Video installation

Video installation is a form of contemporary art that combines video technology with installation and using all aspects of the created space to influence the viewer. The origins of video installations can be traced back to the 1970s, when video art was born, but its popularity has increased in recent years due to the advent of more affordable digital video technology. In the late 2010s, video installations were ubiquitous and found in a wide variety of environments: from galleries and museums to objects in urban or industrial landscapes. Popular video installation formats are monitor, projection, and performance. Two things are required to create a video installation: electricity and darkness .

One of the basic principles that artists follow when creating a video installation is to use space as a key element of a narrative structure. Thanks to this, the well-known linear cinematic narrative is distributed throughout the space, providing an immersive effect . The viewer plays an active role, because it is he who determines the narrative sequence, moving in an organized space. Sometimes the idea of ​​complicity of the audience extends the work to an interactive video installation. Also, the video sequence can be displayed in such a way that the viewer becomes part of the plot as a character in the film.

Nam Joon Pike, an American artist of Korean descent, is considered to be the pioneer of video installation . From the mid-1960s he created sculptural compositions using several television monitors ^[1] . Pike continued to work with video walls and projectors, creating a voluminous immersive environment. Another one of the early creators of video installations is German artist Wolf Fostel , who in 1963 exhibited 6 TV Dé-coll / age (Six TV Decollages ) at the Smolin Gallery in New York ^[2] .

Famous American artists working with video installations are Bill Viola , Gary Hill and Tony Ousler . Bill Viola is considered a master of this form. His exhibition at the Whitney Museum in New York in 1997, along with the exhibition of Gary Hill at the Henry Art Gallery in Seattle, marked a turning point in the history of video installation art, marking the end of the first generation and the beginning of the next. Gary Hill, also considered one of the masters of form, created rather complex and innovative video installations using combinations of television tubes , projections and a number of other technologies, ranging from a laser disc to DVD and new digital devices, so that the viewer can interact with the work ^[3] . For example, in Tall Ships 1992, created at the suggestion of Jan Hoot for documenta 9 , viewers enter a dark space that looks like a hall where ghostly images of seated figures are projected onto a wall ^[4] . The appearance of the viewer makes the seated figure stand up and move towards him, creating a terrible effect of the dead man in the other world. Tony Ousler used the technology of miniature projectors developed in the early 1990s, which he built into sculptures and designs, and also, due to the improved brightness, placed the image on surfaces other than a flat screen.

In 1972, David Hall and Tony Sinden exhibited the first multi-screen installation of 60 televisions at the House London Gallery (UK). The British video installation had its own distinctive style, which was first shown at an international video show at the Serpentine Gallery in London in 1975. Subsequently, regular video art festivals began to take place in Liverpool and Halle , and artists' works were exhibited in public galleries such as the Museum of Modern Art at Oxford. An example of early video installations is the work of British artist and filmmaker Sam Taylor-Wood .

Shirin Neshat, an American artist of Iranian origin, combines video installations with cinematic saturation of feelings.