Video Art

least that can be said is that we have witnessed death of art in United States. So writes Michael Nash in a recent and provocative essay on new technologies and media arts, that appears, almost ironically, in Resolutions: Contemporary Video Practices (1996), edited by Michael Renov and Erika Suderberg. Resolutions is just one of several new books dedicated to critique and theorization of art. Just as death knell sounds for video, critical attention to field - notoriously limited throughout art's short history - has recently surged If is dead, how can we explain recent proliferation of video studies? My work on this essay began when recent observations led me to wonder if some videomakers, programmers, critics and others were giving up on as an art form. At same time, despite every cause for concern, there can be found an omen that is alive and well; rash of new publications that includes aforementioned Resolutions gave me hope that and its much beleaguered body of criticism were in fact just coming into their own. I would like to argue that Nash's claim that video art is dead overstates even his case; at very least, it's a bit premature. But common sense dictates that we must acknowledge some of factors that should have us, at very least, checking its pulse. The possible reasons for attrition from practice of videomaking are many. Perhaps field is simply experiencing a regrettable but inevitable downsizing in response to financial cutbacks affecting all of arts and particularly threatening venues for public exhibition of art - largely non-profit media art centers and festivals. Video distribution continues to be curbed by difficulties of developing new audiences for work that may be considered difficult in a media-glutted world. The extent of distribution is still constrained by a glass ceiling that corresponds more or less to waning appetites of budget-slashing colleges and universities for buying and renting tapes for classroom use. (For a recent discussion of current markets for experimental film and video, see 4 Distributors + 5 Curators=The Big Picture in The Independent, July 1996). Developments outside of what is sometimes referred to as the community have also taken their toll on art. For anyone working or willing to work in narrative modes, temptation is strong to cross into arena of so-called independent feature film, with its promises of bigger budgets, critical legitimacy and relatively vast audiences that can be reached in even modest theatrical distribution; a number of prominent and emerging videomakers have already turned to film, with varying degrees of success. Others are exploring possibilities of new formats such as CD-ROM. Utopian visions of Internet's potential as a conduit for presenting works of art are still running fast and furious, despite Web's military origins and its ever-growing likeness to cable TV's home shopping services. Of course, it would be a mistake to deride these artists for turning their backs on video; instead, these trends may be seen as healthy opportunities for innovation and challenge of reaching new audiences. Nash's essay makes it inarguably clear that artists and independent media producers must stay abreast of developments in technoculture or risk unprecedented lack of access to new systems of production and delivery. At same time, it bears disheartening (if anecdotal) mention that several friends who teach in university art departments report that their students, caught up in recent boom in independent filmmaking, favor traditional narrative structures over anything that smacks of experimental, and are determined to utilize not as a medium with its own characteristics but as a testing ground for hoped-for feature film projects

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