Walter Zanini considers video to be a universal art, acknowledging that its diverse aspects can be broken down into three areas: (a) the technical and abstract manipulation of electronic images; (b) the television as an object for construction of environments; and (c) a record of the social reality. While Zanini sees video as a communications vehicle that is quite accessible to the community, he is aware that there are still many difficulties preventing it from being fully developed and disseminated. He expands our perspectives on the differences between television and film (with a possible intertextuality in play), as well as the differences between video and traditional art. Zanini pays special attention to the process of creating video and responds to the criticisms made against its practice because it is an “imported art”. Finally, the writer creates a historical record of the development of video art in Brazil and identifies its pioneers, therefore establishing its actual, unquestionable existence as an art in Brazil.

This document is an important testimonial by the Brazilian art critic, historian, and curator, Walter Zanini (1925−2013). Zanini was a theoretician (attentive to the impact of technology on art) and an active commentator, who promoted such activities and radical changes through the cultural institutions under his leadership. He was the first director of the Museu de Arte Contemporânea (MAC) (linked to University of São Paulo, USP), a position he held from 1963 to 1978. As museum director, he was outstanding in his effort to provide incentives for the work of new artists as well as for marginalized artwork of all kinds. In addition, he was one of the curators of the Primeira Bienal de São Paulo (1951). In the 1970s, Zanini started working with Julio Plaza (1938−2003), an artist from Madrid who was living in Brazil, serving as a professor in the multimedia department at UNICamp and the department of visual arts at the Escola de Comunicações e Artes da Universidade de São Paulo (ECA-USP). With Plaza’s backing, Zanini created significant incentives for the dissemination of the work of artists struggling to make their way in both experimental art and the conceptual use of multimedia. See Zanini on this matter in “Primeiros tempos da arte/tecnología no Brasil” [doc. no. 1111029]. 

The event called I Encontro de Vídeo Arte took place at the installations of the Museu da Imagem e do Som (MIS) in São Paulo, between December 13 and 20, 1978. This was unquestionably the first major event to introduce various examples of video art in Brazil. Previously, they had only appeared at isolated events; in terms of institutions, these came down to MAM-Rio or MAC-USP, which was under the direction of Professor Zanini, himself.