CANADIAN

~ I Geoffrey Farmer

robr Television

Interrupting the program ...

descrambling

TV through video

by Heidi May

any artists using video have chosen to

comment on the effects of mass media by

utilizing an apparatus that is inherently

connected to the source. Even before the

portable video camera and player appeared on the market, artists were using the technological capabilities of the television in order

to produce a comment on the TV's place in society. In 1965 Nam

June Paik made a piece entitled Magnet TV, which employed

neither videotape nor broadcast images, but was instead created

by moving a large magnet across the surface of a television set in

order to produce a moving abstract pattern. Paik, a member of the Fluxus anti-high-art movement, created works in which the

television was emptied of its regular function and transformed

into a statement about technology in general.

More recently, artists like Tom Sherman and Stan Douglas

have appropriated aspects of television within video works and

manipulated its structure, creating a critique that addresses the

dominance of televisual ideology. Canadian filmmakers Atom

Egoyan and David Cronenberg have also explored orth Amer­

ica's obsession with television as well as the effects that this

medium has had on family interaction and the individual psyche.

Cronen berg's 1983 film Videodrome depicts the imagined effects of a proposed television show that after repeated viewings would

eventually control the TV viewer's mind. The film shows us a

hypothetical society in which massive doses of "videodrome"

create a new outgrowth of the human brain, an outgrowth that

Still from Videodrome 1983 87 min Directed by David Cronenberg «:) 2001 by Universal City Studios. Inc. Courtesy of Universal Studios Publishing Rights. a Division of Universal Studios Licensing, Inc. All rights reserved.

can potentially produce and control hallucinations to the point of

changing human reali ty. Cronen berg has succeeded in creating

fantasy worlds that scare us to the point of disbelief; however, if

one gets past the bizarre sci-fi concept, the basic idea of Video­

drome does not seem that far-fetched.

Television is a powerful yet non-critical medium, a form of

technology that resists a closed meaning partially because of its

extremely fragmented structure and discontinuous text . John

Fiske writes about TV's inability to produce coherent meaning in

his book Television Culture; he states that "Its attempts at closure,

at a unitary meaning, or a unified viewing subject, are constantly

subjected to fracturing forces ." A critical assessment of television

is, for the most part, not being performed by the medium itself.

There is a crucial need for this analysis, and this may occur

through the use of video. Some critics will disagree and say that

the battle lines between television and video art have become

completely blurred, that television's critique of itself is more per­

vasive than its critique by media art. Although idiosyncrasies of

television are ridiculed on certain TV programs that are designed

to poke fun at the medium's formats and conventions, this is an

imagined reality of TV-a reality constructed to make the viewer

feel as if he or she is part of the deception.

Video art has not succumbed to the powers of television;

rather, in some cases, video takes TV out of its normal viewing

context and creates a critical situation for the TV viewer to

contemplate. It seems ironic that such a disjointed media for­

mat/entertainment device has had such a strong effect on subject

formation and self-development. Recently I read something that

Raymond Williams wrote in 1975 in his book Television: Tech­

nology and Cultural Form. Williams has been quoted frequently

in other writings on television and is best known for his concep­

tion of the term "f1ow"-the incorporation of interruption within

TV to the point where it becomes naturalized in the stream of

images. Williams writes about how difficult it is to respond to

and interpret television's intrinsic visual experiences, and how

little has been written on the topic. Williams states that the

attentive moments belonging to the viewer may comprise one

of the most significant aspects of the medium's power. He states,

To get this kind of attention, it is often necessary to turn

off the sound, which is usually directing us to prepared

transmissible content or other kinds of response. What can

then happen, in some surprising ways, is an experience of

visual mobility, of contrast of angle, of variation of focus,

which is often very beautiful.. .. To most analysts of televi­

sion, preoccupied by declared or directed content, this is,

if seen at all, no more than a by-product of some other

experience. Yet I see it as one of the primary processes of

the technology itself, and one that may come to have

increasing importance. And when, in the past, I have tried

to describe and explain this, I have found it significant that

the only people who ever agreed with me were painters.

