Van Gogh: The Church at Auvers (1890)

The visual arts are art forms that create works which are primarily visual in nature, such as ceramics, drawing, painting, sculpture, printmaking, design, crafts, and often modern visual arts (photography, video, and filmmaking) and architecture. These definitions should not be taken too strictly as many artistic disciplines (performing arts, conceptual art, textile arts) involve aspects of the visual arts as well as arts of other types. Also included within the visual arts^[1] are the applied arts^[2] such as industrial design, graphic design, fashion design, interior design and decorative art.^[3]

As indicated above, the current usage of the term "visual arts" includes fine art as well as the applied, decorative arts and crafts, but this was not always the case. Before the Arts and Crafts Movement in Britain and elsewhere at the turn of the 20th century, the term artist was often restricted to a person working in the fine arts (such as painting, sculpture, or printmaking) and not the handicraft, craft, or applied art media. The distinction was emphasized by artists of the Arts and Crafts Movement who valued vernacular art forms as much as high forms.^[4] Art schools made a distinction between the fine arts and the crafts maintaining that a craftsperson could not be considered a practitioner of art.

The increasing tendency to privilege painting, and to a lesser degree sculpture, above other arts has been a feature of Western art as well as East Asian art. In both regions painting has been seen as relying to the highest degree on the imagination of the artist, and the furthest removed from manual labour - in Chinese painting the most highly valued styles were those of "scholar-painting", at least in theory practiced by gentleman amateurs. The Western hierarchy of genres reflected similar attitudes.

Education and training[link]

A Magic carpet, was legendary carpet that can be used to transport persons who are on it instantaneously or quickly to their destination in the stories of the One Thousand and One Nights.

Training in the visual arts has generally been through variations of the apprentice and workshop system. In Europe the Renaissance movement to increase the prestige of the artist led to the academy system for training artists, and today most train in art schools at a tertiary level. Visual arts have now become an elective subject in most education systems. (See also art education.)

Drawing[link]

Drawing is a means of making an image, using any of a wide variety of tools and techniques. It generally involves making marks on a surface by applying pressure from a tool, or moving a tool across a surface using dry media such as graphite pencils, pen and ink, inked brushes, wax color pencils, crayons, charcoals, pastels, and markers. Digital tools which simulate the effects of these are also used. The main techniques used in drawing are: line drawing, hatching, crosshatching, random hatching, scribbling, stippling, and blending. An artist who excels in drawing is referred to as a draftsman or draughtsman.

Drawing goes back at least 16,000 years to Paleolithic cave representations of animals such as those at Lascaux in France and Altamira in Spain. In ancient Egypt, ink drawings on papyrus, often depicting people, were used as models for painting or sculpture. Drawings on Greek vases, initially geometric, later developed to the human form with black-figure pottery during the 7th century BC.^[5]

With paper becoming common in Europe by the 15th century, drawing was adopted by masters such as Sandro Botticelli, Raphael, Michelangelo, and Leonardo da Vinci who sometimes treated drawing as an art in its own right rather than a preparatory stage for painting or sculpture.^[6]

Painting[link]

Mosaic of Battle of Issus

Nefertari with Isis

Painting taken literally is the practice of applying pigment suspended in a carrier (or medium) and a binding agent (a glue) to a surface (support) such as paper, canvas or a wall. However, when used in an artistic sense it means the use of this activity in combination with drawing, composition and, or, other aesthetic considerations in order to manifest the expressive and conceptual intention of the practitioner. Painting is also used to express spiritual motifs and ideas; sites of this kind of painting range from artwork depicting mythological figures on pottery to The Sistine Chapel to the human body itself.

Origins and early history[link]

Like drawing, painting has its documented origins in caves and on rock faces. The finest examples, believed by some to be 32,000 years old, are in the Chauvet and Lascaux caves in southern France. In shades of red, brown, yellow and black, the paintings on the walls and ceilings are of bison, cattle, horses and deer.

