Discussion Questions

Resolution 3 Symposium
Questions/prompts for Day One Roundtable/Cluster Groups
Session 1: 11 am – 12 noon
Session 2: 1:30 – 3pm

The Boundaries of Video Discourse: The problem in writing a linear history for video art has been noted by a number of scholars and practitioners, including Martha Rosler, Marita Sturken, Michael Rush, and others.  Discourses addressing video now appear in the areas of visual art and art history, media and cinema studies, performance, new media and digital technology.  Does this interdisciplinary, hybrid nature of video discourse dilute or strengthen it?  Where do we draw the boundaries of a video discourse (or should we)?  Are there alternative approaches to writing the history of video art that is non-linear, community-based, ephemeral, contextual, and strategic?  Does medium specificity matter, or as Ken Rogers suggested in his abstract, that “distributed video aesthetics” is the defining characteristic of a new video culture? (Location: Scott Hall 230)

Independent and Experimental Video, Gender, and Sexual Politics: From the 1970s onwards, video have been closely aligned with landmarks in the sexual revolution in North American and in Europe—feminism, lesbian and gay liberation, AIDS/HIV, reproductive rights, porn, queer politics, trangenderism—all of these developments sparked concurrent activity in alternative, experimental, and activist video production.  What is the current engagement between video and sex?  This discussion will seek to address video and sex in light of contemporary media culture—social networking, amateur porn, celebrity sex tapes, surveillance on-line sex sting operations, etc.—do these new developments, with their emphasis on participation and self expression on one hand, and scandal, exploitation and commercialization on the other, redefine the relationship between video and sex?  Is awareness of or looking back at the heated discussions and debates during the “sex wars” of the 1980s and ‘90s useful or productive at this point in history? (Location: Fletcher 104)

Video and Globalization:  There are two main strands in this trajectory:

1. The emergence of video art as a ubiquitous feature in the global contemporary art market.  At many recent international art shows, including the Venice Biennale and Whitney Biennial, video-based works are featured prominently.  Is video art the new “international style” in contemporary art?  If so, who makes, supports, and consumes this art form?  A number of “emerging” art scenes, such as in India and the People’s Republic of China, are also heavily participating in the new video boom.  Is there a regionalism or nationalistic identity for the video practices that are developing in these regions, and if so, are they significantly different from video practices in North America and Europe?  How is video art a part of the global flow of capital and media?
   
   
2. Many recent high profile video art projects facilitate exchanges between cultures.  How are inter-cultural relationships, such as colonialism, post-colonialism, cultural tourism, multiculturalism, diasporic experiences, and immigration dealt with, challenged, or re-affirmed by contemporary video artists?  Is video used as a means to promote or critique these relationships?  What exchanges of power—cultural, economic, interpersonal, and representational—occur in the production of these projects?  Conversely, Beverly Singer puts forth the concept of “video decolonization” in her abstract as a call to action for indigenous people to create self-representation and native media networks in the tradition of the Inuit Broadcasting Corporation, the Mekaron Opoi D’joi project, and other pioneering efforts during the last two decades to empower indigenous peoples.  What place does Singer’s concept—with its relationship to the struggle for native sovereignty, land rights, cultural protectionism, and environmental issues—occupy an increasingly globalized, transnational media terrain?

(Location: Avery 226 and Broad Center 208/Bernard 207 if second room is needed)

Video, Technology, and New Media: What is contemporary video’s relationship with other forms of media and technology?  Developments in consumer electronics in the 1970s and ‘80s,, especially in portable video cameras, low cost videotapes, and VCRs, were seen as crucial to the emergence of the experimental and communal characteristics in early independent videos.  The recent appearance of video art on internet sites such as YouTube and UbuWeb brings up questions of access, ownership, and preservation.  Derrick Burrill argues in his abstract that “the long history of game modification serves as a model for the way we conceive of the utility and malleability of digital video”.  What are influences of computer graphics, special effects, non-linear and participatory narrative structures on contemporary video art?  Is technology driving changes in aesthetics, or vice versa?  Or is the relationship much more complex and paradoxical?  Has independent video’s contentious relationship with mass media been re-invented?  And what of the (now seemingly ancient) debates about the difference between video and film? (Location: Broad Center 207)

Video and Locative Praxis: How is video used to define, trace, and evoke space?  What role does video now play in urban planning, architecture, and the virtual space of the internet?  What spaces do video occupy in the “corporate culture industries and… the various dispersed communities and spatiality that comprise the decentered urban formation”? (To quote from David James’ abstract)  How does video practices help define the notion of ‘public space’, or conversely, challenge such definitions?  As Kathy High points out in her abstract, many locative video projects also “represent a form of power struggle, commenting on issues such as the economy, military occupation, immigration, and our loss of control and authority.” (Location: Mead Living Room)

Participant Biographies