The Temporalities of Video: Extendedness Revisited
Author(s): Christine Ross
Source: Art Journal, Vol. 65, No. 3 (Fall, 2006), pp. 82-99
Published by: College Art Association
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/20068483
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3
Bruce Nauman,
still from Violin Tuned
black-and
D.E.A.D.,
1969, single-channel
white
60 min. (artwork ? Bruce
videotape,
Nauman/SODRAC
(2006); photograph
by Electronic Arts
provided
Intermix)
In an article
written
in
for Artforum
1980, MoMA
more
"Video,
than
Barbara
any other
were
works
artists'...
in some
minutes?which
Christine
has
medium,
criticized
been
dictated
cases was
standard
by
too
much
London
temporality:
for being
videotape
'
During
long."
the length of
to 60
length?30
the
and
tedious
In the early '70s this was a valid criticism, because
self-indulgent.
many
same
period,
Nam June Paik, one of the key pioneers of electronic arts,
made his most famous claim: video is time. Although this
Ross
suggests that Paik supported
The Temporalities
Extendedness
curator
video
situated the uneasy reception of early video art in its protracted
of Video:
whose
artists,
the first generation of video
effectively
to the viewer,
duration
Revisited
work
he
a sense
conveyed
it for
reproved
of
extended
its poor
under
standing of time: "What Godard says about cinema
a
times
24
not
does
second')
in video.
hold
('truth
in
Because
video, there is no space (delimited frame) there is only time (lines without
thickness).To
one
in video
color
produce
to translate
has
in time.
color
in
Colors
video aremillionths
of seconds. Video is essentially time. And this explains why
theworks of the first video artists were so boring: coming mainly from visual
arts,
arts,
plastic
make
progress
with
experiment
the making
ration
of
extendedness,
were
not
seen
by
most
means
unique
tion
and
to
temporal
and
as
by
a few
just
that
practice
dominant
disrupt
As
linearity.
early
investigate
ty, and
repetition
experiments
determinism
the
(i.e.,
in time-based arts, but
of
the curator,
1976,
to
the
of
its explo
these
technological
to
start
material?through
conventionalities
as
will
examples
sought
nonproductive
however,
arguments,
shaped
theater,
and music
are
as a
time
banality,
Paik's
artists
a
video,
of
time. Video
length) or by their lack of experience
standard videotape
as
early
boredom,
delay,
to London's
Contrary
of
dance,
assessments
consideration
with
experience
cinema,
These
reception
time?the
of
from
coming
no
had
they
the medium."2
ambivalent
generally
art,
conceptual
if people
time,
writer,
accelera
notably
and
video
artist
Sharp, referring to Bruce Nauman's 1968-69 sixty-minute video
performances, which showed the artist in his studio engaged in the repetitive,
Willoughby
seemingly banal, and futile actions designated by their titles (ViolinTunedD.E.A.D.,
1969), argued that his work in fact "took advantage of the actual length of the
1.Barbara London, "Independent Video: The First
Fifteen Years," Artforum 19, no. I (September
1980): 41.
2. Nam June Paik, "L'Arche de Nam June," Art
Press 47 (April 1981 ): 7-9. My translation.
3.Willoughby
in
Sharp, "Videoperformance,"
to transmit
tape"
redundancy
also
render
editing
of
temporal
need
Korot, 215.
velocity,
extendedness
to counter
end,
according
to "come
spectator
video's
Supporting
artist Davidson Gigliotti
emerging
from
such
practices
to a structure
in at any
was
culture:
"Our
society
has
accelerates everything
become
centered
on
evolved
that the sense
a means
such
of
coun
a
warped
into a higher and higher
becoming
more
bui
efficient,
OB
W
of
exploration
contended
of
time"
time of TV and radio.4 Similarly, Bill Viola spoke of the
accelerated
dreams
the
unnecessary.3
sense of time. As technology
our
or
beginning
allow
only
ultimately
tering the compressed
and
no
with
not
time, themedia
real, unedited
Video Art An Anthology, ed. IraSchneider and Beryl
Korot (New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich,
1976), 253.
4. Davidson Gigliotti, "Observations on the Scope
inSchneider and
of Multi-Channel Video Work,"
actions
that would
we
are
S
finding thatwe actually have less and less time. Lack of time is one of the greatest
problems
the video
haunting
our modern
and
field
problem of the day is how tomaintain
of
functions
time)
this has meant
production,
sensorial,
spectator's
and
attentional,
central
so
faculties,
video
to increase
actions
uneventful
cognitive
own
In Viola's
lives."5
accelerated
seemingly
favoring
.The
sensitivity and depth of thought (both
of our
in the context
institutions...
that
the
lib
"one might
erate oneself from the habit of viewing objects aswe see them."6 Expanded time
thus became for some an aesthetic strategy that could problematize the opticality
of the image. As Les Levine subsequently put it, inasmuch as the "main issue that
television
is very
in
important
ception,
is time,"
with
deals
the
considering
and
in television."7
is involved
are all
"timing
and memory
cognition,
the artist
why
to time
relates
that perception
"way
space
Per
devices."
