Critical Writing Index

Video In Canada: In Search of Authority

by Renee Baert

From Sea to Shining Sea, 1986, pp. 170-179

Toronto: The Power Plant, 1986

This essay, from the catalogue for the exhibition From Sea to Shining Sea, examines how video, a medium in search of its own authority, is confounded by its myriad functions. After more than a decade of history, its virtual exclusion from established venues of presentation requires the constant cultivation of a context in which it can exist. Further examined are the artists and the network of artist run centres across Canada that supported video as an artistic medium.

ITEM 1986.033 – available for viewing in the Research Centre

Videos, Artworks and Artists Cited

Media Wall – Dave Rimmer, Bill Fix and Tom Shandel

Images from Infinity – Byron Black

Qu'est ce qu'on a fait au bon Dieu? – Yves Chaput

Pea Soup – Pierre Falardeau and Julien Poulin

A Very Personal Story – Lisa Steele

The Ballad of Dan Peoples – Lisa Steele

True/False – Colin Campbell

Real Split – Colin Campbell

This is the way I really Am – Colin Campbell

Light On – General Idea

Shuffle – Doug Waterman

Fill – David Askevold

Keeping On Top Of The Song – Ian Murray

We All Sing the Same Song – Glenn Lewis

Steel and Flesth – Eric Metcalfe

Sax Island – Eric Metcalfe

The Mainstreet Tapes – Paul Wong

Prime Cuts – Paul Wong

100 Years of Agression – Kim Tomczak

Vancouver Canada Or They Chant Fed Up – Kim Tomczak

Paradise Lost – Kim Tomczak

One Hundred Aboriginal Women – Amelia Productions

Keeping Marlene Out of the Picture - And Lawn – Eric Cameron

Once Upon the Idea of Two – Noel Harding

Nightmare (Three Essays for Edward O. Wilson) – Ed Slopek

Memoir d'octobre – Jean-Pierre Boyer

Chaperons Rouges – Helen Doyle and Helene Bourgault

The Scientist Tapes – Colin Campbell and Lisa Steele

The Woman From Malibu – Colin Campbell

Bad Girls – Colin Campbell

Waiting for Lancelot – Lisa Steele

Gloria – Lisa Steele

The Secret Life of Cornelia Lumsden, A Remarkable Story – Vera Frenkel

The Mississippi Tapes: 1 to 6 – Jane Wright