Critical Writing Index

A Genealogy of Video

by Paul Ryan

Leonardo, 1988, v. 21, no. 1, pp. 39-44

In the article "A Genealogy of Video", Paul Ryan, based on "the rude memory of the conflict itself" as a participant, focuses on the struggle of video in New York City between 1968 and 1971 over whether it would be considered a tool of social change or a medium of art. (39) Ryan traces the genealogy of video's initial phase in terms of six dimensions: technological, theoretical, political, institutional, economic, and cultural. Ryan concludes and asks how video will articulate its own genealogy having mutated from a countercultural gesture to an art genre.

ITEM 1988.122 – available for viewing in the Research Centre

Videos, Artworks and Artists Cited

HelloAllan Kaprow

BlackAldo Tambellini

TV BraNam June Paik

Participation TVNam June Paik

Wipe CycleFrank Gillette and Ira Schneider

Everyman's Moebius StripPaul Ryan