The popularization of video art

Our latest text by Christos Barboutis examines, under the prism of media and communication studies, the heretic argument that video art should attempt to become accessible to wider audiences. Therefore, it considers the probability of video art facing the challenge to address a critical mass via its popularization. On the one hand, the paper focuses on the relationship between the video medium and those of television and cinema as communication outlets in the contemporary digitalized landscape, which is deemed crucial for sustaining the above-mentioned argument. On the other, the paper analyses the qualities of video art as a cultural artefact. Thus, one of the essential elements of video art becomes the relationship with the associations of power it introduces in the life-world of its public. They prescribe the safeguarding of the creative element in the video artists’ culture of content production as a sine qua non for the successful popularization of the medium. This safeguarding should be attained by the deployment of the appropriate art policies and the upholding of the universal right to the freedom of expression.