Inspired by the upcoming installation at the Gallery of Contemporary Art “Dario Solman: The Heart of Perspective, The Making of The Film,” I am interested in exploring the spatial relationships of video art in relation to the larger context of the gallery space, the spectator, and the viewing apparatus itself. In Art Journal’s Fall 2007 issue, Kate Mondloch’s article “Be Here (and There) Now: The Spatial Dynamics of Screen-Reliant Installation Art,” Mondloch critically analyzes the spatial relationships inherent in “screen” related art works and their influences on spectatorship. Drawing from the screen installation art works of Valie Export and Peter Campus, Mondloch sheds light on the dualistic realities that are created by the viewing apparatus as a barrier and mediator between two worlds. “A screen is a barrier, wrote the philospher Stanley Cavell in 1971. What does the silver screen screen? It screens me from the world it holds – that is, screens its existence from me” (Mondloch 21).

Both examples that Mondloch cites are referential to the space that is inside the screen, the space in front of the screen, and the materiality of the screen itself. This created an equal emphasis on not only what was viewed, but also how it was viewed. In Export’s “Ping Pong” the viewer is asked to become an active participant in the film and therefore become aware of his/her own role as spectator. By engaging in a “game” with the screen, the spectator must acknowledge the screen’s physical materiality and is forced to engage with and recognize the space in front of the screen. In a similar vein, Campus’s “Interface” allows the viewer to see the performative aspects inherent within video art through the “screen’s” material substance. The screen Campus uses is made out of glass, a reflective material that “must nearly disappear in order to (re) materialize the interface of screen-based viewing” (Mondloch 28). By actively bringing an awareness and understanding to the spatial relationships and issues of video/film installation art, the importance of the gallery and display is brought into sharper focus.

As with all art that is viewed within a gallery or institutional setting, its display plays an important role in how the art is fundamentally viewed and understood. The realm of video/film installation art has historically emphasized the content within and de-emphasized its external context. This has largely been due to the traditional mode of viewing and interacting with media based activities. The screen as a window into another world has been a product of its two-dimensionality, a perspective that has been formulated since the Renaissance. However, it is important for these two realms (the real and the virtual) to converge and create a dialogue. Art cannot be separated from its contextual environments, it is dependent upon them.