Raphael: Transfiguration (1520)

Paintings of human figures can be found in the tombs of ancient Egypt. In the great temple of Ramses II, Nefertari, his queen, is depicted being led by Isis.^[7] The Greeks contributed to painting but much of their work has been lost. One of the best remaining representations is the mosaic of the Battle of Issus found at Pompeii which was probably based on a Greek painting. Greek and Roman art contributed to Byzantine art in the 4th century BC which initiated a tradition in icon painting.

The Renaissance[link]

Apart from the illuminated manuscripts produced by monks during the Middle Ages, the next significant contribution to European art was from Italy's renaissance painters. From Giotto in the 13th century to Leonardo da Vinci and Raphael at the beginning of the 16th century, this was the richest period in Italian art as the chiaroscuro technique was used to create the illusion of 3-D space.^[8]

Rembrandt: The Night Watch

Painters in northern Europe too were influenced by the Italian school. Jan van Eyck from Belgium, Pieter Bruegel the Elder from the Netherlands and Hans Holbein the Younger from Germany are among the most successful painters of the times. They used the glazing technique with oils to achieve depth and luminosity.

Claude Monet: Déjeuner sur l'herbe (1866)

Dutch masters[link]

The 17th century saw the emergence of the great Dutch masters such as the versatile Rembrandt who is especially remembered for his portraits and Bible scenes, and Vermeer who specialized in interior scenes of Dutch life.

Impressionism[link]

Impressionism began in France in the 19th century with a loose association of artists including Claude Monet, Pierre-Auguste Renoir and Paul Cézanne who brought a new freely brushed style to painting, often choosing to paint realistic scenes of modern life outside rather than in the studio. They achieved intense colour vibration by using pure, unmixed colours and short brush strokes.^[9]

Paul Gauguin: The Vision After the Sermon (1888)

Post-impressionism[link]

Towards the end of the 19th century, several young painters took impressionism a stage further, using geometric forms and unnatural colour to depict emotions while striving for deeper symbolism. Of particular note are Paul Gauguin, who was strongly influenced by Asian, African and Japanese art, Vincent van Gogh, a Dutchman who moved to France where he drew on the strong sunlight of the south, and Toulouse-Lautrec, remembered for his vivid paintings of night life in the Paris district of Montmartre.^[10]

Symbolism, expressionism and cubism[link]

Edvard Munch, a Norwegian artist, developed his symbolistic approach at the end of the 19th century, inspired by the French impressionist Manet. The Scream (1893), his most famous work, is widely interpreted as representing the universal anxiety of modern man. Partly as a result of Munch's influence, the German expressionist movement originated in Germany at the beginning of the 20th century as artists such as Ernst Kirschner and Erich Heckel began to distort reality for an emotional effect. In parallel, the style known as cubism developed in France as artists focused on the volume and space of sharp structures within a composition. Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque were the leading proponents of the movement. Objects are broken up, analyzed, and re-assembled in an abstracted form. By the 1920s, the style had developed into surrealism with Dali and Magritte.^[11]

Printmaking[link]

Ancient Chinese engraving of female instrumentalists

Printmaking is creating for artistic purposes an image on a matrix which is then transferred to a two-dimensional (flat) surface by means of ink (or another form of pigmentation). Except in the case of a monotype, the same matrix can be used to produce many examples of the print.

Albrecht Dürer: Melancholia I (1541)

Historically, the major techniques (also called media) involved are woodcut, line engraving, etching, lithography, and screenprinting (serigraphy, silkscreening) but there are many others, including modern digital techniques. Normally the surface upon which the print is printed is paper, but there are exceptions, from cloth and vellum to modern materials. Major printmaking traditions include that of Japan (ukiyo-e).

