Utopian visions: Women in early video art.
Item
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Title
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Utopian visions: Women in early video art.
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Identifier
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AAI3205455
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identifier
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3205455
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Creator
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Pytlinski, Deanne.
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Contributor
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Adviser: Anna Chave
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Date
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2006
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Language
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English
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Publisher
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City University of New York.
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Subject
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Art History | Women's Studies | Biography
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Abstract
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This dissertation is a study of a selection of women video artists working in New York City during the pioneering generation of video art, between 1965 and 1985. It examines the artists' engagement with the medium as a new technology and considers whether gender was a factor in their relative success or the subjects they chose. Video artists from this generation often had aims that were political, making claims for video's democratizing impact. While feminism was dramatically altering the women's professional and personal relationships, it was sometimes only one of many social concerns when it came to their art. By analyzing women's participation in the theorization and implementation of early video art, I aim to broaden the relatively scant public record on the medium's early history.;The dissertation is divided into four chapters and each relies heavily on interviews with the artists. Chapter one is a study of the careers of two pioneers in image-processed video, Steina Vasulka and Barbara Buckner. It looks beneath the surface of their apparently successful integration into the video community to see how their experimental processes allowed them to transcend being narrowly identified as women artists among their male colleagues. Chapter two considers the widespread popularity of Marshall McLuhan's communications theory and the at times ambivalent reception of his ideas among the women artists, Beryl Korot, Shigeko Kubota, Nina Sobell, and Louise Ledeen (formerly Etra). McLuhan framed the electronic medium of video as being an extension of "man's" nervous system, yet these women proposed alternative theoretical frameworks that complicated the intersection between technology and the human body. Chapter three studies the concept of "feedback" as it was used in video art and positions work by Shigeko Kubota and Hermine Freed as using feedback as a feminist strategy. Chapter four documents women's participation in the video collectives, Raindance, Videofreex, Amazing Grace Media, Women's Video News Service, and Women's Video Collective. Much of this chapter is based upon original interviews conducted with the following members: Wendy Apple, Nancy Cain, Beryl Korot, Rita Ogden, Curtis Ratcliff, Lynda Rodolitz, Cabell Smith, Suzanne Tedesko, Carol Vontobel, and Ann Woodward.
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Type
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dissertation
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Source
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PQT Legacy CUNY.xlsx
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degree
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Ph.D.