In this article, Iwant to briefly examine the ways inwhich the electronic
making of time has been and still is one of the most substantial contributions
art's
contemporary
per
se. Video
of
investigation
been
has
the
from
the
a
start
to the
development
image,
on
practice
and
time
about
of
aesthetics
but,
as will
to
clearer below, this practice articulated itself along a split between
defenders of extentedness and eventfulness, duration and immediacy. Why this
debate still matters iswhat the present essay seeks to explore by briefly situating
become
in the context of research of the last forty years that claims that
is one of the key symptoms of modernity and that this
the discussion
the acceleration of history
pace
has meant
disconnection
the progressive
between
past,
and
present,
time
of
absorption
can
One
future.
as well
space
by
only
as a
growing
to refer
here
hope
succinctly to some of these studies on thewaning of time, but I do want to show
that video art is a significant player in that reflection.
In The Productionof Space (1974), the sociologist Henri Lefebvre argues that
the advent
"with
5. Bill Viola, "History, 10Years, and the
inVideo: A Retrospective (Long
Dreamtime,"
Beach: Long Beach Museum of Art, 1984), 22.
6. Bill Viola, "The European Scene and Other
in Schneider and Korot, 277.
Observations,"
7. Les Levine, "One Gun Video Art," inNew
Artists Video: A Critical Anthology, ed. Gregory
Battcock (New York: Dutton,
1978), 77.
8. Henri Lefebvre, The Production of Space, trans.
Donald Nicholson-Smith
( 1974;Oxford, UK, and
Cambridge, MA: Blackwell Publishers, 1991), 95.
9. Sean Cubitt, The Gnema Effect (Cambridge,
MA: MIT Press, 2004), and "Analytic of the
Dimensionless; Towards a Prolegomena for any
Future Materialism," paper presented at the
"What's Left of Theory?" conference of
Australian Cultural Studies Association, University
of Tasmania, Hobart, December 8-10, 2001,
available online at http://neme.org/main/
303/analytic-of-the-dimensionless.
more
precisely
an era
recorded
of
and
vanished
time
political
from
has
ceased
uses
of
social
on
exclusively
postwar
cinema
niques)
and digital media
...
space.8
In
contends,
leaving
any
to itself,
subordinated
instruments,
measuring
of without
trace. More
(through
into
a
spatial
slow motion,
and
freeze-frame,
articulate
the
des
by showing how
tech
Steadi-cam
"organises a tempo
(through the spreadsheet, which
form")
and
the new-media
recently,
theoretician Sean Cubitt has confirmed Lefebvre's conclusions
ral process
within
Lefebvre
space,
stating
space,"
to occur
an isolable and isolated category, fragmented for the sake of profit,
to be
disposed
tined
has
the apprehension
the economic
that values
time becomes
time
of modernity
that
spatialization
of
time.9
One
decade after Lefebvre's study, however, urban planner Paul Virilio published his
pivotal L'Espacecritique ( 1984), which maintains that the exhaustion of time should
not be understood 3 solely in economic terms (as a consequence of capitalism)
but
as the effect
implementation
of
the expansion
of
television,
of
it is not
technologies
so much
of
space
Since
communication.
that
absorbs
time
the
as time
time
instantaneous
itself?the
of
electronic
reaches
another
abolishing
its detachment
after
stage:
its own
transmission?that
as interval,
existence
erodes
tem
the
of time to itself identified by Lefebvre here
porality of delay. The subordination
from
space,
duration,
and
is now
time
as
postulated
retardation.
the
ForVirilio,
predominance of speed and instantaneity over delay can only be highly problem
atic, for it tolls the knell of perspectival viewpoint and the sense of criticality that
this viewpoint
made
possible.,0
The historian Fran?ois Hartog and the anthropologist Marc Auge have equally
on
concurred
the waning
more
is understood
time
of
in terms
in contemporary
of presentism
societies,
than
spatialization.
Time inRuins (2003), Auge stipulates that ruins?and
?enable
to
the observer
not be completely
dimension
of
to
inability
sets out
however,
not
culture:
the
ruins.
produce
The
to
this
loss
book
on
here lies their productivity
of
a
time,
can
that
temporality
time. Auge s emphasis on the temporal
equated with historical
ruins,
contemporary
the passage
experience
although
"
In his
the disappearance
critique
lack of preservation
of
presentism
ruins
of
but
current
culture's
architecture
contemporary
in
ruins
of
(its
function of
ephemeral and substi tu table dimension) and the communicational
information technologies that seek to dissolve the obstacles ?f time and space
through a logic of instantaneity and transparency are two key instances inwhich
the production of ruins is fundamentally blocked. Indeed, if the prevailing
of historicity
regime
is presentism?the
of our
characteristic
turning
ness now means
a real disconnection
can
seen
as
times,
as
Hartog
an absolute
into
the present
of
value,
recently
argued,
whose
absolute
from the past (perceived as lost) and the
future (perceived as increasingly uncertain)?the
temporal productivity of ruins
While
the
appears substantially jeopardized.
preoccupation with the present
and must
and
present
on
notably,
be
as a need
progress,
as a
consistent
of modernity's
critique
to counter
modern
problematic
and
chronology,
dismissal
conventions
a
in such
permanence,
of
the
time
of
based,
it is in fact
regime,
of history which is claimed to be on the threshold of loss.
these studies, to say it bluntly, do succeed in demonstrating how
durational time has been increasingly manhandled and fragilized in (post)moder
nity, it is also clear that it is not time but specific forms of temporalities that
the possibility
While
are
to
lost,
being
transformed,
understand
fully
to this
inquiry,
such
as a
and
enforced,
a mutation.
that produces
practice
Further
negated.
art must
Video
both
be
is
research
seen
as
extendedness
temporal
required
m
?/i
contributing
and
insta?taneousness.