European history[link]

Prints in the Western tradition produced before about 1830 are known as old master prints. In Europe, from around 1400 AD woodcut, was used for master prints on paper by using techniques for printing on cloth which had been developed in the Byzantine and Islamic worlds. Michael Wolgemut improved German woodcut from about 1475, and Erhard Reuwich, a Dutchman, was the first to use cross-hatching. At the end of the century Albrecht Dürer brought the Western woodcut to a level that has never been surpassed, increasing the status of the single-leaf woodcut.^[12]

Chinese Origin and Practice[link]

The Chinese Diamond Sutra, the world's oldest printed book (868 CE)

In China, the art of printmaking developed some 1,100 years ago as illustrations alongside text cut in woodblocks for printing on paper. Initially images were mainly religious but in the Song Dynasty, artists began to cut landscapes. During the Ming (1368–1644) and Qing (1616–1911) dynasties, the technique was perfected for both religious and artistic engravings.^[13][14]

Development In Japan 1603-1867[link]

Hokusai: "Red Fuji southern wind clear morning" from Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji

Woodblock printing in Japan (Japanese: 木版画, moku hanga) is a technique best known for its use in the ukiyo-e artistic genre; however, it was also used very widely for printing books in the same period. Woodblock printing had been used in China for centuries to print books, long before the advent of movable type, but was only widely adopted in Japan surprisingly late, during the Edo period (1603-1867). Although similar to woodcut in western printmaking in some regards, moku hanga differs greatly in that water-based inks are used (as opposed to western woodcut which uses oil-based inks), allowing for a wide range of vivid color, glazes and color transparency.

Photography[link]

Photography is the process of making pictures by means of the action of light. Light patterns reflected or emitted from objects are recorded onto a sensitive medium or storage chip through a timed exposure. The process is done through mechanical, chemical or digital devices known as cameras.

The word comes from the Greek words φως phos ("light"), and γραφις graphis ("stylus", "paintbrush") or γραφη graphê, together meaning "drawing with light" or "representation by means of lines" or "drawing." Traditionally, the product of photography has been called a photograph. The term photo is an abbreviation; many people also call them pictures. In digital photography, the term image has begun to replace photograph. (The term image is traditional in geometric optics.)

Filmmaking[link]

Filmmaking is the process of making a motion-picture, from an initial conception and research, through scriptwriting, shooting and recording, animation or other special effects, editing, sound and music work and finally distribution to an audience; it refers broadly to the creation of all types of films, embracing documentary, strains of theatre and literature in film, and poetic or experimental practices, and is often used to refer to video-based processes as well.

Computer art[link]

Visual artists are no longer limited to traditional art media. Computers have been used as an ever more common tool in the visual arts since the 1960s. Uses include the capturing or creating of images and forms, the editing of those images and forms (including exploring multiple compositions) and the final rendering and/or printing (including 3D printing).

Computer art is any in which computers played a role in production or display. Such art can be an image, sound, animation, video, CD-ROM, DVD, video game, website, algorithm, performance or gallery installation. Many traditional disciplines are now integrating digital technologies and, as a result, the lines between traditional works of art and new media works created using computers have been blurred. For instance, an artist may combine traditional painting with algorithmic art and other digital techniques. As a result, defining computer art by its end product can be difficult. Nevertheless, this type of art is beginning to appear in art museum exhibits, though it has yet to prove its legitimacy as a form unto itself and this technology is widely seen in contemporary art more as a tool rather than a form as with painting.

Computer usage has blurred the distinctions between illustrators, photographers, photo editors, 3-D modelers, and handicraft artists. Sophisticated rendering and editing software has led to multi-skilled image developers. Photographers may become digital artists. Illustrators may become animators. Handicraft may be computer-aided or use computer-generated imagery as a template. Computer clip art usage has also made the clear distinction between visual arts and page layout less obvious due to the easy access and editing of clip art in the process of paginating a document, especially to the unskilled observer.

The Plastic arts[link]

Plastic arts is a term, now largely forgotten, encompassing art forms which involve physical manipulation of a plastic medium by moulding or modeling such as sculpture or ceramics. The term has also been applied to all the visual (non-literary, non-musical) arts.^[15][16]

Materials that can be carved or shaped, such as stone or wood, concrete or steel, have also been included in the narrower definition, since, with appropriate tools, such materials are also capable of modulation.^{[citation needed]} This use of the term "plastic" in the arts should not be confused with Piet Mondrian's use, nor with the movement he termed, in French and English, "Neoplasticism."

