Associação Cultural Videobrasil

The Author Video

"Communication" was a fashionable world in the 80's and everything that allowed its use from the strategical and technological point of view, for a future eventually better and higher profitability, was tried, tested and employed with no scuples. Thus, video went though a large technological development, followed very closely by computering. Thanks to the "interface" between these two techniques, "image" gets a little more and comes into a new era.

Technology is a little more advanced in the United States and with the arrival of video in the 70's there is an attempt to break models and references by refusing to associate it to a "father" such as movies. It only wanted to be regarded with approval by television, its "mother". Jean-Christophe Averty, the only creator engerdered by French Television, would say in 1975: "I thought I had opened to a broad way for all the French television, I'm the only hero fo a lost war". Thanks to video, the first to sever the rope, with veemence, but not without humour, will be Nam June Paik, called "Pope of the video" by all. "All our life we were attacked by television, today we can already counter attack". And he really attacked, followed by a series of videomakers, teletigrapher, artists, producers, that come from all over, from all arts, from different practices with differents brands. Some seek, invent, experiment. Some play the TV-midia game, others express themselves under the thrust of strong emotions, skindeep or from their hearts, without knowing what they will do with their works. They create and that's it. Communication's fashion did not mark them. Jean-Paul Fargier, critic and video producer, will say: "We are against television, totally against!". Creating videos is only a citation is parenthesis behind the zoological bars of television. Frequently consider as an anthropophagic animal, it sometimes passes throught the televisive peregrination of culture so-called civilized. It is also the scapegoat that makes possible to clear the way in conflict areas. Its eye, which means "i see", is an evil eye, a taboo theme. Not many artists, nor many videos with special effects, or we will become too intelligent! Fortunately, not all televisions reflect this generality and some made the option and are running the risk of bringing the fire partk, the "Cursed Part", allowing us to see all these artists, permitting the creation of these original work.

"To create is to seek the other. Thus, it is necessary to pose the ethical question: what does one do with the other? "

(Pierre Trivic).

"If art did not have a ludic function, I would not play"

(Michel Jaffrenou)

I decided to make an ecletic selection to show how much and how the audiovisual technological explosion in audiovisual terms witnesses, with enthusiasm, what called the emergence of "creation video" or "author video". This giant steps evolution received a considerable investment to conquer new markets in image production.

Challenging the laws of gravity, these new technologies have, in a certain manner, opened the way of hope and dreams for many young creators. The video, the "palettes graphiques", the synthesis images, have gone beyond the experimental field and the authors, the artists, move from their application filed in order to participate in renewing the television writtings, wanting to reach a larger audience. Today's electronic image is composite, feeding of all existing supports, thus demonstrating formidable interpenetration possibilities of materials and of a genera that form mixture and this crossing of riches of our contemporary culture, which can bring one more meditation in our lives.

"Video is sweet, we suppose images and do not cut with scissors as in movies, there is no violence", says Michel Jaffrenou about electronic image.

These different practices, both in France as is the international scenario, have revealed the command of these new technologies and prove how much can enrich, tranform and regenerate the language and communication of this strange small lens that has become a large window to the world: Television.

8th Fotoptica Internacional Video Festival. 09 a 15 de Novembro de 1990. p. 38 e p. 39