We thought we’d stick our two cents in here. Whatever category you want to put video in, it is still a moving picture, and humans are conditioned to passively view things that move, Winky Dink screen games and jazzersize tapes notwithstanding.
Video is part of the cultural vernacular. It’s not as intimidating as a painting by Gerhard Richter, for example, or an installation by Ann Hamilton. Sometimes the vernacular experience (watching tv or movies) works in video art’s favor and sometimes it doesn’t.
We think video art is the most exciting art form being explored now. There are few rules of story-telling, rules of space and design, rules of pacing, rules of content and manufacture. (See image from Joshua Mosley‘s “Commute” video — using clay, charcoal, and electronic techniques — opening tomorrow at the Philadelphia Museum of Art Video Gallery.)
And all of that lawlessness is good for the medium and good for art which in its traditional forms often seems timid and hidebound.
