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Time as Medium
Five Artists' Video Installations
Barbara London
unique effect of video. Dissociated into segments and reconstituted in diverse ways, video time is an expressive element in
the installations of Bruce Nauman, Nam June Paik, Dan Graham, Bill Viola, and Gary Hill. Although not motivated by
scientific paradigms, video-makers' work often bears on the evolving concept of time in twentieth century science.
the mid-196os, when the introduction of the At the beginning of this century, Newton's notion of abso-
Portapak video camera to the consumer market lute time (a reference frame for all temporal measurements)was
initiated video as an art form, the ideas of critic superseded when Einstein declared that time is meaningful only
Clement Greenberg were well known within the artistic com- in association with space. He introduced an infinity of times,
munity [1]. His analysis of Modernism stipulated that each dis- each linked to one of an infinity of spaces. In quantum
cipline must search for and determine what is unique and mechanics the concept is equally odd, linking time to energy
irreducible to that art. Many of the artists who tried their hand through the uncertaintyprinciple and then abandoning what lit-
at video were modernist in the Greenbergian sense. They tle remains of these mental constructs in the abyss of comple-
focused on the effects peculiar and exclusive to video. mentarity,a theory that defies rationalapprehension [2].
In their experimentations with the medium, video-makers Video-makers are not concerned with explicating the large
pointed their cameras at the live picture on the monitor and questions that preoccupy scientists. In their handling of time,
discovered the recursion phenomenon popularly known as artists rework commonly held notions at least as often as they
feedback. They colorized black-and-white sequences and rear- incorporate scientists' radical ideas. Rarely do these domains
ranged the digital image on the screen by modulating the video intersect as effectively as in the art initiatedby video technology.
signal. In addition, various forms of interactivity,such as using
a magnet to warp a television image, added a new dimension of Shock of the Present
"nowness" to the exploratoryworks of these artists. In CorridorInstallation(1970), Bruce Nauman lined up six
A fuller study of time resulted from the interplay between long corridors, as if offering a traveler a choice of realms to
the viewer, the live camera, and prerecorded video material. explore. Three of the corridors are only wide enough to peer
Time was speeded up, slowed down, frozen, and otherwise into, and the others so narrow that they are barely passable.
mangled within a context that allowed viewer participation.The One of these corridors has two identical monitors at the far
ability to split time into segments and reconstitute them within end, stacked one on top of the other. On each screen is an
the actual flow of the present moment is unique to video. image of that empty corridor. The simplicity of the arrange-
The course of real time-the order of events and their dura- ment is curious, enticing. Entering the confining space forces
tion-is identical to that of video time. Anyone with a portable one to proceed in small steps, elbows pressed tight against the
television at a football game would confirm that the action on body. Suddenly one's picture, shot from behind, appears on
the set temporally matches the play on the field. The corre- one of the two monitors. This monitor is live, in the present.
spondence leads viewers to perceive any modification to the When turning about to find the camera, which is positioned
normal flow of video events as a tampering with real time. above the entrance, one's face appears on the monitor; but
Thus artists discovered in video time a medium with expressive
qualities.In transfiguringthe ribbon of time that is video, artists
worked directly with an elusive idea that has engaged philoso- BarbaraLondon, Museum of Modern Art,
phers for millennia. The resulting art, like the ideas put forth by 11 W. 53rd St., New York, NY 10019, U.S.A.
science, underscored the complex characterof time. ReceivedMay 1, 199g
w.
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