{"id":46322,"date":"2022-12-10T19:32:29","date_gmt":"2022-12-10T19:32:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/artxiboa.sansebastianfestival.com\/investigaciones\/el-lenguaje-del-video\/"},"modified":"2022-12-13T09:42:49","modified_gmt":"2022-12-13T09:42:49","slug":"the-language-of-video","status":"publish","type":"investigaciones","link":"https:\/\/artxiboa.sansebastianfestival.com\/en\/research\/the-language-of-video\/","title":{"rendered":"The language of video"},"content":{"rendered":"\t\t
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The language of video<\/div>\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
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Glossary, displays and some reflections on materiality based on the Video Festival Archive collection (1982-1985)<\/p>\n<\/div>\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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[Video: a common language, anything that refers to the handling and\/or recording and\/or reproduction of sound and image via magnetic procedures in a synchronic and simultaneous manner. A form of reference to magnetic audiovisuals. Abbreviation of\u00a0videotape<\/em>]\u00a0\u00a0(Antoni Mercader, 1982)<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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Introduction<\/h3>\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
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Between 1982 and 1985 the San Sebastian Film Festival launched an unusual experience: a festival within a festival \u2013 the Video Festival. During those years, Guadalupe Echevarria, director and founder of the project, invited artists from all over the world to participate in it. The contributions were very varied: some people programmed and installed works, others took part in debates on video and education, while some attended as representatives of cultural institutions, audiovisual groups or art galleries to see what was going on. The proposition was highly innovative and appealing for a video art culture that was emerging at the time. The Video Festival became a space for exhibition, exploration and learning that led to the creation of an artistic community around a new discipline.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The new practice brought its own language with it, which was necessary to understand its material nature. Antoni Mercader, the Catalan curator and artist who took on the post of Technical Director of the Video Festival, published an article called\u00a0Breve l\u00e9xico de la tecnolog\u00eda de video\u00a0<\/em>in\u00a0Diario Video<\/em>\u00a0in 1982, laying out a series of terms in alphabetical order to explain the devices and handling processes involved in video art practice.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The importance of putting a name to things shows the primitive state of formal experimentation based on these elements and resources at the time (some of them taken from other areas) and indicates a common language of understanding that became a requirement for the community. Naming things is the first step in any new process, and the publication of the lexicon in newspapers not only showed the language that artists were using but also illustrated the need for these words to be taken on board by critics and understood by the general public. Something new was being born, and it need to be given a name.<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t

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Antoni Mercader, \u201cBreve l\u00e9xico de la tecnolog\u00eda de video\u201d (Diario Video, 1982). San Sebastian Film Festival Archive.<\/figcaption>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/figure>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t
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Based on the discovery of this document-glossary, we were able to see how an entire series of\u00a0\u00a0manuals for installations, technical dossiers, factsheets and programmes in the Video Festival used the terms compiled by Mercader to describe the processes and their modes of exhibition. We came across many works that were accompanied by maps or guides explaining how the devices should be connected (TV sets, mixers, cameras, consoles, instruments) so that the installations could be staged. These documents reveal a creative and experimental era where many ways of rethinking filmmaking, video and art came together. Its potential for expansion was evident, together with the interest of a large community of artists who were beginning to explore a new practice that was far removed from the conventional aesthetics or narratives of filmmaking.<\/p>\n\n

With Mercader’s publication acting as a guide, we propose a journey through the\u00a0\u00a0Video Festival Archive collection that will allow us to observe the new definitions and ways of thinking about art through this medium. Specifically, we will focus on five works that are important in the current scene. They are projects by Eugenia Balcells, Patrick Bousquet, Wolf Vostell, Jacques Liz\u00e8ne and Antoni Miralda, all of them multidisciplinary artists who focused on video at some time in their careers. We can see that the main medium they used to record images and sound was analog video with magnetic recording and reproduction. Magnetic tape is a data storage format that is recorded in tracks on a plastic strip with magnetized material. The kind of information that can be stored is varied: it was extensively used, for example, in TV programmes and domestic videos.\u00a0To reproduce the videos in the works, most of the artists used a\u00a0video tape recorder (VTR)<\/em>, a frequently mentioned component. It not only allowed the reproduction but also the recording of sounds and images. As Mercader explains:<\/p>\n\n

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[Video tape recorder: a transformative element in a video installation. It established the magnetic field that records video and audio signals in a synchronous way on the same format and reproduces them instantly. It is also called\u00a0videorecorder<\/em>\u00a0or\u00a0magnetic tape recorder<\/em>]\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n

