In this text, prestigious art critic Frederico Morais openly questions “video art.” He argues that it is not, in fact, a product of the art/technology pair, but rather of the idea of making culture portable thanks to low costs and ease of production. Morais points out the ties between video art and both Super 8 film and audiovisual production. He identifies the need for an immediate link between the emitting agent and the receiver, particularly in the context of the artistic transformations in the postmodern—or, even, “post-object”—period. He recounts research carried out by minimalism, “poor art,” environmental art, conceptualism, and work in which the body acts as support. Because works in those media have no originals, their revalidation depends on documentation (photographs, recordings, texts, films). Morais suggests that such works are produced in relation to their milieu and to language—that is where their origin lies. He mentions authors of video art—though he bemoans the quality of much of their work—and remarks on the negative reaction on the part of the art audience. After a historical and international overview of video art, he takes pains to explain how it differs from video performance.