Indeed, itwas not only duration, which
10. Paul Virilio, L'Espoce critique (Paris: Christian
Bourgois. 1984), 37. My translation.
11. Fran?ois Hartog, R?gimes d'historicit?, pr?sen
tisme et exp?riences du temps (Paris: Seuil, 2003);
Marc Auge, Le temps en ruines (Paris: Galil?e,
precisely
2003), 45.
contrast
called
a
the beholder's
for
problem
early
the property
to
photography
inclusion
critics
of
but
in a situation
also
the video
and
that goes
its reverse:
camera?as
cinema?to
Fried in his critique of Minimalism
the
on
and
immediacy
soon
instantaneously
on, which
of
the
as it is switched
produce
created
image,
on
an
more
and
image
in
that
S
o'
c<-t
D
is de
facto
on
visible
the
the monitor
screen,
as a
functioning
device
mirroring
for any object or subject located in front of the camera at themoment of shoot
,2
ing. This criticism, based on the perception of time (of video per se) as a
at the core
stands
predicament,
art as a narcissistic
of Rosalind
For Krauss,
practice.
Krauss's
dismissal
famous
narcissism?the
of video
the other
of
absorption
its cause specifically in the performer's failure to detach him
by the self?finds
or herself from the instant feedback provided by the simultaneous reception and
transmission of the video image. Focusing on Vito Acconci's Centers (1971), in
the artist films himself pointing his finger at the center of his own image
which
on
of
the video
the
monitor
the whole
for
minutes
twenty-two
sees
the art historian
tape,
a "sustained
and
tautology"
seconds
forty-three
traced
an axis
by
of
sight starting at Acconci's plane of vision and ending at its double diffused by the
monitor:
is as
the body
"Consequently,
centered
though
two machines
between
which are the opening and the closure of a parenthesis. The first is the camera;
the second is themonitor that re-projects the image of the performer with the
time
present
late as the
'3The
a mirror."
of
immediacy
"severed
the
1990s,
is a collapsed
result
a sense
from
its own
of
of history
past,"
of video?not
immediacy
the deployment
present,
per
its feedback
only
of
se.'4
and
a
as
Even
instantane
ity features but also its production of images made from the ceaseless flow of
electrons scanning the surface from left to right and top to bottom?would
the basis on which
the cultural critic Fredric Jameson deprecated video
and associated itwith yet another temporal incompetence: the failure to produce
become
"But memory,"
memory.
he writes,
to
"seems
no
play
(or, I am tempted to say, in postmodernism
or leaves its afterimages in themanner
haunts
the
mind
nothing
moments
of film
as was
Yet,
cism
was
far from
of
generally) :
of the great
..."1S
the case with
the debate
around
and was
unanimous
also
video
the video
image,
the medium's
by
guaranteed
this
extendedness,
to the fact
blind
artists and critics stressed the importance of experimenting
quality
com
in television,
role
mercial or otherwise
in the
that,
with
criti
1970s,
the indexical
simultaneous
produc
tion and projection of images, because it enabled a unique relation of copresence
(void of any delay) between the image and its referent. Such experiments were a
means
to be
to the here
attentive
and
now
or
to the otherwise
in
12.Michael Fried, "Art and Objecthood,"
Minimal Art A Critical Anthology, ed. Gregory
Battcock (New York: Dutton,
1968), 124.
13. Rosalind E. Krauss, "Video: The Aesthetics of
inBattcock, New Artists Video, 45.
Narcissism,"
14. Ibid., 48.
15. Fredric Jameson, Postmodernism; or, The
Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism (Durham, NC:
Duke University Press, 1991 ), 70-71.
between
confusion
dimension,
relationship
to-face
self
and
she was
the other,
not
stages processes of
to its relational
attentive
the fact that in tapes such as RecordingStudio fromAirtime (1973), for
the artist was
example,
cant
the
present.
fleeting
Although Krauss was right in identifying how Acconci's work
successively
that Acconci
3
speaks
evaluated,
a
depository
his
himself
as a
and
to make
partner
and
confessed,
of his work
between
relationship"
"a middle-ground,
interpellating
practice
seeks
via
area where
about
It is also
condemned.
that
the viewer
for objects?an
the point
to establish
a monitor
a love
signifi
a "face
perceived
I, off-screen
on
as
one
can hand
side,
emphasis
curator
over
things
on
the now
Bruce
Kurtz's
to the viewer,
the viewing
of
the other
also
relationship
"the most
that
argument
on
off-screen
and
the medium
of
aspect
powerful
This
side."l6
the art critic
underlies
is its ability to transform even the events of ancient history into the flowing pre
or not what
sent, whether
live,
actually
and
a sense
taped,
the
of our
idiosyncrasies
Film,
image....
illusion
Newness,
on
programming
while
of movement,
intimacy,
commercial
sets,
its constantly
prevails
occur
constantly
frames
in
Even
tense
the present
still
complete
with
television,
involvement,
the medium.
which
'disturbances'
is
the monitor,
immediacy,
of
television,
in the
on
appears
are all characteristics
its twenty-four
with
or what
telecast,
being
tense
the present
of
prerecorded
in the
is
or filmed....
per
changing
in
is an
second,
configura
tion of dots of light, is an illusion of stillness." '7
s and
Krauss
Jameson's
are
of video
condemnations
condemnations
the
of
instantaneity (presentism and flow) otherwise defended by Kurtz and Acconci,
or any artist using the feedback capacities of themedia. But in video art this
between
dichotomy
real.
in works
Even
and
extendedness
with
that engage
is often
instantaneity
and
extendedness
real
more
than
apparent
us
time?let
think
here of the work of Nauman, Marina Abramovic and Ulay, Steina andWoody
Vasulka, Viola, Thierry Kuntzel, Madelon Hooykaas and Elsa Stansfield, Gary
Hill, Lisa Steele, Peter Fischli and David Weiss, Mich?le Waquant, Douglas
Gordon, Stan Douglas, and Craigie Horsfield, to name just a few?the durational
is never
a
simply
of
negation
and
instantaneity
acceleration.