Artists incorporated it into their processes due to its accessibility and production cost. With the use of this technical support device shared with TV, they also proposed an alternative form of communication that expresses active criticism of the mass audiovisual communication media. While the works we are looking at are very different in terms of subject matter, plurality helps us to understand how eclectic and multidisciplinary video took form, ideology and installation.\u00a0<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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From the Center\u00a0<\/em> (Eugenia Balcells, 1982)<\/h3>\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
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Key words:\u00a0monitor<\/em>,\u00a0image, loop<\/em>,\u00a0audio<\/em>,\u00a0synchronization<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the Video Festival collection archive there is a dossier on\u00a0From the Center<\/em>\u00a0by Eugenia Balcells. In this work, the Catalan artist, a pioneer in video art and experimental cinema, proposes an installation of 12 screens in which she presents 12 points of view that she records from her studio in New York. Balcells wrote a synopsis in which Echevarria intervenes, leaving some notes: “It is an exploration of multiple ways of seeing, looking in all directions from the same place. It is a personal vision, the interaction-relationships of 12 complementary views on the space around me. The 12 tapes that make up the work were recorded from the roof of my study on the corner of Bowery and Grand St. in New York”. Balcells’ work was installed in the Video Festival from 19 to 24 September 1983.\u00a0<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t

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Dossier From the Center (Eugenia Balcells, 1982). Notes by Guadalupe Echevarria suggesting changes. San Sebasti\u00e1n Festival Archive.<\/figcaption>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/figure>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t
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From the Center<\/em>\u00a0starts out as a centrifugal force that locates the camera as a panopticon that records everything in 360 degrees. It explores the many ways of looking in all directions from a single place, proposing a rupture in the point of view. It does not observe from just one plane (as in the cinema) but is perceived as an explosion of one’s gaze that proposes a circularity and a different way of understanding space and time. The dossier describes the graphics of the 12 screens and their location in the map in reference to the rest of the city of New York.<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t

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Dossier From the Center (Eugenia Balcells, 1982). San Sebastian Film Festival Archive.<\/figcaption>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/figure>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
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Dossier From the Center (Eugenia Balcells, 1982). San Sebastian Film Festival Archive.<\/figcaption>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/figure>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t
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The technical components can be defined based on Mercader’s terms. On one hand, there are 12\u00a0monitors<\/em>\u00a0located in the circle in the space.<\/p>\n\n

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[Monitor: a reproductive element in a video installation. It reproduces the image and\/or the sound respectively, on a luminescent screen of an iconoscope or a picture tube and a speaker, in accordance with the information received through the audio and video signals of the video tape recorder or the electronic camera (directly). If the signal is transmitted by radio frequency, the term used is ‘receiver-monitor’]<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n

Each monitor reproduces an image that the artist records from her studio. These are street recordings.<\/p>\n\n

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[Image: Representation that is produced by the appearance of rays of light in a focused optical lens. Term used to describe the visual component within ‘audiovisual’. A complete frame that, according to CCIR, is formed by two fields of 312 1\u20442 lines that are produced alternately 50 times per second]<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n

The\u00a0images<\/em>\u00a0are reproduced constantly in a\u00a0loop<\/em>\u00a0so that the work functions continuously. There is no start and finish; the spectator can enter the installation at any moment.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n

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[Loop: A form of placing the magnetic tape in an endless ring, in order to obtain an uninterrupted reproduction. The English term\u00a0loop<\/em>\u00a0is the most common one used]<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n

From the Center<\/em>\u00a0not only records the corners of the city in an\u00a0image<\/em>, but it also reproduces the\u00a0audio\u00a0<\/em>and the usual hustle and bustle of New York.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n

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[Audio: Technological unit referring to aural behaviour. Electrical signal that transmits aural information]<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n

The fundamental element of the piece is\u00a0synchronization.\u00a0<\/em>All the\u00a0monitors<\/em>, together with the\u00a0audio<\/em>, are synchronized to generate the sensation of circularity of the city. Each tape is coordinated with the other.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n

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[Synchronization: System that coordinates the obtaining of images and sounds consistent with the external reality one wishes to reproduce. Series of impulses superimposed on the information of the image on the video signal that regulates the magnetic fields of analysis and reproduction]<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t

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Les Toto-Logiques<\/em>\u00a0(Patrick Bousquet and\u00a0Michel Jaffrennou, 1983)<\/h3>\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
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Key words:\u00a0editing<\/em>,\u00a0post-production,<\/em>\u00a0blue-box<\/em>,\u00a0special effects generator<\/em>,\u00a0U-Matic<\/em>,\u00a0cassette<\/em><\/p>\n\n

Patrick Bousquet and Michel Jaffrennou are two French video artists y performers that explore the possibilities of video applied to theatre.\u00a0Les Toto-Logiques<\/em>\u00a0is a succession of sketches in which the artists make fun of the TV monitor. The apparatus and their images, as well as the two actors, are the protagonists of absurd and humorous situations where they perform with the object as if it represented something else. Monitors as furniture, or as magic boxes, water containers or fishbowls. They find the trick between what the square box (TV) is and the infinity of senses that can be assigned to it through the content of the video that they broadcast.\u00a0<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t

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