Screen Studies
told, ‘forced to leave St Martin’s school of
art’).
No Focus is a lively, detailed and highly
informative collection that opens spaces
for further analysis and critical enquiry. Its
tendency towards encyclopaedic coverage
rather than critical depth should not
discourage potential readers seeking start-
ing points for considering the importance
of the punk aesthetic – and, just as
importantly, its sensibility – to subsequent
film production.
john sears
Manchester Metropolitan University
A HISTORY OF VIDEO ART.
THE DEVELOPMENT OF FORM
AND FUNCTION
chris meigh-andrews
Berg 2006 d17.99 $29.95
336 pp. 16 col/85 mono illus
isbn 1-84520-2198
VIDEO ART
sylvia martin
Taschen 2006 d5.99 $9.99
96 pp. 57col/68 mono illus
isbn 978-3-8228-2950-9
T
he delayed acceptance of video art as
a legitimate object for exhibition and
study until relatively recently re-
sulted in the arrested development of
accepted orthodoxies for the history of
the art form and a dearth of major
publications on the subject. Unfortunately
it has also resulted in the loss of many of
the works themselves – subject as they are
to decay, distortion, the obsolescence of
their original technologies and, in some
cases, an original artistic intention of
impermanence. Both these publications
seek to partially redress this situation
by providing surveys of the development
of the medium, its key figures and key
works.
In the more substantial of the two
books, Chris Meigh-Andrews provides a
densely detailed account of the progres-
sion of video, identifying its theoretical
origins in the crossover between the new
medium and a plurality of artistic prac-
tices: Conceptual Art, Fluxus, Experimen-
tal Film, Performance, Minimalism, etc.
Nonetheless, this heterogeneity of inter-
connected conceptual roots for video is
contained within the tightly delineated
account of the relationship between
r 2007 the authors. journal compilation r 2007 bpl/aah volume 14 issue 3 august 2007 The Art Book 63
technological developments and aesthetic
response. This technologically determinist
reading provides an exceptionally clear
account of innovations in the field and the
subsequent possibilities opened up to,
and by, artists. While this necessarily
places the emphasis of the text on ‘form
and function’ it also provides a much-
needed elaboration (further elucidated in a
glossary of technical terms) of the techni-
cal details of what was essentially
a broadcast medium that evolved at a
startling pace.
The book is divided into three sections.
The first lays out the historical and cultural
context for the international emergence of
video. While it commences by paying the
obligatory homage to the work of Nam
June Paik, the extended discussion of the
analogous and influential role of experi-
mental music provides an interesting
correlative to the existing discourse on
the birth of the new media. Emphasising
the cross-border nature of video produc-
tion, Meigh-Andrews surveys the contri-
butions of leading practitioners within
different countries, managing to account
for early developments within Germany,
the Netherlands, Italy, France, Poland,
Britain, Canada and the US. Furthermore,
within his discussions on selected artists
(the Vasulkas, David Hall, Stephen Beck,
Robert Cahen, Peter Donebauer and
others), he also lays out the theoretical
touchstones for any account of this kind,
successfully integrating the work of Ben-
jamin, McLuhan, Norbert Weiner, Experi-
mental Film and theories of Structuralist
film.
The second section of A History of Video
Art covers case studies of specific, influen-
tial works largely thematised through
technical innovation and strategies of
exhibition and dissemination. These de-
tailed discussions of videos are particularly
fruitful and in many cases refreshingly re-
draw the lines of categorisation for certain
works from their established place within
particular discourses – for example, from
feminist art practice to radical editing
strategies.
The final section returns to the theme
of technological change and its relation-
ship to wider theoretical issues; it ranges
from the shift from modernist to post-
modernist discourses on art, through a
discussion of the interplay of identity
politics, to the pressing contemporary
debate on the relevance of drawing
distinctions between different moving
image practices in the face of digital
production.
