966 Billy Klüver founded ‘Experiments in Art and Technology’ which was an

organisation that focussed on collaborations between artists and engineers (Rush,

2003). The artists involved included Rauschenberg, Cage and Warhol who all

collaborated with various engineers to create technology-based work, some of which

was displayed at the 1970 ‘World Expo’ in Japan. Warhol’s participation in this

organisation showed his belief in the idea of technology and art working together to

expand his practice.

Nam June Paik was possibly the most important artist involved in emerging video

technology of the 1960s. ‘Just as collage has ousted oil painting, so the cathode ray

will replace the canvas’ (Rush, 2003). This quote from Paik sums up his feelings

about how technology was becoming engrained into art and how video had the

potential to replace already established artistic mediums. In an interview with Paik he

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states ‘if Beckett was alive today, he would have written Finnegan’s Wake in video’

(Paik, 1989). ‘Finnegans Wake’ is the last book written by Samuel Beckett and is

considered one of the most complicated books ever written. To suggest Beckett

would have chosen to portray his book in video form if the technology was available

shows Paik’s belief in video as a significant artistic medium.

Paik’s relationship with technology began with his work in Action Art and the Fluxus

movement towards the end of the 1950s and the early 1960s. Action Art and Fluxus

focussed on the body as an aesthetic material and as a surface on which to project

indications of mental states. Paik’s 1962 piece ‘Zen for Head’ was an example of him

using his body as aesthetic material in this way. In this performance piece Paik

dipped his head, hands and tie into black paint. He then proceeded to crawl

backwards down a long strip of white paper, creating markings on the paper as he

moved (Rush, 2003). The medium of video eventually became the structural element

for performances such as these and as a way of documenting them.

Unlike Nauman and Acconci, Paik did not limit the use of his video recorder to simply

documenting his performances. He made videos with the intent of displaying them on

to television sets, to make them into sculptural objects. Through working with

television sets, Paik discovered ways of manipulating how his videos were displayed.

The technology of television was relatively unexplored, but Paik experimented with

additional impulses that could affect the picture of a television set. As electronic

signals were input into a television, Paik found he could stretch and compress its

image’s direct composition (Martin, 2006). His 1963 exhibition ‘Exposition of Music-

Electronic Television’, which is briefly mentioned earlier, showed German television

on television sets. The exhibition incorporated twelve television sets and half showed

German television being broadcast, but Paik deformed each television set’s picture in

a different way. Paik used magnets to do this and each set was affected differently,

some had their pictures inverted and others had static lines running through their

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picture (Ammer, 1963). The other half of the television sets were connected to and

affected by other acoustic impulses such as tape recorders and radios (Ammer,

1963). One television set even incorporated audience participation into how its

picture was distorted. An audience member could speak into a microphone that was

connected to the television set and their sound impulses produced bursts of dots on

to the screen (Ammer, 1963).

Paik also used the broadcasting nature of television to reach a mass audience. In

1967 Boston public television station ‘WHGB-TV’ broadcasted ‘The Medium is the

Medium,’ which was a programme that showed various contemporary art designed to

be broadcasted. The artists included Kaprow, Tambellini, Piene and Paik who

produced a mixture of dance, theatre and video. This shows that Paik not only used

the television as a sculptural object, like in his exhibition ‘Exposition of Music-

Electronic Television,’ but also as a broadcasting tool to connect art and life on a

media level (Martin, 2006).

Video is a medium that depends upon current technological developments more than

any other. Paik evolved his

practice alongside these

developments throughout his

career. As well as creating new

pieces of work which utilised the

new technology, Paik also used it

to update his older work. His 1965

piece ‘Moon is the Oldest TV’

involved recordings of each phase

of the lunar cycle, from when it is least visible to when it is full (Rush, 2003). Figure 3

shows the twelve monitors displaying each progressive stage in the moon’s cycle. All

were shown on video tape in black and white and all monitors had a magnet attached

Figure 3 - 'Moon is the Oldest TV'

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to their cathode ray, thereby distorting the images sent to the screens. Paik updated

the black and white video tapes to colour in 2000 to be displayed again on more

advanced monitors. By doing this Paik shows his belief in taking advantage of new

techniques and tools to expand his practice and create new aspects in his work. A

piece such as this could be described as never ending as it can always be changed

and updated with the latest video technology. This was an idea which was always

present in Paik’s practice.

