How can video still be classed as a groundbreaking Art-form? Why do people bother to display it or make it? Video is a simple handicraft that anybody can do – just like those hideous bits of shit you can buy in craft centers that are made from glass – what are they called? – (don’t laugh) – StaINed gLaSs – c R a P!
Video was a great new medium in the 20th century which in its infancy did question ‘identity’ – but the stuff now is just repetition of boring pseudo-concepts……. video became usable when Sony manufactured the Portapak and released it in 1967. This was the machine we used to make a video of a slaughterhouse.
The introduction of the Portapak had a great influence on the development of Video art. Suddenly not only could rich production companies afford to make movies, but artists could experiment with an easier form of recording. You could play it back instantly instead of waiting to process film, and it was much more affordable. It was still difficult to edit it but this machine was the catalyst for the cancer that has spread through out galleries across the world.
“ The Portapak would seem to have been invented specifically for use by artists. Just when pure formalism had run its course; just when it became politically embarrassing to make objects, but ludicrous to make nothing; just when many artists were doing performance works but had nowhere to perform, or felt the need to keep a record of their performances; just when it began to seem silly to ask the same old Berkleean question, ‘If you build a sculpture in the desert where no one can see it, does it exist?’; just when it became clear that TV communicates more information to more people than large walls do; just when we understood that in order to define space it is necessary to encompass time; just when many established ideas in other disciplines were being questioned and new models were proposed – just then the Portapak became available ” Quote from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portapak
YouTube is a valid alternative – the scale and diversity of banality is by fAR a greater artistic statement on modern day experience than twee screens in a white space. Even YouTube is a pile of puked up masticated bananas – Holby City is real life and Art – I must watch it tonight.