Critical Writing Index

Out of Sync

by Marita Sturken

Afterimage, Nov. 1983, v. 11, no. 4, pp. 18-19

A review of Electronic Visions, a group show which provides a survey of "designer-technicians"(19) exploring the relationship betwen video and computer. The author notes that a group show is a welcome change from many New York exhibitions, which usually only include a single installation, but notes there are many flaws with the design of the exhibition. She sees this as proof that video art is still in its very early stages of appreciation, and a new paradigm must be developed for video exhibition. Among the cluttered group, she focuses on the pairs of Woody and Steina Vasulka and Ralph Hocking and Sherry Miller, who have each presented videos juxtaposed with still images. For the author, the Vasulkas' rigorous attention to the formal reduction of images into digital patterns contrasts greatly with Hocking and Miller's dreamy and ideologically limpid images of nudes. She also briefly addresses the holographs of Dan Sandin as a medium which lacks conceptual complexity, and the computer-driven word sculptures of Gary Hill.

ITEM 1983.042 – available for viewing in the Research Centre

Videos, Artworks and Artists Cited

Machine VisionSteina Vasulka

The TubRalph Hocking

The TubSherry Miller

Happenstance (Part One of Many Parts)Gary Hill

Glass OnionGary Hill

The CommissionWoody Vasulka