In 1965 Paik purchased a Sony Portapak, which was the first obtainable video

recorder available in the United States of America. This was a significant point in

Paik’s relationship with technology. With the Portapak he began to make videos and

then present them in gallery spaces. This was significant as no one had seen video

in any other format than on television. Paik also used his Portapak as a video diary

which documented the significant moments in his life with his wife and fellow video

artist Shigeko Kubotas. From 1965 until the end of his life in 2006, Paik created a

relationship with his Portapak which chronicled his time with his wife Kubotas. This

included their travels through Europe, Paik’s return to Korea after thirty four years

and eventually his recovery from an incapacitating stroke (Rush, 2003). After Paik’s

death, Kubotas’ video piece ‘Sexual Healing’ reflected the recovery process Paik

went through after his stroke (Rush, 2003). It was a combination of Paik’s two life

companions; his wife and his video recorder.

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Chapter 3: Contemporary Technology

The majority of the artists that have been examined recorded and stored their videos

in analogue format. However, since the 1960s and 70s, video technology has

advanced greatly and artists along with it. A crucial point in video technology’s

timeline, which changed how artists worked with video, was the switch from analogue

to digital rendering of video code. This shift gradually happened through the 1970s

and 80s but it was not until the end of the 1990s when the digital approach to

electronic image editing replaced the recording of analogue visual material onto

magnetic tapes (Martin, 2006). The technology became available for artists to use in

1997 when Sony first made a digital camera available for the public to purchase.

Visual data could be stored on laser disc, CD-ROM, DV cassette or DVD when

recorded on the digital camera. The nature of the numerical code, which any digitally

recorded material is based, meant significant improvements to what could be done

with video. New functions and techniques such as morphing and digital compositing

allowed smooth transitions from image to image and the seamless combination of

several elements into one picture. Video recordings could also be produced as

computer-generated images through the use of graphics programmes which came

along with this technology (Martin, 2006).

Video image projected in a digital format gave another advantage to video artists. An

image projected from a DVD player gave a far clearer image and could be used in

poorer lighting than visual data in analogue format. This may seem an insignificant

advantage to digital video technology but the importance of the projected image is

urged by British curator Chrissie Iles. Iles states;

During the 1960s and early 1970s the projected image played a critical role in creating a new language of representation in creating a new language of representation, as artists used film, slides, video and holographic and photographic projection to measure, document, abstract, reflect and transform the parameters of physical space (Iles, 2001).

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The internet is now becoming as important a tool to contemporary artists as video

was to the artists of the 1960s. Internet databases such Videoart.net are set-up as an

alternative spaces for contemporary video art to be presented on a global scale. This

particular internet database contains hundreds of examples of contemporary video

artists’ work. It also contains an interview with John G. Hanhardt, a former senior

curator of film and media arts at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum. Hanhardt

describes how the art world and the role of galleries for video art have changed due

to the emergence of the internet. Hanhardt sees this as a positive thing, expressing

that ‘museums are not as open as they can and should be’ and that with an internet

database like Videoart.net there is an unlimited amount of space for artists to show

their work (Hanhardt, 2010). This includes video work that has been made for the

internet but it can also work as an alternative space or stage for new artists to show

work that they had not specifically created for the internet.

Hanhardt talks about the history of video art stating that ‘in the history of video as an

art form artists themselves created the opportunities and means for their art to be

shown, produced, and exhibited’ (Hanhardt, 2010). Hanhardt worked with 1960s

video artists such as Paik and Vostell in the exhibition New American Video Art: A

Historical Survey from 1967 to 1987 at the Whitney Museum of American Art and it is

clear that he is talking about the technological opportunities that these artists took

advantage of (Hanhardt, 1984). In the same way, Hanhardt proposes that ‘a new

generation has to create its new strategies to show, to represent, to distribute and I

think that can happen in galleries and outside of galleries’ (Hanhardt, 2010). From

this we can see Hanhardt does believe galleries are still relevant and necessary in

modern art, but that artists have to use whatever is advantageous and available to

them, the internet can be this advantage.

