Researcher ORCID Identifier
0009-0005-6750-8225
Graduation Year
2025
Document Type
Campus Only Senior Thesis
Degree Name
Bachelor of Arts
Department
Art History
Reader 1
Zsofi Valyi-Nagy
Reader 2
Bill Anthes
Terms of Use & License Information
Rights Information
Elizabeth Gamble
Abstract
This thesis is an investigation of the legitimization and proliferation of video art in the 1970s. The first chapter situates video art as a part of a larger fabric of experimentation occurring in alternative art spaces, mainly the artist-run space The Kitchen. This chapter includes an analysis of Steina and Woody Vasulka's early work. The second chapter analyzes the process of Nam June Paik through the lens of detournement. The third chapter situates video art in dialogue with performance art, arguing that planned obsolescence of early video materials add a dimension to Joan Jonas' work. This thesis investigates how early video art developed by illuminating the founding thematic undercurrents of artistic agency, divergence from commercial media forms, subversive manipulation and interrogation of gesture through performance.
Recommended Citation
Gamble, Elizabeth, "Audiovisual Decadence: Materiality, Collaborative Practice and Aesthetic Subversion in Early Video Art" (2025). Scripps Senior Theses. 2703.
https://scholarship.claremont.edu/scripps_theses/2703
This thesis is restricted to the Claremont Colleges current faculty, students, and staff.
