VIDEO: New Media Art of the Late 20th Century

Author: Zhu Qi
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2005-11-01
Features: This book presents a comprehensive and cutting-edge perspective on Video art—a rapidly developing new media art form—providing an in-depth introduction at both historical and theoretical levels. It primarily covers the rise of Video as an emerging art form in the 1960s, its flourishing after the integration of computer technology, the emergence and development of Video art in China starting in the 1990s, as well as the art theory of Video as a new media art. The book also introduces key artists in the history of Video art and their representative works, featuring rich and detailed visual materials, insightful and precise textual reviews, making it the best platform for understanding Video art and a valuable new media art publication with collectible value.
In the 1960s, television began to take center stage in history, quickly dominating the era of image. As a media technology capable of influencing social order, its counterpart—a wave of anti-commercial television—also emerged. Video art originated from this context. Simultaneously, the development trend of modern art transformed the historical selection of Video from a tool-based documentary record into a consciously artistic practice. The fusion of technology and art gave birth to Video as a new media art form, a significance in the history of art that, as declared by Nam June Paik, the father of Video art and a master of modern art, is akin to how collage techniques replaced oil painting: "Just as collage replaced oil painting, the cathode-ray tube will one day replace the canvas."