Néstor Olhagaray, the video maker and researcher, writes about the arrival of video in the Chilean art world. He refers to one of the essential characteristics of the medium, which is its ability to create both a personal and a social imaginary. He also notes that video cannot be pigeonholed into any particular discipline, since it can be thought of as a form of photography, film, literature, and other things besides. Once it took root in the Santiago art scene its diversity soon became apparent: there is a purely “documentary” form based on specific information, experiences, testimonies, and/or reporting, and there is a genre of “fiction video” that focuses on a more personal kind of expression. Both styles include other possibilities; video can be seen as an art form, for example, that is more concerned with framing, shots, and angles, granular images, technical manipulation, and so on. These formal characteristics encourage symbolic or conceptual approaches. To illustrate this diversity, Olhagaray refers to Torre Eiffel (Eiffel Tower), the video by Juan Enrique Forch, which is a perfect example of the kind of work that defies classification. Beyond its essentially “documentary” nature, the video’s material quality is affected by conceptual features associated with how it is used.  

This text was written as part of Museo Abierto, the exhibition curated by Nemesio Antúnez and organized by the Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes in 1990. Video was an integral part of Antúnez’s curatorial plan, which showcased the creations of many video artists as well as other audiovisual works, including installations and film.  

The author provides an overview of Chilean video art productions from the 1970s and 1980s in an attempt to broaden the possible readings and perceptions of what are conventionally understood as audiovisual works. One of Chile’s most representative video artists is Juan Downey, who is Chilean but lived in New York. To gain a deeper knowledge of his work, see the text “Videos de Juan Downey: arte como experiencia” (Videos by Juan Downey: Art as Experience) by Constantino Torres (see ICAA Digital Archive doc. no. 735754).
 
The author also mentions other artists whose work he considers to be representative of the experimentation in this field during the 1970s and 1980s in Chile, such as Eugenio Dittborn, Lotty Rosenfeld, Gloria Camiruaga, Magali Meneses, Francisco Fábrega, Juan Francisco Vargas, and Pablo Lavín, among others.