In Viola's
Passions
for example, the
series of video projections and LCD transmissions (2000-01),
extendedness of emotional waves enacted by different actors ismade possible by
the technical hybridization of cinematic acceleration and video deceleration. The
scenes
were
shot
on
35mm
film,
as
takes
single
and
at very
high
at rates
speed,
of up to three hundred frames per second, then transferred to digital video,
radically slowed down, edited, and played on flat screens. Video art, especially
in its recent developments, is thus not without complications in the opposition
between
space
Its temporal
and
temporalization
must
investigations
tions on the waning
contemporary
be
time
duration
spatialization,
as
seen
significant
contributions
reinforcement
To understand
of presentism.
renewed forms of video extendedness while
over
immediacy.
to reflec
of time, the fragilization of the sense of history, and the
to focus here on one of the latest international exhibitions
of video
and
its "dark
age"
of uneasy
these
overdy manifesting
acceptance
and
near
aspects,
Iwant
to have shown
OB
the victory
condemnation:
the
Fifty-first Venice Biennale.
"
16.Vito Acconci,
10-Point Plan For Video,"
Schneider and Korot, 8-9.
17. Bruce Kurtz, "The Present Tense," in
Schneider and Korot, 234-35.
In continuity
in
with
but
even more
so
than
the previous
two
5
"o'
IL
Biennales,
video was present everywhere in the 200 c Venetian display of technological
or
heterogeneity, from the simple video projection to themore hybrid video
film screen projection on DVD (digital video disk), notably in Rosa Martinez's
Arsenale exhibition, Always a LittleFurther,where video comprised nearly half of
the exhibited works. But in all sections of the Biennale, circulating through the
rooms
and
meant
pavilions
by one-,
occupied
around
moving
or
six-screen
two-,
screens
large
-monitor
or
rooms
entering
itmeant
installations;
solely
walking
on floors or alongside walls illuminated by video representations, lying down
under a ceiling transformed by the kaleidoscopic display of electronic landscapes
(Pipilotti Rist, Homo sapienssapiens,200c), or looking inside cardboard boxes with
video images projected within (Blue Noses, Quest, 200c), often accompanied by
the soundtrack of the next video work further down. The Biennale showed how
at this
point,
much,
tecture
to water
surface
any
can
suffice
(Rebecca
for projection,
Fountain,
Bellmore,
screen
from
to train wagons
200c)
to archi
(Xu Zhen,
Shout, 2ooc), and how the present field of video art includes both established and
younger artists from everywhere. Initially disparaged (but also revered) for its
of border-temporalities,
exploration
the parent pauvre of
television,
a
for
pleonasm
video
art
significant
proliferation
to this
related
tion
or
their
accepted
by
can be made
which
the medium
risks
remarginalizing
Martha
confirmed
has meant
which
Rosler's
the acceptance
"can
live"
only
social
orientation,
in spacious
and
negativity,
as a
anticipation
of video
spaces, to the detriment of single-channel
community-activist
and
the art
to explain
of the history of
of video
projections,
large-screen
equipped exhibition
institutions
of video and the depreciation
the event
First,
practice.
the "museumization"
widely
three observations
proliferation,
that
art
by
art.
contemporary
In light of the 200c Biennale,
the quasi-tyr?nnical
is now
video
increasingly since the 1990s, to the point of
system. It has been proliferating
becoming
both
marginalized
cinema,
installa
and well
pieces known for
lighter
use
tech
of
nology.'8 Second, the generalized integration of DVDs also made palpable the
impact of the digital revolution on the burgeoning of video, the digital becom
of itsmalleability, immutability, and precise coding of data?the
ing?because
predominant mode of support for both video and film, suggesting, as already
noted by media theoretician Philippe Dubois, that video, in its "pure" electronic
form,
came
only
two
18.Martha Rosler, "Video: Shedding the Utopian
Moment," in Illuminating Video: An Essential Guide
to Video Art, ed. Doug Hall and Sally Jo Fifer (New
York and San Francisco: Aperture and the Bay
Area Video Coalition,
1990), 44 and 49.
19. Philippe Dubois, "La question vid?o face au
cin?ma: d?placements esth?tiques," inGn?ma et
to occupy
established
strongly
'9
tal. While
video
represents
a
and marginal
transitory,
fragile,
image-and-sound
information
technologies,
between
position
cinema
as a continuous
flux
and
of
the digi
data
analogue
to be displayed on an electronic screen, digital sensors transform luminous
data in a temporal succession of calculable binary digits (bits) that can adopt
the value
rial
of
continuity
derni?res technologies, ed. Frank Beau, Philippe
Dubois, and G?rard Blanc (Issy-les-Moulineaux,
France, and Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium: INA and
De Boeck Universit?,
1998).
