Video History Project

Chronology

"TIME"

Date
1966

"TIME" - b/w, Commissioned by the National Swedish Television. Electronic paintings created with a temporarily built video synthesizer, by Ture Sjolander and Bror Wilkstrom, televised in September 1966. 30 minutes.

Ture Sjolander has written, "TIME is the very first ''videoart'-work televised as an ultimate exhibition/installation statement, televised at that point in ''time' for the reason to produce an historical record as well as an evidence of ''original' visual free art, made with the electronic medium - manipulation of the electronic signal - and ''exhibited/installed through the televison, televised."

Cite this record

""TIME"." Video History Project, Experimental Television Center, 2011. https://www.videohistoryproject.org/time.

Download RIS citation
Summary

TIME is a black-and-white, 30-minute work commissioned by the National Swedish Television and televised in September 1966; electronic paintings were created with a temporarily built video synthesizer by Ture Sjolander and Bror Wilkstrom. Ture Sjolander described TIME as the very first videoart work televised as an exhibition/installation statement; he stated it was produced to create a historical record and to provide evidence of original visual free art made through manipulation of the electronic signal and exhibited/installed through the television.

Submit a change or correction

If unchecked, this will appear as a public note on the site immediately. Spam filters may delay publication, but all submissions are reviewed by staff.

Changes will be reviewed and integrated as time permits. For major changes, feel free to email [email protected].

Last modified 23 November 2011

Related records

  • Ture Sjolander and Bror Wilkstrom Raster Scan Device Tools

    Swedish artists Ture Sjolander and Bror Wikstrom produced early electronic paintings for National Swedish Television, notably TIME (1965–1966; commissioned 1966, televised 1966–69) and MONUMENT (1967; televised in France, Italy, Sweden, Germany and Switzerland in 1968). Their work used a temporarily built video synthesizer and waveform-generator modulation of video-scan-line rasters; Nam June Paik visited Elektronmusic Studion in Stockholm in July/August 1966. A March 12, 1974 letter from Rutt Electrophysics (signed Sherman Price) requests documentation on raster-distortion circuitry and modulation of the deflection voltage in the flying-spot telecine; a block diagram and image are included.

  • Time as Medium: Five Artists' Video Installations Bibliography

    Essay examines how five artists—Bruce Nauman, Nam June Paik, Dan Graham, Bill Viola, and Gary Hill—use video time in site-specific installations; discussed works include Nauman's Corridor Installation (1970), Paik's TV Buddha (1974), Graham's Present Continuous Past(s) (1974), Viola's Decay Time (1974), and Hill's Suspension of Disbelief (for Marinne) (1992). It traces the emergence of video art to the mid-1960s Portapak and situates artists' temporal experiments alongside ideas from Clement Greenberg, Einstein, Husserl, and William James; technologies cited include Portapak cameras, monitors/rasters, strobes, hidden cameras, and computer-controlled switching.

  • Selected Articles Concerning the Works of Ture Sjolander Bibliography

    Archival compilation of articles, letters and notes on Swedish video artist Ture Sjolander and collaborators Bror Wikström and Lars Weck, documenting electronic image works produced 1965–1969 including The Role of Photography (1965), TIME (1966), MONUMENT (1967) and SPACE IN THE BRAIN (1969); works were commissioned by National Swedish Television and employed video-synthesizer and telecine modulation techniques. Commentary and support came from Professor Bjorn Hallstrom and the Royal Swedish Academy of Fine Art (Stockholm, 1976); correspondence cites Rutt Electrophysics (March 12, 1974) and a 1967 proposal from The Pink Floyd manager; tapes are held by the National Archive of Recorded Sound and Moving Images, Sweden.

  • Video is Being Invented Bibliography

    Nam June Paik is presented as a seminal figure in the emergence of video art; he experimented with television in Germany and Japan, moved to New York in 1964, and with Shuya Abe developed the Video Synthesizer in 1970, producing works such as the T. V. Chair and the Television Bra. The text surveys artists working in video—Keith Sonnier, Linda Benglis, Joan Jonas, Nancy Holt, William Wegman, Michael Snow, Bruce Nauman, Peter Campus and George Boiling—and documents practices using portable videotape recorders, live feedback, colorization and synthesized color, video environments, and independent video groups and cable/public-access distribution.

  • The Role of Technology in the Art of Nam June Paik: Paik's Videotapes Tools

    Nam June Paik, an early pioneer of video art, experimented with television from 1959 and purchased the first Sony portable video recorder available in the United States in October 1965 with a John D. Rockefeller III grant. Collaborating with Shuya Abe, he built the Paik/Abe video synthesizer at WGBH and the Experimental Television Center to enable real-time color and image manipulation; WGBH broadcast his four-hour Video Commune in 1970, and Paik published technical diagrams and assisted in creating consoles for WNET, the California Institute of the Arts and the Experimental Television Center.

  • The Videola Tools

    Don Hallock created the Videola at the National Center for Experiments in Television at KQED-TV, San Francisco; a color monitor in a mirrored pyramid produced an illusory spherical image 4x8 feet. It displayed images from camera, videotape recorder or video synthesizer; at NCET the Beck Direct Video Synthesizer was used as the input signal. The Videola was exhibited at the San Francisco Museum of Art in September 1973 with videotape works by Hallock and a live performance by Stephen Beck; press coverage appeared in California Living, the San Francisco Chronicle and Artweek.