Barbara Borčić, Ida Hiršenfelder, “Myths and Legends About Early Video Art Works”, in: Maska, Performing Arts Journal, year XXIV, 123-124, Summer 2009, Performing visuality, performing life: art practices in Slovenia from the ’60s to the ’80s, page 142–159
[editor] Katja Praznik
[link to online publication in PDF] Network Museum in Slovene and English.
[case study]
Nuša and Srečo Dragan, White Milk of White Breasts, b/w, Ljubljana, 1969, 30 min.
Miha Vipotnik, Videogram 4, colour, RTV Ljubljana, Ljubljana, 1976/79, 28 min.
[abstract]
In researching the various periods of the forty-year history of video art in Slovenia, we were, at first, interested especially in how to define the various uses of video technology in the context of art. The artists can use video technology as a tool, a means of expression, a working method or a medium, which makes its use in art practices distinctly individual and aesthetic. We can distinguish between numerous specific uses, from documentary, communicational, analytical, experimental and narrative use to social use and use in the media. In the Slovenian space, we can recognize four video generations, which can be conditionally classified according to decades and named conceptual/experimental, social/media, narrative and, lastly, new media. Classification is always connected to certain typical determinations that often do not reflect the practice. This is why we will try to determine the various uses of video technology according to the dominant characteristics which are manifested especially in particular art practices, specifically the video pioneers in Slovenia: the duo of Nuša and Srečo Dragan, and Miha Vipotnik.
[from the editorial]
This issue of Maska represents that part of the events of the Šoking gala šov which marks and contextualizes the larger art and cultural contexts in Slovenia during the time of Pupilija Ferkeverk, consequently emphasizing the heterogeneity of the art field and cultural dynamics of that time and space, and avoiding the mystification and mythologization of only one specific phenomenon (in this case, Pupilija Ferkeverk). The research project was dedicated to archiving, documenting and analyzing interdisciplinary art practices (visual and performance art, happenings, theatre, dance, video art), and the cultural and social contexts in Slovenia from the ’60s to the ’80s. The project’s strategy is to systematically elucidate the contacts, collisions and intersections of different artistic disciplines and their contextualization in a wider socio-political space, thus establishing a publicly accessible archive of historical phenomena that define the cultural history of the Slovenian geopolitical territory. The project thus aims for the visibility of the history of artistic creativity in Slovenia. By way of testimonials from the still-living artists, and by way of collecting and analyzing the materials, it aims to establish the material basis for further historiographical analysis of art practices not yet recorded by the official history.