20. Andr? Rouill?, La Photographie (Paris:
origin.20The
Gallimard, 2005), 614-17.
transmission
1 or o. Hence,
or
contact
as Andr?
between
Rouill?
things
has
and
argued,
images
is a mate
there
although
at the moment
of
capture,
the recorded image ismade entirely from mathematical symbols to be adminis
trated by programming
3
systems that disconnect the image from itsmaterial
mathematical
to the other,
coding
while
means
the analogue
that data
signal
remains
weakens
the
same
in time.
from
one
The
digital,
a
introduces
moreover,
which
malleability
surpasses
not
imagery:
analogue
only can the images now circulate, endlessly and rapidly, from one digital site
to another,
as these
inasmuch
modified
are
reframed,
(retouched,
related
links,
by digital
partially
suppressed,
can
they
also
or
fragmented,
be
easily
reassem
this brings us to
bled). The in-between, fleeting status of analogue video?and
more
the third observation?is
reinforced all the
by the extensive use of digital
technology as amere media support deprived of any critical questioning of
viewer
narration,
representation,
and, more
interrogation,
time,
significant,
as
though earlier video had never occurred and could not thus be the historical
on which
basis
to
a
established
cleavage
between
awareness.
When
one
becomes
structural,
the main
of
media
works.
institutional acceptance of digital video installation has
The sweeping
of historical
new
produce
optical,
media
reaches
and
a
electronic
arts,
stage
of omniscience,
this
art, used
of
narrative,
temporal,
recent
and
early
video
depreciation
mosdy
sound
it
when
as a support
which
from
are dismissed,
investigations
it disappears. It is not thatwe are facing yet another "end" (following the
alleged end of history or painting). Rather, video art becomes merely a digital
of our
extension
lives where
digital
should
they
more
the
how
hows
one
could
better
crisis
not
to abolish
context,
screen
other
be processed,
as towhy
cannot
media
into
and
as or
be
the Biennale's
appreciate
the
of
screen.
Screen (200c),
Matias
even
which
a shot
ends with
a camera
activates
of
a blank,
black
that films
DVD
the
was
screen,
that
works
of
silencing
to think about the whys
one-minute
Foldbakken's
video
a form
to articulate
it, but
the viewer aware of the critical necessity
thatmade
and
and
can
legitimate.
In this
put
so and
why
be
or word
sound,
image,
atwill, but leaving us perplexed
played out, or manipulated
how
any
video
inside
projection,
a cinema
of
in this
pivotal
and
Black
theater
as was
regard,
Mark Raidpere's video projection ShiftingFocus (200c), showing himself with his
mother, first adjusting the camera for focus, then slipping into a confessional
in which
mise-en-situation
secret.
intimate
process,
The
he
scene
actual
of
the viewer's
frustrating
instances
video
when
expectation
succeeds,
among others, in keeping
itself
as a
that
shaped
cut out
not
and more
generated
with
images,
(administrative,
other
or
media?be
architectural
scientific,
artistic,
by
painful,
the editing
during
only
its progressive
despite
the
reduction
its historical development
still has
to say about
something
representation. Entering its digital phase, video is destined
more
a
to be
scenario
but
that ShiftingFocuspartly reproduces. These
in touch with
in mutation
practice
was
confession
also by reality TV and InternetWebcams
are
seems
to share what
attempts
it film,
painting,
components?and
popular)
image,
sound,
interwoven
or
digitally
o?
to affirm
time
I
o'
C
3
61
and
to be hybridized
photography,
to be
to a support
computer
with
any
assisted
activity. As such, there is no point in trying to single out the specificity of video
Mark
still from Shifting Focus,
Raidpere,
9 min. 30 sec. (art
2005, video projection,
work ? Mark Raidpere;
photograph
provid
ed by Centre
for Contemporary
Arts,
art except
Estonia)
Bolter
to notice
can
that video
not to
be made
inform it in specific ways through its own history.
In a pivotal book published in 2000, the new-media
and Richard
coined
any new medium
inwhich
as Marshall
and,
Grusin
the word
can
in the
digital,
disappear
specialists JayDavid
to refer
"remediation"
to the ways
is always both a refashioning of an earlier medium
McLuhan
had
a
observed,
already
novelty
understood
through
previous media novelties.21 This field of research is crucial in that it not only rec
the
ognizes
at
remediation
in any
play
new
evolving
medium
the historical
(i.e.,
debt of new media
toward earlier media) but also experiments with the aesthetic
at
possibilities
play in themeeting of temporal and nontemporal media. The use
of the digital is crucial here since it opens up video to other media in away that
can
potentially
renew
all media
involved.
is the case,
Such
of
notably,
Shahzia
Sikander's SpiNN (2003) wall painting and DVD installation, which show both
painting can gain aesthetically through activation by the layering,
how much
loss,
and
and
21. JayDavid Bolter and Richard Grusin,
Remediation: Understanding New Media
(Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2000).
ality,
of
reemergence
ed when
powerful
and
the
Temporalized
interpretation
electronic
it is interwoven with
development
of narrative
by video, Sikander's painting
recalling
of
the
tradition
how
video
art can
be
complicat
traditions known for their sustained
forms
that have
intercultural?areas
3
as the
and
images,
rich pictorial
of
occupied
is asmuch
of
of
representation
video
since
identity,
its
beginnings.
about the perception
Indo-Persian
miniature
sexu
and
painting.