68 CANADIAN ART SUMMER 2001

This "primary process" of the technology is important to analyze

since so much of the visual content of TV has been carried over

to information technology, which seems to be dominating every

aspect of our society. One could say that television is the base

structure for the current state of visual culture. Its fragmented

and repetitive design offers a viewing situation intended to be

internalized by a series of disconnected "glances," as opposed to

the cinematic "gaze." I feel this visual design has also been carried

over to the World Wide Web, where the entire animated com­

puter screen has become one image in itself, pulling users in aLI

sorts of directions analogous to the aesthetics of channel surfing.

Current video work is addressing technology and the variety

of effects it has on identity issues within an increasingly digital

world. In certain works, television is examined not only for its

content but also for its ability to intrude into the everyday lives

of its viewers. Kristin Lucas, a video artist working out of New

York, creates works that portray the psychological response of the

television viewer within a coli aged environment that references

the structure of television itself. Lucas's examination not only

demands that we question our relationship with what we watch

on television, but also encourages us to acknowledge TV's influ­

ence upon other computer-based systems. Toronto artists Jubal

Brown and Istvan Kantor also examine the impact of technology

through video art. Brown's videos seem to visually illustrate the

psychological intake of signals emitted from the television screen.

His rhythmical use of imagery, a technique common to several

contemporary Canadian video artists, contains an aggressive feel­

ing of attack towards the television set. Although the subject mat­

ter ofIstvan Kantor's work is not television specifically, the artist's

message about the "constant noise" of the current generation

undoubtedly fits into a discussion about the mental disarray of a

society raised on television. Video a-rt is questioning the media­

absorbed viewer by allowing a personal viewpoint to disrupt the

landscape of the media, rather than the other way around.

Disassembling the Media: A Construction of New Meanings Typical television formats are torn apart and manipulated within

video art with the intention of disrupting normal viewing habits.

The obstruction of normal TV language is usually achieved by

either an exaggeration or an inversion of the strategies used

within the entertainment industry. A popular strategy that has

been used for years within television broadcasting is the "direct

address" approach, also referred to as the "talking head." Within

this format, the head of an individual is seen addressing the TV

viewer in a one-way conversation; the camera never veers far

from the person's face. The method is used in news broadcasts,

commercials, televangelist programs and many other shows that

presumably "inform" us yet control us at the same time.

Monologues within videos, particularly ones that are directed

towards the viewer, speak of the "informative" aspects of televi­

sion that control culture. Vancouver artist Stan Douglas incor­

porated this structure within some of his Television Spots

ABOVE: JUBAL BROWN Video still from The End 1999 3 min

BELOW: ISTVAN KANTOR Video still from Accumulation 2000 10 min

(1987-88). The Television Spots consisted of twelve segments,

each 15 or 30 seconds long, that contained incomplete and unre­

solved narrative fragments. The Spots left viewers' expectations

unfulfilled; people were forced to question why this disruption

of expectation was taking place. These works were broadcast on

commercial television and were intended to interrupt the sys­

tematic structure of television in order to exami ne the reactions

of the mass audience and question the effects that this control­

ling device has on individuals. In the spot "My Attention," Dou­

glas films the talking head of a man who recites a schizophrenic

monologue that reveals a se nse of identity confusion felt amidst

a world of distractions. The monologue is directed towards the

camera, yet the output is intended for the television audience.

The actor says, ''I'm speaking to you right now ... but I can still

hear voices coming from down the hall ... " This narrative seems

to focus on the individual's inability to concentrate on anything

other than the sounds and images emanating from technological

devices, from the television. He stresses his desire to "shut these

things out" and states that he attends to things, even though he

doesn't even find them interesting.

