Defining Video Space Art within Video Installations in the Context of Spaces and Spectators

This thesis is to introduce and examine Video Space Art as a form of Video Art. Being primarily practice-based research, it offers a theoretical and conceptual framework to find a better understanding for my artistic practices. The thesis studies the classification of Video Art. It contains an extended discussion of the place of Video Space Art in the context of Video Installation. Furthermore, the distinctions are made from Video Sculpture by theorizing space and spectator. The thesis develops the language of Video Installation. It proposes that the two main elements of Video Space Art are space and spectator. It provides a conceptual discussion of real and virtual space and the role of the spectator in Video Art are established. It then explores the languages in developed media of pictorial art, sculpture, architecture and landscape architecture. Because Video Installation is a hybrid medium, the languages found in these media are applied to deepen its meanings. Video Space Art is defined as a space-time experience that includes people as participants.

The thesis applies these theories to artworks to distinguish Video Space Art from Video Sculpture. Nam Jun Paik's Magnet TV (1965), Eagle Eye (1996) and TV Clock (1963-81), Shigeko Kubota's Three Mountains (1976-79), and Bill Viola's Heaven and Earth (1992), The Crossing (1996) and Passage(1987), Dan Graham's Present Continuous Past(s)(1974), Bruce Nauman's Live-Taped Video Corridor(1969-70), David Hall's Progressive Recession (1975), and Peter Campus' Negative Crossing (1974) are among the artworks explored. The extended discussion of the concepts and concerns behind these artworks are followed by the classification of these artworks into Video Space Art and Video Sculpture. In addition to these artworks, the analyses of the elements of Video Space Art are applied to my own practical works: Two (1999), It Takes me 15 Minutes to go to School (2000), and Love Potion in my Heart (2004). (The appendix to this thesis contains the documentation of my works in DVD ROM format).

The theoretical analysis presented in this thesis sheds light on the classification of Video Installation. A survey conducted identifies the works of Video Space Art. By defining Video Space Art, as distinct from Video Sculpture I have refined aspects of the theoretical base and extended the understanding of my own practical work.

Supplementary multimedia that forms part of this thesis may be consulted at the library of Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design [http://www.csm.arts.ac.uk/contact.htm]