Shahzia
still from SpINN 1,2003,
Sikander,
with sound, 6 min. 38 sec,
digital animation
dimensions
variable
(artwork ? Shahzia
Sikander;
photograph
provided
by Sikkema
Jenkins & Co., New York City)
The tradition is enlivened by the undecided tension between aWash wall paint
ing and a digital animation projected onto that surface, the projection setting
into play an uninterrupted flow of images of imps, lovers, and birdlike flying
shapes (the black hairdos of the evanescent nude gopis), sampled both from
traditional
imaginary
and mass
that emerge
media,
gradually changing background of aMughal
veils
projection
scene
with
temporality
and
another
reveals,
to alter
adds
our
in the construction
and
as it also
retracts
perception
of meaning.
from
and
dissolve
a
against
throne room and a landscape. The
of
reads
the whole
The
200c
and
Biennale
and
one
transposes
suggest
showed
a sense
of
that new
in a critical understanding of media history,
does provide vibrant experimentations
that both inscribe themselves and renew
video art's investigation of time. As I hope to show through further examination
of some of the key works of the Biennale, when engaged in such investigations,
media
art, when
it is embedded
video art can still provide strong insights as to the evolution of the image. It is
when
it addresses
time,
interestingly,
that
it succeeds
in
doing
so. To demonstrate
Candice
Breitz, stills from Mother,
2005,
13min.
15 sec,
installation,
variable
(artwork ? Candice
Breitz; photographs
Fahl,
by Alexander
Francesca
provided
by Galleria
Kaufmann)
six-channel
dimensions
Iwill
this,
on
focus
the loop?that
a sense
provides
two
aesthetic
temporal
and
strategies?decontextualization
best disclose how video art endowed with historical awareness
of
to the
futurity
image.
Decontextualization
The Biennale presented several works which show how the field of video art is
currently engaged in original investigations of what Iwould call, for lack of a
better
This
decontextualization.
word,
mimetic
aesthetic
procedure
understanding
the
three types of
In the
and mutability.
extendedness,
temporalities?instantaneity,
redefines
substantially
of the image. It does so by connecting
late
1970s,
Dara Birnbaum produced a series of single-channel tapes, including Technology/
WonderWoman (1978) and Kiss theGirls:Make ThemCry (1979), which
Transformation:
an aesthetic
devised
tions
of
of
strategy
The works
femininity.
to deconstruct
appropriation
short
appropriated
televisual
from
sequences
and quiz shows and replayed them by repeating selected fragments
discursive
constructions
Candice
of
twin
Breitz's
sented at the Biennale,
but move
priation
otherwise
gender
six-monitor
video
sit-coms,
to disclose
in the narrative
impalpable
installations
representa
soaps,
and
Mother
flow.
Father (200c),
pre
inscribe themselves fully in Birnbaum 's strategy of appro
toward
reorchestrations
linguistic
the pirated
of
material.
Appropriating from Hollywood films not sequences or fragments but mere
instants of statements or phonemes uttered by famous actors (including Meryl
Streep and Julia Roberts for Mother and Steve Martin and Dustin Hoffman for
Father),Breitz digitally cuts these instants from their initial contexts, sets them
against
a black,
them
in the new
neutral
in "dialogue" with
a
in that
critique
many
isolation
of DJ pirating
terms,
turn
the
into
them
nization,
new
and
talking
about.
reply
of meaning.
are
arranged
of
These
versions
to reactivate
to one
another
are
the
and
become
are made
the
too
from
in visual
instants
excerpted
in this
create,
Kurtz
as
read merely
the equivalent,
which
Instantaneity,
be
statements
the
but
Ameri
constructs?here,
can never
narratives
a way
sampling,
that
discursive
orchestration
as smooth
heads
plasma
relocates
finally
screens
the process of appropriation does have
fatherhood?it
comes
version
and
possibilities
and
and
repeats,
replays,
where
to disclose
'swork,
to function
syncopes
then
installation,
motherhood
a new
by which
the
each other. Although
about
fantasies
means
of
as in Birnbaum
the effect,
can
and
background,
context
and
reorga
in
designated
1976 as "the most powerful aspect" of video ("its ability to transform even the
events of ancient history into the flowing present") is explored here in its narra
tive potential,
The
concept
as a way
of
to reinvent
representation
narrative
as a
through
sampling
the practice
procedure
also
of
sampling.
discloses
the
3
role of the image in the increasing interdependence of fiction and reality in
(post)modern societies. What Gilles Deleuze has said about the time-image of
3
time's
reversing
is
still be
explored
in a critical
and
tension,
art when
in video
Fiction
terms.22
nonoptical
for one
to substitute
but
another,
us
this brings
the main
of
by
effects
of
the real and the imaginary?
between
problematized
in nonmimetic,
investigated
another
to as
transposable
time
of
representation
that one
and
to abolish the distinction
so much
tion
the direct
to movement,
subordination
this reversal was
is not
it articulated
cinema?that
post-Neorealist
can
also
representa
and
to Antoine
one
to chase
HD
Prum's
can
reality
be made
video
3cmm single-screen projection MondoVeneziano:
High Noon in theSinkingCity (200c).