The breadth of thematic discussion
within the publication does present occa-
sional repetition in terms of specific
objects of study – more importantly,
however, it also presents the wealth of
knowledge possessed by its author. Meigh-
Andrews’ own significant contribution to
video practice and his obvious familiarity
with the British video art scene has resulted
in an insightful guide to the development
of the medium and the surrounding
discourses. The book is an ideal introduc-
tion to video for the student or the general
reader whilst providing for the historian of
contemporary art an effective key for
opening up the complexities of the histor-
ical, and crucial, technological nuances of
the medium in the face of its total
absorption into the digital image.
Video Art is part of the Taschen’s ‘Basic
Genre’ series and therefore conforms to
an existing format of introductory essay,
timeline and a selection of ‘the most
important works of the epoch’. Each work
receives one page of text including bio-
graphical information on the artist with
accompanying photograph, a contextuali-
sation of the piece within the artist’s œuvre
– also with accompanying image – and a
full-page photograph of an installation or
reproduction of a still or stills from the
video piece. The choice of works ranges
from ‘the usual suspects’ of particular
artists’ practice (Bill Viola’s I Do Not Know
What it is I am Like, 1986) through the less
expected (Gillian Wearing’s Broad Street,
2001) to the downright contemporary
(Candice Breitz’s Mother and Father,
2005).While this description might sound
dismissive, in fact the book is an excellent
example of what can be achieved within
this kind of format. Martin’s opening
essay is necessarily succinct, dashing
through a potted history of video and its
relationship to technology, performance,
feminism and inter-media practice. It
nonetheless succeeds in bringing the
reader up to date with the current
preoccupations of critics and artists: the
role of documentary, the addressing of the
filmic medium or the cinematic within
video practice, the re-introduction of the
theatrical or illusionist space of projec-
tion, and it hints at the effects of
globalisation and media networking. As
an introduction to video art it gives the
uninitiated a thorough grounding in the
subject without patronising.
Screen Studies
Both books offer a valuable resource
for their intended readership. Martin’s
introduction and Meigh-Andrews’ pains-
taking clarification of the historical rela-
tionship between form and function
contribute to a growing field of contex-
tualisation for the theorisation of the
experience of visual imagery prevalent
today.
samantha lackey
University of Manchester
THE DIRECTOR’S CUT:
THE BEST OF PROJECTIONS
john boorman & walter
donohue (ed)
Faber & Faber 2006 d9.99
370 pp. 111 mono illustrations
isbn 0571233155
P
rojections, an annual anthology
founded by British film director
John Boorman and Faber & Faber’s
film editor Walter Donohue in 1992,
provides filmmakers with a serious forum
for discussing filmmaking at the same
time as giving cinephiles a fascinating
insight into that process. Each edition has
focused on a particular theme, topic or
figure, ranging from French cinema to
women filmmakers, animation to Martin
Scorsese. Primarily made up of interviews,
conversations or diary entries, the series
represents world cinema and all its
aspects, including writing, directing, edit-
ing, acting, cinematography and sound.
This special compilation brings together
the best of the last 14 years.
There are four sections: ‘Acting’, ‘Ani-
mation’, ‘Writing’, and ‘Film-making’,
though some of the features could sit just
as well under another heading. For
example, Scorsese’s commentary on
working with Robert De Niro on their
collaborations from Mean Streets to Casino
falls under the ‘Acting’ category, but it
ultimately reveals most about Scorsese as
a director and De Niro remains something
of an enigma.
Acting, the largest section, has a
predominantly American focus, with con-
versations between Jamie Lee Curtis and
her parents Tony Curtis and Janet Leigh,
James Stewart and Gregory Solman,
Frances McDormand and Willem Dafoe,
64 The Art Book volume 14 issue 3 august 2007 r 2007 the authors. journal compilation r 2007 bpl/aah
Jodie Foster and the British director Mike
Figgis as well as Viggo Mortensen’s tribute
to actress Sandy Dennis. John Boorman’s
short piece on Lee Marvin incorporates the
actor’s own account of being injured in the
Pacific war, and argues that the trauma of
war formed his belief that ‘America could
only express itself through violence’.
