The Form and Sense of Video
artscanada, Oct. 1973, v. 30, no. 4, pp. 15 - 24
Robert Arn delves into film history to right misconceptions about the filmic treatment of time. Film theory is used in analogy with experimental video practice in an attempt to foster a formal description of video, or television-as-an-art-form. He presents film as having a history of theater mimicry, only becoming interesting as it forges it's own aesthetic, and that television follows the same trajectory. He claims video art utilizes the electronic signal in a way that is medium specific, while television remains trivial in it's imitations of film. Further discussions, with diagrams, on the essential differences between film and video - film as a frozen medium, video as a constantly moving electronic dot - are postulated. Arn uses Nam June Paik's experiments with televisions and magnets as a rudimentary precursor to Steve Rutt and Bill Etra's synthesizers which exert analog control over all aspects of the video image.
Published as part of Artscanada's Issue of Video Art.
ITEM 1973.001 – available for viewing in the Research Centre
Videos, Artworks and Artists Cited
Man With a Movie Camera – Dziga Vertov
Cats – Elsa Tambellini
Les Carabiniers – Jean-Luc Godard
Le Petit Soldat – Jean-Luc Godard
Video Light Compositions – Walter Wright and Rudi Stern
Waves – Michael Hayden
Laser Quantum 1 – Bill Etra
Timed Images – Michael Snow