A narrative of theVenice Biennale itself, the work stages?in
the city of Venice?
four
the field
of
specialists
a critic,
(a curator,
a
and
painter,
a "convivial"
artist)
engaged in a debate about contemporary art. It proposes a fictional world that
looks real but whose artificiality progressively becomes manifest and whose high
level
raises
of fiction
the question
completely
on
statements
readymade
who
protagonists,
art and
read
often
the
of
appropriations
set
stage
feature
situated
films.
lines
it can never
reality
as
in a rehearsal,
though
is also
"Venice"
gradually
inhabitants or water),
in a southern
town
are
inserted
Prum's
are uttered
they
although
the
by
the assemblage
that it is only the credits at the end that reveal the
statements.
ality: empty and dry (without
large
But
culture.
their
is so logical in its interweaving
of
to a
relation
of fiction's
absorb. The debate is structured by the sampling and assemblage of
images
in its fiction
exposed
the city is a fake Venice?a
of Luxembourg,
used
in a continuous
the making
for
of
logic
the
confu
sion of fiction and reality, a logic that is inseparable from the digital revolution.
As Rouill? has observed, digital malleability implies that the image can easily be
and
is even
expected
to be modified?further
amateur
any
fictionalized?by
pro
the help of a variety of image-processing
techniques. While this leads
him to conclude that the truth function of the image is slowly dying, Mondo
ducer with
Veneziano
This
transformed.
the artists
section
on
shows
the contrary
to search
continue
on
an
that
even more
becomes
for
truth
effect
in a state
persists,
toward
manifest
the definition
live body,
apparently
this
of
of
art, one
complete
albeit
the end
actor
substantially
of
As
the work.
a dis
performs
This
indifference.
pro
jection does not end the blurring of fiction and reality, but does succeed in
challenging it by bringing into contact art and the body, the latter as the element
though which the fictional and entertainment value of art (the persistent laws of
transgression that support the consecration of the artist) are disclosed
into
and called
question.
at play in the sampling procedure, which
The process of decontextualization
I argue is significandy tied to investigations of temporality, also has the effect of
abrupdy separating the image from its referent or the represented action from its
3
cause. Nikos Navridis's
looped video projection Difficult Breathno.41 (2004) makes
22. Gilles Deleuze, Gn?ma 2?L'image-temps
(Paris: ?ditions de Minuit, 1985). 15,93-94,
that rupture explicit in its brief deployment
108.
who
drink
water
and
then
spit
it out
of a group of female performers
at the very moment
when
the
camera
Dean, still from Vofto, 2002-03,
Stephen
video-DVD
loop, stereo sound, 9 min.
Dean; photograph
(artwork ? Stephen
by Galerie Xippas,
provided
Paris)
removes
water
them
slowly
moving
argue
about
would
the frame.
from
the
remaining,
so much
the act of
favoring
quite
the event
not
digital,
to the event,
autonomy
The
in mid-air?cuts
poetic
to negate
sequence?sparkling
source
the
as
to
an
provide
on what
to focus
forgetting
as Rouill?
its source,
from
is other
invisible and impalpable: the evolution of breath in time, its power yet
inevitable ending, together with the choreographic dimension of droplets of spit
wise
in space.
is, as such,
Breath
an extended
instant.
one-screen
three
Dean's
Stephen
video projections, Pulse (2001), Vblta (2002), and Bloco (2004), also proceed with
decontextualization
by cutting not the cause but the referent from the image,
screen
the
with
images of dense crowds inmotion, which makes it
flooding
to
detach the representation from themateriality of the screen.While
impossible
are
these
a
crowd,
with
strong
remain
the crowds
carnival),
the electronic
so
signals,
of mass
images
documentary
events
and
abstract
that what
becomes
units
tend
is not
important
a soccer
rite,
(a religious
their
to merge
the explana
tion of the events but their existence as a pixelized chromatic unfolding that
conveys the unpredictable passages from euphoria and ecstasy to disappointment
and silence. Showing no interest in providing a sociological, anthropological,
or psychological understanding of crowds, Dean's work conveys aesthetically
the sensuality and unpredictability of crowds by focusing on their affective
the disruption
Hence,
mutability.
of
or
the cause-and-effect
rela
image-referent
tion becomes yet another temporal strategy: away to disclose the imperceptible
mutation of things (be they breaths or affects). Extendedness here doesn't come
the extension
from
as
of duration,
in early
but
video,
from
the very
of
practice
decontextualization.
The
Loop
how much the loop has become a key mechanism
in the task of addressing the viewer through time. Itwas certainly the privileged
structure for all DVD projections, usually merely as an exhibition device, but
The Biennale made manifest
as a
sometimes
the
part
genuine
artist Marina
performance
the
of
of
temporality
who
Abramovic,
In a recent
the work.
made
extensive
use
interview,
to
of video
record her performances with Ulay in the 1970s and 1980s, underlined how the
loop has introduced a temporal paradox in video, both shortening and extend
ing the length of the work:
mance
artists
uses
excessively
"These days the young generation of video or perfor
the video
media
in
loop
form.
It's interesting
see how from the 90s until now that these loops have become
From
to 3 minutes,
7 minutes
3
onds. Time has become
that
the artists
of
the
and
now
from
condensed more
1970s made
long
one
and
a half minutes
and more. What
duration
today by constructing video loops are producing
performances,
to
shorter and shorter.
to 30
sec
really is different
is
but
the artists
of
the illusion of the long process
Willie
still from Non-Specific
Doherty,
7 min.