Marvin ’always carried America’s guilt in
his heart’ and this was the foundation of
his acting and its ‘unflinching truth that
was sometimes almost unbearable’. It is a
candid exploration of what makes an actor.
The animation section includes con-
versations with stop-motion pioneer Ray
Harryhausen and British animator Nick
Park. Park charts his long training as an
animator at the National Film and Televi-
sion School and how he found his niche as
an apprentice at Aardman. Park’s intense
involvement with his work is manifest in
his tendency to humanise his plasticine
characters Wallace and Gromit.
The only entry under Writing is Robert
Towne’s in-depth description of the pro-
cess of writing Chinatown. His detailed
scene-by-scene account is a masterclass in
screenwriting. Towne likens movies and
scripts to war: ‘you can prepare for them,
and then all you can do is just hold on to
survive; it’s only after the fact that some-
body can describe what happened’, and
this gives his analysis an illuminating
sense of balance between his original
intentions and the benefit of hindsight.
The section ‘Film-making’ includes
Walter Murch’s piece on sound design
and Clint Eastwood’s piece on directors –
both those he would have liked to have
been directed by and those with whom he
did work in his early career. From Ford,
Hawks and Capra to Leone and Siegel, it
reads as a who’s who of Hollywood in
1960s and 1970s.
Projections persistently returns to the
creative challenges faced by filmmakers. In
Paul Thomas Anderson’s conversation
with Mike Figgis, centring on Boogie Nights,
they discuss the difficulty of maintaining
creative autonomy within the Hollywood
studio system. The diary of visionary
cinematographer Christopher Doyle on
the making of Wong Kar-Wai’s Happy
Together is a much more personal take on
the tribulations of the creative process, and
offers a fascinating insight into the work-
ing practices of two of cinema’s most
striking auteurs. Doyle’s love-hate rela-
tionship with Kar-Wai, a fellow obsessive
and eccentric, is grounded in immense
affection and respect, but also frustration.
He describes Kar-Wai’s laborious process
as ‘irresponsible to everyone but himself’
and it is the source of Doyle’s own greatest
artistic inspiration at the same time as an
exhausting drain of his creative energies.
John Boorman said in the first Projec-
tions that the series set out to ask ‘what is
happening to the movies’. Many of the
features here touch on new digital tech-
nologies and their impact on filmmaking.
The only piece that has not appeared in a
previous volume is Jason Wood’s interview
with Jonathan Caouette on the making of
Tarnation and this has been selected to
demonstrate just how different the future
of not only filmmaking but also cinema-
viewing could look. Tarnation, described by
Caouette as a ‘DIY film’ and by interviewer
Jason Woods as ‘the first cinematic
masterpiece of outsider art’, was edited
entirely on Apple’s iMovie software and
had a total production cost of $218.32.
Championed by directors John Cameron
Mitchell and Gus Vant Sant and lauded at
festivals worldwide, Tarnation’s success
could open the floodgates to a new kind
of cinema. Boorman, in his introduction,
is wary of such changes and sees digitisa-
tion as causing ‘the boundaries of the
imagination [to] come crashing down’.
Caouette is more positive, however, seeing
a future industry which builds on, not
replaces, the old guard: ‘being able to
make movies like this is going to be
another medium in itself’.
Readers already familiar with Projections
will know that Boorman and Donohue
have necessarily had to leave out a wealth
of first-class contributions in the process
of selecting this ‘best of’ edition, while
many new readers should find themselves
inspired to go back and acquire the earlier
volumes. This is testament to the excep-
tional range and quality of Projections and
the series is an invaluable sourcebook for
filmmakers, film studies students and
cinephiles alike. Let us hope that Projections
will be there to chronicle the next 14 years
of cinema – whatever its future.
claire alfrey
British Film Institute