Early Conceptual Videos

Here is one of the starting point of Japanese video art.

After coming back from New York in 1969, Taka iimura started video production in Tokyo. Working in experimental film since the early 1960s , he first combined the art of film with video thus making a kind of flicker effect in video in two pieces: “A Chair” (1970) and “Blinking” (1970).

These videos are experiments in perception, and are very minimal in form consisting of a single object which requires a lot of attention.

“Time Tunnel” (1971) is an attempt at time travel in a very conseptual sense.

“Man and Woman” (1971) shows full body shots of a naked man and woman shot from above without movement: stills. They are shown alone as well as together one over (or under) the other symbolizing in words at the same time, their positions.

“Visual Logic (and Illogic)” (1977) shows visual logic (and illogic) of sign combining with limited movements of camera for panning and zooming.

These early videos signify very early experiments of a particular “conceptual video, ” that almost no other video artists had ever tried at that time. Furthermore this is an important collection to clarify later developments of the art of iimura’s video.

(Most of the works are excerpted.)