Threat, 2004, video projection,
46 sec. (artwork ?Willie
Doherty;
photo
and Bonin,
by Alexander
graph provided
NewYork)
performance without going through the experience themselves."23The loop both
inscribes itself in and substantially changes early video's exploration of extended
ness
and
an action,
It extends
repetition.
but
only
one
repetition,
through
to be
perceived by the viewer but produced by the computer and not through the
actual
on
side
the
the viewer
of
It also means
that
This means
the artist.
of
performance
who
observes
the extendedness
time
of
is now
that phenomenology
a scene
its digital
through
initially
solely
repetition.
as an aesthetic
explored
strategy to disrupt its linearity (the beginning-and-end
logic) and to favor the
mentalization of the image (itsmove beyond the optical) is articulated now not
so much
to
Foster
(as Hal
representation
destroy
to Minimal
in relation
argues
ism) or to disclose myths
(following Roland Barthes's definition of the critical
mythologist,
creatively explored by Birnbaum, among others) but?and here
I follow Giorgio Agamben's own definition of repetition?to
reconstitute the
it had and make
past with the possibilities
renewed
repetition.
Willie
one-screen,
Doherty's
role?in
necessary
part?a
man
motionless
and
slowly
voice-over
articulates a looping that plays an active
this other
contained.
be no
the renewal
rotates
insistently
at least
seems,
All
look
of
I share
the white
and
the
repeats
is my
your
man?elements
your
to make
the viewer
evil.
I'm
victim.
.").The
power
self
will
There
threatening
both by the site and the skinhead, gangster
suggest
aware
gradually
as
important,
the
as the
But
malignancy.
of
of the body, the orientation
appear
and
"other"
of
are my
You
and, more
scene
the face
desires..
in
thoughts
to an
victim.
a male
stages
protagonist's
I am
a
Presenting
but filmed by a camera
a relation
I know
that
the body
expressions
the
about
I'm your
fears.
around
These
to express
salvation....
circles
sive movements
setded.
perception.
the projection
him,
are
statements
be no music.
will
newspapers.
at first,
death
("Your
There
around
awe of these statements is nourished
circles
the viewer's
of
standing in a dark, deserted warehouse
to the viewer.
relation
over
that
video
seven-minute-and-forty-six-second
projection Non-SpecificThreat (2004)
that
available again to
these possibilities
initially
the
reactions
and
repeats
loop
expres
imperceptible
of the words becomes
to be
camera
less and less
to the words
which
might not after all be referring to theman's thought but to the viewer's. Slowly
disclosed, therefore, is the viewer's attempt to define the face of evil in an age of
generalized terrorist threat, aswell as theways inwhich this attempt ismarked
by how media
ment
23. Marina Abramovic, quoted inKlaus
Biesenbach, "Interview with Marina Abramovic,"
inVideo Acts: Single Channel Works from the
Collections of Pamela and Richard Kramlich and the
New Art Trust, ed. Biesenbach et al (New York:
P.S. IContemporary Art Center, 2002-03),
14.
become
manifest
(and the politicians using media)
comes
disclosure
a
of our
loosening-up
initial
define evilness. Along with
reading
of
the man
the
to reinterpret that past and let it signify differently. The loop?which
one
of
the most
important
in the 3
Loop exhibition
modes
of presentation
in video,
at P.S. 1 in 2001-02?allows
for
cessing that can, ifwe follow the findings of recent cognitive
duration
and
experience
precisely
because
the observer
is solicited
a
this
incite
has
a fact made
temporal
pro
research, lengthen
to attend
to the
time
of
related
information.24
of
a short
ment,
scene,
In other
may
lead
and
perception,
between
this has
been
the
words,
to an extension
loop,
of
to
time,
at least
time
processing
the potentially
endless
at the
show the importance of establishing
and
analogue
video
digital
claim?recent
my
resources
attentional
repetition
level
of
judge
experience.
These recent works
tion
more
to allocate
and
passage
art,
a connection
video
experimental
a historical
without
becomes
connec
which?and
either
remarginal
or simply absorbed by the digital, erasing in effect the
ized, misunderstood,
contribution
of video art to the aesthetic investigation of the image.
original
Although the analogue and the digital seem to be worlds apart, video persists
in its exploration of duration, but now focuses on the instant or the looping of
short sequences, reclaiming
introduce
mutability
the instantaneity of the video image to extend it and
in the video
situation.
Lefebvre,
torsmight well be right in their observation
have
neity
absorbed
and
permutation,
duration,
presentism.
in
spatialized
Experimental
producing
temporal
time,
video
Virilio,
that technologies
or contributed
sometimes
extendedness
and
other
to the
reign
succeeds,
even
within
this
from
investiga
of communication
of
instanta
in its
digital
realm.
Christine Ross is the James McGill Chair in the Department of Art History and Communication
Studies at
McGill University. A regular contributor to Parachute, she is the author of The Aesthetics of Disengagement
Contemporary Art and Depression (University of Minnesota Press, 2005) and Images de surface: l'art vid?o
reconsid?r? (Artextes, 1996). E-mail: [email protected]
24. See, notably, Richard A. Block, "Models
of Psychological Time," inCognitive Models of
Psychological Time, ed. Block (Hillsdale, NJ:
L Erlbaum Associates,
1990); Harvey Richard
Schiffman, Sensation and Perception: An Integrated
Approach (New York:Wiley & Sons, 2001);
and Time and Mind II: Information Processing
Perspectives, ed. Hede Helfrich (Cambridge, MA,
and G?ttingen, Germany: Hogrefe & Huber,
2003).
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