The first part of an online video series entitled Art in the Digital Age describes how

artists are using the internet and other evolving technologies in their work. In this

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video, Shane Walter, the founder and creator of the contemporary digital arts

organisation Onedotzero, describes the difference between art that is online and

online art (Walter, 2012). Art that is online, for example, is seeing a painting on a

website but online art is art that has been specifically created for the internet. This

kind of online art is mainly interactive work which involves the viewer by letting them

affect the artwork by clicking and dragging in whatever way is directed (Walter,

2012). An example of interactive online art which involves the viewer is a piece set

up by James Davis, Google Art Project Manager. He used the Google technology

Streetview in the Tate Modern space, so that you can move around the gallery online

in three dimensions like you were moving around streets as you do in Google

Streetview. This interactive work also allows you to click on any piece you see, which

takes you into a high resolution view of the piece so that you can observe rich, close

up detail (Walter, 2012).

This online video also informs the viewer of the V&A’s first all-digital exhibition in

2009 called Decode. This exhibition had many interactive pieces which had been

transferred from their immaterial forms on the internet to a gallery space. Louise

Shannon, who is Acting Head of Contemporary Projects at the V&A, explains that in

this exhibition people experiencing the interactive artwork changed their behaviours

and etiquettes from what is usually normal in a traditional museum (Walter, 2012).

These examples of internet-based art concur with Hanhardt’s point that online art is

positive for contemporary video artists but that galleries and museums will always be

at the forefront for presenting art. Shane Walter and Hanhardt also both agree about

contemporary artists taking advantage of technology that has become available with

the internet. Walter describes how he founded his organisation Onedotzero as digital

technology became more available to artists and he outlines how artists began to

take advantage of this. Artists could merge their skills and this made transitions

between digital mediums a far easier process, for example, graphic designers could

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develop their work into moving images (Walter, 2012). Digital artists that take

advantage of new technology to further their practices conform to Hanhardt’s view

that ‘a new generation has to create its new strategies to show, to represent, to

distribute…’ (Hanhardt, 2010).

The internet is not the only technology being used by contemporary artists in their

practices. The iPad is a piece of technology used by contemporary artists that’s

technological innovations can be compared to the Portapak in the 1960s. David

Hockney is an artist who has embraced the iPad and the possibilities that come with

it. His exhibition at the Royal Academy in 2012 ‘A Bigger Picture’ incorporated

painting, film and work created on an iPad. Hockney describes the iPad as;

Like an endless piece of paper that perfectly fitted the feeling I had that painting should be big. I see now that a lot of the argument in the late 60s was not that painting was dead, but that easel painting was dead. Easel painting means small painting. The moment I got a very big studio, everything took off (Wroe, 2012).

Hockney’s feelings about the iPad are similar to how Paik felt about video and video

recording devices of the 1960s. Paik stated that Beckett would have written

‘Finnegan’s Wake’ in video form and Hockneys says of Pablo Picasso’s work: ‘I still

don't think we've fully grasped what he achieved, and, of course, he would have

absolutely loved something like the iPad’ (Wroe, 2012). Paik and Hockney see both

technologies as mediums that, if they had been available, would have been used by

the masters of their time.

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Conclusion

Throughout this research project it is has been established that artists of any time

period will use whatever medium is available to them to expand their practices. This

research project has focussed on the 1960s artists’ adoption of video technology as a

medium, but it a process which has occurred throughout art history. It is still occurring

within contemporary art; new emerging artists are using tools such as the internet to

create art and also to display their work in an alternative space to a museum or

gallery. Established artists also show a willingness to embrace new technologies that

create new work and explore new aspects to their already created work.

This research protect was set out to answer the questions; how did 1960s video

artists use the technology available to them to expand their practices and how have

contemporary artists done this with the technology of today. How 1960s video artists

used the technology available to them was completely individual to each artist.

Although they incorporated the same kinds of technology into their practices, each

artist had his or hers own relationship with each kind of technology. However, what

all artists of this time period shared was their use of the Portapak. Hermine Freed’s

statement, which is discussed at the beginning of this project, ‘the Portapak would

seem to have been invented specifically for use by artists’ has been proven as a

significant statement. As an artistic tool, the Portapak fit into video art as well as the

paintbrush fits into painting.

Contemporary artists have expanded their practices with the technology of today in

many of the ways that 1960s artists did. This research project has looked particularly

into John G. Hanhardt’s opinion on how contemporary artists now use technology.

Hanhardt worked with 1960s video artists and recognises that contemporary artists

have to use the same processes that the 1960s video artists used to expand their

practices. Even though the different generations of artists use different tools, the way

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they use them as an advantage to their practices’ has not changed. Hanhardt states

‘a new generation has to create its new strategies to show, to represent, to distribute’

and this has been true for previous generations of artists and will be for future ones

(Hanhardt, 2010).

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