Making art out of the moving image

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Mo White reviews a ‘coffee table’ book that is also an informative account of contemporary video and film art

The Paradoxical Object: Video Film Sculpture by Joan Truckenbrod

In recent years there has been a growing market in books that provide commentary and critique of the wider field of artists’ work with moving images  in film and video.   In the mid-19th century artists started using early moving image forms, with inventions such as the Zoetrope.  It is only relatively recently that this work has entered gallery spaces in the form of film projections and installations – which now have become an indispensable part of many contemporary gallery exhibitions.  Likewise, there are an expanding number of books being published to support this new interest – and The Paradoxical Object is one that both capitalizes on this interest and presents aspects of this form to the new reader.

Joan Truckenbrod is a digital artist using the forms that she describes as video, film and sculpture, and presents much of her own work in this volume.  Truckenbrod defines these art objects, including her own work, as ‘paradoxical’; objects where the ephemeral video image that is used dissolves into the sculptural object and at the same time is shaped by the object.

Truckenbrod refers to a range of other artists that include Susan Collins, Ann Hamilton, Bill Viola,  Joan Jonas, Krzysztof Wodiczko and Tony Oursler . Commentaries on particular works by these artists are provided and are descriptive rather than analytical, and well illustrated with photographs of the works themselves.

On the whole, this book provides general information and Truckenbrod’s singular view – it does not aim to define the field closely, provide a history or a comprehensive overview of the field – but it does aim to provide new information and illustrations of work by its selected artists. As it seems that this is a book for the coffee table the quality of its illustrations are important in stimulating the appetite for the newcomer to this work – and this it does successfully.

The Paradoxical Object: Video Film Sculpture by Joan Truckenbrod is published by Black Dog Publishing, London. 160 pp. Illustrated in colour (paperback). ISBN: 978 1 907317 60 6