On the arts and postmodernism

In 1906, Cord Meyer Development Company purchased 600 acres in Whitepot and renamed it Forest Hills after its high elevation of rolling hills and proximity to Forest Park. After the Russell Sage Foundation acquired 142 acres and Grosvenor Atterbury and Frederick Law Olmsted Jr. partnered, the Forest Hills Gardens, founded in 1909, became America's earliest planned garden community. When Henry Schloh and Charles Hausmann of the Rego Construction Company came upon farmland in Forest Hills West, they renamed it Rego Park in 1923 after their slogan, "REal GOod Homes." Between the Tudor and Colonial landmarks, one can sense the footsteps of a few hundred notables who granted soul to the community and society. At the Forest Hills Tennis Stadium, imagine the Beatles landing in a helicopter in front of screaming fans in 1964, or when Althea Gibson became the first African American to win a US national tennis title in 1957. Forest Hills High School was a cornerstone for notable alumni, such as composer Burt Bacharach; musical duo Simon & Garfunkel; Bob Keeshan, who portrayed Captain Kangaroo; and the first space tourist, Dennis Tito.

An argument that video is not merely an intermediate stage between analog and digital but a medium in its own right; traces the theoretical genealogy of video and examines the different concepts of video seen in works by Vito Acconci, Ulrike Rosenbach, Steina and Woody Vasulka, and others. Video is an electronic medium, dependent on the transfer of electronic signals. Video signals are in constant movement, circulating between camera and monitor. This process of simultaneous production and reproduction makes video the most reflexive of media, distinct from both photography and film (in which the image or a sequence of images is central). Because it is processual and not bound to recording and the appearance of a “frame,” video shares properties with the computer. In this book, Yvonne Spielmann argues that video is not merely an intermediate stage between analog and digital but a medium in its own right. Video has metamorphosed from technology to medium, with a set of aesthetic languages that are specific to it, and current critical debates on new media still need to recognize this. Spielmann considers video as “transformation imagery,” acknowledging the centrality in video of the transitions between images—and the fact that these transitions are explicitly reflected in new processes. After situating video in a genealogical model that demonstrates both its continuities and discontinuities with other media, Spielmann considers three strands of video praxis—documentary, experimental art, and experimental image-making (which is concerned primarily with signal processing). She then discusses selected works by such artists as Vito Acconci, Ulrike Rosenbach, Joan Jonas, Nam June Paik, Peter Campus, Dara Birnbaum, Nan Hoover, Lynn Hershman, Gary Hill, Steina and Woody Vasulka, Bill Seaman, and others. These works serve to demonstrate the spectrum of possibilities in video as medium and point to connections with other forms of media. Finally, Spielmann discusses the potential of interactivity, complexity, and hybridization in the future of video as a medium.

A sourcebook of documentation on women artists at the forefront of work at the intersection of art and technology. Although women have been at the forefront of art and technology creation, no source has adequately documented their core contributions to the field. Women, Art, and Technology, which originated in a Leonardo journal project of the same name, is a compendium of the work of women artists who have played a central role in the development of new media practice.The book includes overviews of the history and foundations of the field by, among others, artists Sheila Pinkel and Kathy Brew; classic papers by women working in art and technology; papers written expressly for this book by women whose work is currently shaping and reshaping the field; and a series of critical essays that look to the future. Artist contributors Computer graphics artists Rebecca Allen and Donna Cox; video artists Dara Birnbaum, Joan Jonas, Valerie Soe, and Steina Vasulka; composers Cecile Le Prado, Pauline Oliveros, and Pamela Z; interactive artists Jennifer Hall and Blyth Hazen, Agnes Hegedus, Lynn Hershman, and Sonya Rapoport; virtual reality artists Char Davies and Brenda Laurel; net artists Anna Couey, Monika Fleischmann and Wolfgang Strauss, Nancy Paterson, and Sandy Stone; and choreographer Dawn Stoppiello; critics include Margaret Morse, Jaishree Odin, Patric Prince, and Zoe Sofia

Artists: John Baldessari, Ericka Beckman, Dara Birnbaum, Barbara Bloom, Eric Bogosian, Glenn Branca, Tony Brauntuch, James Casebere, Sarah Charlesworth, Charles Clough, Nancy Dwyer, Jack Goldstein, Barbara Kruger, Jouise Lawler, Thomas Lawson, Sherrie Levine, Robert Longo Allan McCollum, Paul McMahon, MICA-TV (Carole Ann Klonarides and Michael Owen), Matt Mullican, Tom Otterness, Richard Prince, David Salle, Cindy Sherman, Laurie Simmons, Michael Smith, James Welling, Michael Zwack.

Art in the Age of the Internet, 1989 to Today is the first major thematic group exhibition in the United States to examine the radical impact of internet culture on visual art. Featuring 60 artists, collaborations, and collectives, the exhibition is comprised of over 70 works across a variety of mediums, including painting, performance, photography, sculpture, video, web-based projects, and virtual reality. The exhibition is divided into five sections that explore themes such as emergent ideas of the body and notions of human enhancement; the internet as a site of both surveillance and resistance; the circulation and control of images and information; the possibilities for exploring identity and community afforded by virtual domains; and new economies of visibility accelerated by social media. Throughout, the work in the exhibition addresses the internet-age democratization of culture that comprises our current moment. The earliest work in the exhibition is from 1989, the year that Tim Berners-Lee invented the World Wide Web. This development, and others that followed in quick succession, modernized the internet, and in the process radically changed our way of life--from how we access and generate information, make friends and share experiences, to how we imagine our future bodies and how nations police national security. 1989 also marked a watershed moment across the globe, with significant shifts in politics, geographies, and economies. Events such as the fall of the Berlin Wall and protests in Tiananmen Square signaled the beginning of our current globalized age, which cannot be imagined without the internet.

This volume contains the insights of prominent artists in the field as well as critical writings by scholars and critics. It illustrates the complex, heterogeneous 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 deconstructive, these essays provide a long overdue critical context in which to evaluate video as art and its subsequent impact on social and cultural behavior.