Video art and new media

What is video art?

Video art (the art of new media) is work whose material is the moving image, video and technology. You are not looking at a picture hanging on a wall but at a work that flows in time, projected or running on a screen. And an interesting question arises at once: what exactly do you own when you buy such a work?

How does video art appear?

It appears as projection, video installation or work with screens and digital technologies, where what matters is precisely the unfolding of events in time. The viewer does not stand before a finished object but enters a situation playing out before their eyes. In that it is closer to an experience than to a classical picture one can merely look at.

Who are its main figures?

Notable makers working with the moving image include Agnieszka Polska. Alongside her, the history of new media holds many other artists who helped establish video art as a fully fledged artistic discipline.

How does video art do on the market?

Video art is harder to trade than a painting or a sculpture, precisely because it is not entirely clear what a collector takes home. This is addressed by selling in editions and with certificates confirming that you own an authorised version of the work. What you own, then, is more the right to have and to exhibit the work than a tangible object.

— Anna Pulkertová, founder of Art Part Club