In Kristin Lucas's Cable Xcess (1996), the artist portrays her­

self as an amateur, transforming the visual language of television

to produce a personal statement about humans' exposure to TV

and the effects it can have on one's health. This piece exagger­

ates the dangers involved with watching television, yet effectively

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illustrates the anxiety the TV viewer may feel when there is a

power failure-ultimately revea lin g contemporary society's

dependence upon this object of high technology. In this video,

the direct-address technique is tlIken out of its corporate context

and used on a personal level-the artist recites messages to the

viewer through a screen filled with static, and the image is inter­

spersed with fragmented television imagery. Cable Xcess reveals

the hand of the artist battling the medium, disrupting the TV

viewer's ritual of watching through technical imperfection. The

result is an intentionally amateurish piece where the artist

CAN A DIAN ART SUMMER 2001 69

appears to be breaking through the broadcast waves. What sepa­

rates this piece from the particular Television Spot mentioned

above is the element of confrontation between the artist and the

medium. Through the use of transparent layering and filtered

effects, the individual within the monitor is at a greater distance

from the viewer; the focus remains portraying the fragmented

televisual experience.

Collage: The Televisual Experience The flow of television can be disrupted within video art either

by breaking it down and isolating certain elements or by exag­

gerating the fragmented system to its full extreme. Within Fredric

Jameson's often debated 1987 article "Reading without interpre­

tation: Postmodernism and the video-text," the author describes

how Raymond Williams' idea of the ongoing "total flow" of tele­

vision has erased any kind of critical distance for the viewer.

Jameson also insists that the total absence of memory in relation

to television further separates it from the analysis of film and

the processes of interpretation applied to film. As he writes,

" ... memory seems to play no role in television, commercial or

otherwise (or, I am tempted to say, in postmodernism generally):

nothing here haunts the mind or leaves its afterimages in the

manner of the great moments of film .. .. " Jameson complains that

no specific forms from within video art can be taken out of the

context of television to be remembered in any relevant way.

However, the flow of television can in fact be critiqued within

video, with the intention of disorienting the viewer and encour­

aging him or her to become aware of their own relationship to

the medium. Lucas appropriates the televisual experience within

her videos and illustrates how the fast-paced style of television

has inflected other routine interactions we perform with techno­

logical systems on a daily basis. By using a repetitive system of

collage, she critiques the "message" of the medium through an

exaggerated design that speaks about the nature of television.

Collaged imagery within video references the televisual expe­

rience both in regard to how TV is watched and in how its images

are consumed. The "collection-consumption effect" has been

referred to as characteristic of television, in contrast with the

voyeuristic nature of the cinema. As defined by author John

Thornton Caldwell, the term "collection-consumption effect"

describes the hyperactive pace at which images are gathered

before the viewer during the TV-watching process. Through

video, this "collective" experience can be examined through a

coli aged structure of imagery and sound that demonstrates a spe­

cific psychological reaction; or it may be manipulated through

more of a montaged system that produces an effect that seems

less random. For my purposes here the word "collage" can be

understood as a description of the structure of television itself,

as something used within video to reference the experience of

70 CANADIAN ART SUMMER 2001

the medium. The word "montage," on the other hand, may be

applied to the analysis of televisuality within video as a structural

device. Definitive terms aside, the visual and mental experience

of the collection-consumption effect and the "glance-like" mode

of attention of the typical TV viewer are both brought to mind in

a number of recently created videos.

Within Lucas's work, a visual montage is created that reflects

the coli aged system of TV as well as the mental.:;tate of the televi­

sion viewer, producing a sense of instability and randomness.

Toronto artist Jubal Brown also evokes the psychological similari­

ties between the TV and its viewer. In his video The Blob (2000)

Brown applies a fast-paced, rhythmical aesthetic that viciously

attacks found footage frame by frame. The narrative voice-over of

the piece analyzes the emergence of TV and compares its rays to

demonic spirits that have "possessed our souls" and "wreaked

havoc on the human world." The artist repeats television clips in

a cyclical fashion, accompanied by a musical beat that sounds not

unlike a machine gun. The images seem randomly organized and,

in one section, literally project toward the viewer. As the "chan­

nels" are switched from one to the next, the broadcast image

expands to fill the screen, as if being sucked in by the viewer.

In 1982 John Ellis first used the word "glance" to describe how

television is watched in comparison to the cinema, which he

described as the province of the "gaze." In both Cable Xcess and

The Blob successive movements between found footage and the

artists' original video reveal the fragmented structure of the

medium as well as the interrupted attention span of its viewer.

