The Problematic of Video Art in the Museum, 1968–1990 By Cyrus M ...

revolution, a group of artists who would call themselves “Fluxus” would be important for much that would arise out of video art. Largely, the Fluxus group would document their activities on video.⁶² Through its capacity to capture live events such as the Fluxus group shows onto tape, artists would use video as a tool to record live performances and other durational “happenings”. Well-suited to theatrical events, video art's status and function as an avant-garde art provided the opportunity to become an active participant. The spirit correlated with this would form an essential part of future video art making.

The Fluxus group, as an ideology-based initiative, would find a parallel in the foundations of Buddhism.⁶³ A largely utopian movement, Fluxus artists had advocated and prescribed a world which encouraged artistic creativity to engender the maximum good for the maximum number of people. The outlook of these artists had been strictly anti-elitist, “as [the] intelligent premises for art, for culture and for long-term human survival”.⁶⁴ The Fluxus group of artists had aspired to “erase the boundaries between art and life” by amalgamating both into a single, or unified, context.⁶⁵ This attitude, which contained elements of performative communication, was in accordance with much that was inherent in pop art and “happenings” in general. This was also reminiscent of Dadaism. Artists such as Cage—who had established a tradition of modifying musical instruments with calculated intent to subvert normative expectations and the status quo for musical production—would be influenced by radical and independent nineteenth-century American writers (such as Thoreau, who sought an alternative lifestyle to the institutionalised paradigm).

Followers of Cage would include the Fluxus artist member and video art pioneer Paik and Fluxus artist Ono. Within the climate of Fluxus and “happenings”, Paik's first video art experiments would begin adapting television sets to what he would call “Electronic Television”, which would attempt to parallel innovative experiments made by musicians such as Cage and Riley. In the spirit of Fluxus and “happenings”, much of this art would be presented, or performed, in a live setting with audiences often asked or encouraged to participate in the event. Paik would