Article by Judith Barry excerpted from the book Illuminating Video: An Essential Guide to Video Art, 1991
Published by Aperture in association with the Bay Area Video Coalition
ISBN: 0-89381-390-7 link to PDF
BOOK SUMMARY ILLUMINATING VIDEO is the most comprehensive collection of essays on video art. It is an essential text for the general reader interested in new visual forms. It is a significant resource for anyone who is involved in media, video art, art history, or contemporary social theory.
This volume contains the insights of prominent artists in the field as well as critical writings by scholars and critics. It illustrates the complex, heterogenous nature of video, and highlights its strong ties to the visual arts and social theory. While providing an essential critical context for understanding video's role as art, these writings show that video is at the forefront of contemporary cultural and aesthetic discourse. Using a wide range of strategies from the poetic to the destructive, these essays provide a long overdue critical context in which to evaluate video as art and its subsequent impact on social and cultural behaviour.
Editors Dough Hall and Sally Jo Fifer have written an extensive introduction, and have organized the book into five sections which address the varied aspects of video. From essays which examine attempts to construct a history of video to the relation of video to media, fine art, and culture to pieces specifically created by leading artists in video for this unique publication, ILLUMINATING VIDEO is a dynamic, interactive dialogue in which the reader can participate.
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