Most importantly, the use of collage seems to illustrate Raymond

Williams' point: that the difficulty we experience in responding

to and interpreting television's visual experiences in words is a

problem that may best be dealt with visually. Williams suggests

that a painterly approach to television's inherent qualities can

serve as a strategy for understanding its visual significance. The

layering of images within both Lucas's and Brown's video work,

whether collage or montage, references painting formally and

psychologically, as images continuously build on top of each

other, layering front to back and back to front. The coli aged

screen not only demonstrates the televisual experience, but also

reveals the individual's mental state.

ABOVE: KRISTIN LUCAS Video still from Cable Xcess 1996 5 min

OPPOSITE: STAN DOUGLAS Video still from Male Naysayer from "Television Spots" 1987-1988 Twelve videos for television 10-37 sec Colour, mono soundtrack

The Transference of Zapping The constantly shifting channels of the television are carried over

to the viewer through a process called "zapping." John Fiske

describes zapping as an activity that the television viewer partici­

pates in as he or she switches from one program to the next,

never watching any show in its entirety. Fiske states: "Zapping

allows the viewer to construct a viewing experience of fragments,

a postmodern collage of images whose pleasures lie in their dis­

continuity, their juxtapositions, and their contradictions. This is

segmentation taken to the extreme of fragmentation and makes

of television the most open producerly text for it evades all

attempts at closure."

I described a section of Brown's video The Blob in which a

number of clips actually move towards the viewer repetitively.

The chosen clips are taken from a wide variety of previously

televised programs and, under the control of the artist, seem to

resemble a typical "zap" session. In Brown's The End (1999),

a similar aesthetic is explored throughout a video that com­

pares the end of civilization to the switching off of the television

set. Instead of the imagery expanding to fill the screen, the lay­

ered images in The End recede, or are "zapped," into the middle

of the screen and diminish into a neon fl as ' rhe sound that

accompanies the visual display is much li ke that used in The

Blob, yet fittingly resembles the sOLind of a T V being turned off

and on repeatedly. Towards the end of this video, almost hidden

within the static of the screen, we see the friendly icon familiar

to many computer users of the current digital generation. This

small image, consisting of a smiling computer monitor, adds

another conceptual layer to Brown's animated collage-the

acknowledgement of television's influence upon other televi ­

sual mediums, such as personal computers, video games and

automated machines.

This "zapping" encounter with TV bears similarity to other

everyday experiences in a world engulfed by the moving visual

image, whether driving beside animated billboards or spending

time on the internet. The central character in Kristin Lucas 's

Host (1997) undergoes something similar when she tries to com­

municate with an automated machine. In Host, a therapy session

is directed by the system operator of a streetside multimedia

kiosk. While the artist indulges in a virtual conversation about

a troublesome relationship, the session is transformed into an

amalgamation of daytime television and tabloid; the system

CANAJ)IA~ ART SUMMER 200' 71

operator/therapist seems almost to have control of the remote

control. As the artist tries to express her fee lings and her desire to

"slow things down," she is continuously interrupted by the sys­

tem/therapist she is dealing with. Fiske once wrote that the term

"flow" was an unfortunate metaphor on the part of Raymond

Williams: in Lucas's Host the fragmented design of television

does anything but flow.

Within this work, it is almost as if television's inability to be

perceived in a coherently meaningful way is transferred over to

its viewer-ultimately affecting the viewer's perception of him­

or herself. The artist in front of the camera in this video now

becomes the fractured viewing subject; her therapy session

switches back and forth from a focus on her to an acknowledge­

ment of the mediated system before her. The monologue com­

bines a psychological assessment of the central character and a

sociological assessment of her placement in a technological soci­

ety. As the monologue proceeds, the viewer of this work begins to

question just what relationship the character is having problems

with: we wonder if she is involved in a human relationship or one

with a piece of equipment when words like " upgrade" are

brought into the conversation . Looking closely, one notices the

flickering images in the individual's eyes, perhaps an indication

of the ongoing flow of imagery before her. In the same way that

the aesthetics of television add to its own disconnected meaning,

the televisual aspects of society interfere in the individual's own

realization of the self.

