California Video: Artists and Histories

by Glenn Phillips, Editor
Getty Publications, Los Angeles, CA, 2008
312 pp., illus. 575 col., 80 b/w. Trade, $39.95
ISBN-13: 978-0892369225.

Reviewed by Amy Ione
Director, The Diatrope Institute
Berkeley, CA 94704 USA

ione@diatrope.com

When video emerged in the late twentieth century, few of us would have predicted its impact. As it now merges with our YouTube culture, documentation such as the California Video: Artists and Histories publication offers some perspective on this still-young art form and, in this case, on the unique role of West Coast artists in pushing it experimentally and creatively. Not only does the book present many prominent figures in their early days, it also brings some artists who are not as well known (many of whom deserve more recognition) to our attention. Serving as the catalogue for a 2008 exhibition at the Getty Center that presented 40 years of groundbreaking work, California Video: Artists and Histories is an impressive contribution; documenting the 1960s artists who participated in the isolated burst of experimentation in the San Francisco Bay Area, the explosion that followed throughout the state in the 1970s, and later work. Among the artists featured in the book are Eleanor Antin, John Baldessari, Brian Bress, Nancy Buchanan, Chris Burden, Jim Campbell, Meg Cranston, Harry Dodge and Stanya Kahn, Allan Kaprow, Mike Kelley, Suzanne Lacy, Paul McCarthy, Bruce Nauman, Tony Oursler, Martha Rosler, Jennifer Steinkamp, T.R. Uthco and Ant Farm, Diana Thater, Bill Viola, and William Wegman. Seven commissioned essays further enhance the interviews and still shots that comprise the bulk of the volume. These include two essays on the Long Beach Museum of Art (LBMA); Meg Cranston’s consideration of feminist video in the Women’s building collection; Robert R. Riley on concept, art and media in California video; Steve Seid on the early works of Tony Labat; Bruce Yonemoto on L.A. video; and Rita Gonzalez’ thoughts on teaching video art, which she claims is now actually teaching the history of video art since we live in a “YouTubian” environment.

One aspect of the book that sets it apart is its first-hand perspective on video’s history in relation to contemporary culture. Several of the essays and interviews draw connections between the experimental video of the late twentieth century and those of our networked culture. With the pace of technological change today, it is fascinating to think that the early innovators of the late 1960s and 1970s, when video was a new technology, have seen the medium evolve and are now a part of a totally new scene. Equally fascinating are the commonalities between the new and old. For example, in the 1970s, the weight and limitations of the Portapak often made it difficult to cart around a video camera. Thus, many were conceived by someone alone with a camera, turning it on and doing what they wanted it front of it, much like many online postings today. Still, as this volume demonstrates, many of the projects conceived within this early framework are evocative and quite creative, as are contemporary state-of-the-art works. Also addressed is how video joined with conceptual art, performance art and time-based artistic productions as the artists turned the technology into an abstract electronic canvas, added poetry, or combined it with sculpture, performance, and politics. By the 1980s, video was already an accepted form of gallery display; aided by the many innovations that had turned potentials into tools. Readers will appreciate the discussions relating how the young art form benefited from color advancements, better editing equipment, basic special effects, and much more sophisticated sound; which, all in all, leave the impression that it is probably most accurate to say that these developments did not enhance creativity but rather opened up potentials. Later, the remarkable new possibilities offered by digital video, further expanded creative work, as did video projection, which has allowed artists to create new forms of video installation, a type of video art that occupies space in a sculptural and architectural way.

Another valuable contribution of this book is its documentation of the importance of small institutions, particularly the Long Beach Museum of Art in Southern California, which is a featured venue in the volume because much of the Getty Research Institute’s extraordinary collection of video art was acquired from the Long Beach Museum of Art Video Archive in 2006. This acquisition made the Getty’s video collection one of the largest institutional collections in the world. Other noted venues, like CalArts, also in Southern California, and Northern California centers such as the de Saisset Gallery, Santa Clara University and the National Center for Experiments in Television (NCET) in San Francisco, are well woven into the text.

Although the book is a first step in documenting video projects, and its depth and scope is most impressive, it was the supplementary documentation online that makes the project come to life. (This archive is available at http://www.getty.edu/art/exhibitions/california_video/.) Including clips from the interviews and some of the work itself, I found myself mesmerized as I watched the story unfold visually and fascinated to see the young video enthusiasts transformed into mature figures on the screen as I watch the offerings. Many reflected on the history of video and how the field has evolved and morphed with the growth of digital technologies.

Probably everyone who watches the clips will choose their own favorites. I was quite taken with Joanne Kyger’s 1968 Descartes. Kyger, a poet, collaborated with the filmmaker Loren Sears on this work, which combines abstract, aesthetic and philosophical ideas. Conceived while the artist was in residence at NCET in San Francisco, Kyger, who felt that the medium of television was an idea form for resolving the problem of Descartes’ dualism, makes particularly good use of video feedback in this visual illustration of her prose poem Descartes and the Splendor of, a recasting of Descartes’ “Discourse on Method” in personal terms. A small woman’s face is situated in the middle throughout the video and, although it seemed stationary, it also seems to go through metamorphoses achieved through the use of distortion, feedback, tape loops, and tape delay corresponds to each section of the poem. Although the video did not significantly add to my understanding of Descartes work, this piece is so artistically evocative that it stands on its own terms. [The video is online. The poem and some still shots are included in the book.]

I was also quite taken with Stephen Beck’s work, which sculpts light to create imagery. While at NCET, which he described as a video “Bauhaus,” he developed the Beck Direct Video Synthesizer (in 1969) as a constructivist approach to generating real-time, kinetic color video that is made using the basic visual elements of form, shape, color, texture and motion. Two of his videos are available online: “Ex” (1972) and “Video Weavings” (1976). Unlike many of the works in the book that seem to highlight conceptual/intellectual ideas, Beck’s vides are more abstract and perceptually titillating. In “Video Weavings,” for example, he creates patterns that resonate with the whole history and lineage of textile and fabric to come up with a metaphor for how video works. “Ex,” which is silent, presents a visual music that plays through the abstract configurations we see.

All in all, it is hard to say what the greatest contribution of this project is. Scholars will no doubt relish this documentation of the artists, the curators, the many institutions and the work. As the first major survey of video art produced in California, it is a dramatic starting point. Practitioners and the public will certainly appreciate having the projects available to more of us. One thing that I felt was missing in the catalogue was a comparative essay that would look at California video in relation to, say, New York and perhaps Japan or Europe. Here and there, the catalogue mentioned that California video was quite different in orientation from other places, without offering an in-depth commentary. This leaves me with some questions about cross-fertilization and geographic distinctions because so many of the artists worked in more than one locale. Nam June Paik, for example, was quite involved in California video. Yet, it is often said that video art began when he used his new Sony Portapak to shoot footage of Pope Paul VI's procession through New York City in the autumn of 1965. Other artists visited one coast while working mainly on the other. For example, Stephen Beck mentions that a stream of visiting artists came through NCET over the years (e.g., Bill Etra), so there was some real appreciation of the value in having exchange with people working in other localities. I also found that the book reminded me that life itself is time-based. As I explored this field’s history, it was stimulating to think about video in light of this documentation, which shows it been around long enough to have a “historical” feel to parts of it, particularly when juxtaposed with the experimental postings found on online today. As a record of video’s history, and a reminder that its history is still evolving, this book belongs in the collection of anyone interested in media art, particularly in light of the many “historical” figures still crafting the cutting-edge work today.