Week 6: Legacy Video

VERTICAL ROLL, JOAN JONAS

Here is the link to view Vertical Roll by Joan Jonas:

http://ubu.com/film/jonas_vertical.html

 

Who is the practitioner (what is their name?) and when were they practicing?

Joan Jonas, 1972. A 19 minute video in black and white named Vertical Roll.

With the photo or video you are examining when was it produced (date)?

1972.

How was the photo or video authored?

A black-and-white video centered upon a technological glitch common to television.

“The reason why it’s called ‘Vertical Roll’ [is] because in the piece there’s a rolling bar of the video, which is a dysfunction of the television set,” the Jonas has explained. “And I made a piece which is structured by that bar…in which I perform around the rolling bar; all my actions are related to that bar….”

How was the photo or video published?

Jonas chose to publish Vertical Roll in video as at the time of the 60’s-70’s it was a new concept and medium for artists — and a medium that was yet to be dominated by men.

When Jonas made Vertical Roll, television was a widespread phenomenon, and viewers were used to consuming its images. Representations of women in the media, and notions of female identity, were of great concern to Jonas. By presenting herself in such a disjointed manner, Jonas hinders viewers’ ability to scrutinise her televised image, claiming a measure of control over how she may be perceived.

How was the photo or video distributed?

Vertical Roll was shot in Ace Studios in Los Angeles.

This piece of video art, as well as other works by Jonas, have been distributed and showcased in many art institutions across the globe, including The Walker Art Centre in Minneapolis, The San Francisco Museum of Art, The Kitchen in New York and Rosamund Felson Gallery in Los Angeles.

Jonas is considered a key figure in the history of both Performance and Video art, and has been enormously influential on many contemporary artists who use their bodies in performance to explore what it is to be female today.