"Worst Episode Ever:" Working Through Television The exaggerated appropriation of the flow of television within

video can create a contemplative mindset within its audience that

may prevent viewers from becoming absorbed into the medium.

Not only can television episodes be manipulated within video art

in order to raise question s about their impact on society, but

psychological reactions or "episodes" may also be triggered

within the viewer. By creating an intense experience that takes the

televisual form to its extreme, video interrogates the TV viewer.

Within the video works mentioned thus far, the flow of television

is represented as a stream of information that the artists have

placed themselves within and "work through."

The term "working through" as it is used in psychoanalysis

is the crucial aspect of therapy that occurs when the subject

discovers something releva nt and feels a need to replay and rean ­

alyze things. In the recently published book Seeing Things: Tele­vision in the Age of Uncertainty, John Ellis adopts this phrase

to describe how TV currently uses its information. Ellis states

that contemporary television reworks imagery and content that

we have already been witness to, constantly making and remak­

ing meanings by attempting definitions and explanations over

and over. Ellis describes this therapeutic process as characteristic

of contemporary televi s ion; however, the term can also be

applied here to the TV viewer's situation of watching or to the

artist's creative process.

72 CA ' AI>I A N A KT SUMMER 2001

Reserving the phrase "working through" for the object of the

television itself seems ironic since it suggests that the roles of the

human and machine are reversed . It is as if one is saying that the

TV has become the psychiatric patient, and is having problems

identifying with itself. Interestingly enough, it has been noted

that television seems to want to be anything but television: other

visual art forms such as photography and film have revealed

themselves within its televisual form . The working-through that

television is involved with influences the psychological state of

TV viewers, possibly placing the audience in a never-ending ther­

apy session, perhaps not unlike the one portrayed in Host, where

the system operator could be interpreted as the television, a

mechanism in charge of several operations at once.

Istvan Kantor, also known as Monty Cantsin, works through

his "accumulationist theory" in a video that comments on aspects

of totalitarianism and the noise of a technological society. In

Accumulation (2000) , Kantor combines Soviet tanks, glowing

children and electro-shock victims in a montage that is overlaid

with rolling text displaying the artist's thoughts about a society

under control. Like Brown, Kantor appropriates found footage in

a fast, repetitive manner that ultimately affects viewers emotion­

ally, and at times physically. Although the video focuses on

upheaval resulting from war, Kantor raises concerns about the

dominance of technology through segments of text that move

across the screen in different directions. The artist's manipulation

of movie clips and digital constructions within a fragmented

visual essay places this piece alongside other video works using

high technology to critique their own existence. Kantor's work

has been desc ribed as anti-authoritarian; however, I would go

one step further and say that Accumulation exaggerates authori ­

tative formal qualities in order to allow the viewer to acknowl­

edge the artist's control of the media. By borrowing, and pur­

posely overusing, certain visual strategies from contemporary

advertising and design, Kantor uses the tools of the trade to draw

attention to their contribution to the overwhelming confusion of

our technology-based society. The artist incorporates moving text

like that seen on interactive web pages in which sounds occur as

you scroll the cursor across the text. As with Brown and Lucas,

Kantor takes it to the furthest extreme, creating the visual equiva­

lent of a mental breakdown.

Video can be used to comment on our personal experiences

with technology in ways that raise our awareness of the psycho­

logical control wielded by the media. The artists discussed here

ask their viewers to acknowledge the role that technology plays in

our lives, and they use the confused pace of televisuality to

encourage us to do so. Video art has been interpreted by many

writers as a format that demands sustained evaluation, since it

moves at a pace slower than the normal speed of television. How­

ever, with video collages that reference and exaggerate television's

fragmented speed, the viewer is encouraged to question the dis­

ruption of the normal viewing experience-drawing attention to

how television is absorbed and video art is watched. •

KRI STIN LUCAS Video sti ll from Host 1997 7 min 36 sec