Repurpose and Remake

By the 1970s, television had penetrated most homes in America, Europe and Japan. New forms of information circulation ushered in an age of new media that included telecommunications, telematics and cybernetic feedback. In parallel to this rapid spread, TV became a prime vector for the di fusion of violence. In Violence Sonata (1970), media artist and experimental flm-maker Stan VanDerBeek uses TV as means by which violence impregnates the collective body to reflect on that same violence. The work, which involves video and live performance in a studio setting, intervenes in this violence that the artist described as ‘the digestive act of our inability to communicate’. ‘Man’s frustration at not being able to communicate with words leads him to violence’, said VanDerBeek. ‘Centuries of words have meant centuries of violence. We must explore all other ways to communicate if we hope to live non-violent lives.’ 1 To that end, the artist appropriated and expanded TV’s material apparatus to render it a site for the articulation of a language – informational and aesthetic – beyond words.