by Jon Lackman | 11 April 2007 | Contemporary, Theory
Caroline A. Jones reviews David Joselit’s new book Feedback: Television Against Democracy in Artforum: “The field of art history registered a seismic shift in the late 1990s, when crops of grad students began to designate ‘video art’ as a topic for their oral exams, or even to write their dissertations on the formerly bereft genre.” Video is becoming “the ubiquitous medium of choice in the circuitry of global exhibitions … part of a greater migration of all media into increasingly personalized, portable formats. The latter development raises questions for artists and art historians alike, as the very technology that is being hailed for providing sampling archives for tomorrow’s users becomes the subject of increasing regulation and commodification … Joselit stands in knowing and productive opposition to some venerated figures—Theodor Adorno, Krauss, and almost all the other Octoberists—whose antipathy to video art and (even more) to television is legendary … what I like best about Feedback: Joselit’s restoration of art history and the related disciplines of design, art training, and advertising as the missing links in the evolution of our mediatized present; as well as his presentation of art history as itself a productive tool for the analysis of image systems … It’s a compelling account, especially when coupled with Joselit’s terse concluding ‘Manifesto’ … a summons to ‘artists and art historians alike’ to mount a viral activism that might be mobilized against the creepy US image-scape of banner patriotism loaded up behind Animal Farm talking heads.”