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Plastic arts

Sculpture[link]

Sculpture is three-dimensional artwork created by shaping or combining hard and/or plastic material, sound, and/or text and or light, commonly stone (either rock or marble), metal, glass, or wood. Some sculptures are created directly by finding or carving; others are assembled, built together and fired, welded, molded, or cast. Sculptures are often painted ^[17]. A person who creates sculptures is called a sculptor.

Because sculpture involves the use of materials that can be moulded or modulated, it is considered one of the plastic arts. The majority of public art is sculpture. Many sculptures together in a garden setting may be referred to as a sculpture garden.

United States of America copyright definition of visual art[link]

In the United States, the law protecting the copyright over a piece of visual art gives a more restrictive definition of "visual art". The following quote is from the Copyright Law of the United States of America- Chapter 1:^[18]

A “work of visual art” is —
(1) a painting, drawing, print or sculpture, existing in a single copy, in a limited edition of 200 copies or fewer that are signed and consecutively numbered by the author, or, in the case of a sculpture, in multiple cast, carved, or fabricated sculptures of 200 or fewer that are consecutively numbered by the author and bear the signature or other identifying mark of the author; or
(2) a still photographic image produced for exhibition purposes only, existing in a single copy that is signed by the author, or in a limited edition of 200 copies or fewer that are signed and consecutively numbered by the author.

A work of visual art does not include —
(A)(i) any poster, map, globe, chart, technical drawing, diagram, model, applied art, motion picture or other audiovisual work, book, magazine, newspaper, periodical, data base, electronic information service, electronic publication, or similar publication;
  (ii) any merchandising item or advertising, promotional, descriptive, covering, or packaging material or container;
  (iii) any portion or part of any item described in clause (i) or (ii);
(B) any work made for hire; or
(C) any work not subject to copyright protection under this title.

See also[link]

Visual arts portal

References[link]

1. ^ An About.com article by art expert, Shelley Esaak: What Is Visual Art?
2. ^ Different Forms of Art- Applied Art. Buzzle.com. Retrieved 11 Dec 2010.
3. ^ "Centre for Arts and Design in Toronto, Canada". Georgebrown.ca. 2011-02-15. http://www.georgebrown.ca/centres/AD/index.aspx. Retrieved 2011-10-30. 
4. ^ Art History: Arts and Crafts Movement: (1861-1900). From World Wide Arts Resources. Retrieved 24 October 2009.
5. ^ History of Drawing. From Dibujos para Pintar. Retrieved 23 October 2009.
6. ^ Drawing. From History.com. Retrieved 23 October 2009.
7. ^ History of Painting. From History World. Retrieved 23 October 2009.
8. ^ History of Renaissance Painting. From ART 340 Painting. Retrieved 24 October 2009.
9. ^ Impressionism. Webmuseum, Paris. Retrieved 24 October 2009
10. ^ Post-Impressionism. Metropolitan Museum of Art. Retrieved 25 October 2009.
11. ^ Modern Art Movements. Irish Art Encyclopedia. Retrieved 25 October 2009.
12. ^ The Printed Image in the West: History and Techniques. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Retrieved 25 October 2009.
13. ^ Engraving in Chinese Art. From Engraving Review. Retrieved 23 October 2009.
14. ^ The History of Engraving in China. From ChinaVista. Retrieved 25 October 2009.
15. ^ ART TERMINOLOGY at KSU^{[dead link]}
16. ^ "Merriam-Webster Online (entry for "plastic arts")". Merriam-webster.com. http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/plastic%20arts. Retrieved 2011-10-30. 
17. ^ Gods in Color: Painted Sculpture of Classical Antiquity September 22, 2007 Through January 20, 2008, The Arthur M. Sackler Museum
18. ^ "Copyright Law of the United States of America- Chapter 1 (101. Definitions)". Copyright.gov. http://www.copyright.gov/title17/92chap1.html#101. Retrieved 2011-10-30. 

Further reading[link]

• Barnes, A. C., The Art in Painting, 3rd ed., 1937, Harcourt, Brace & World, Inc., NY.
• Bukumirovic, D. (1998). Maga Magazinovic. Biblioteka Fatalne srpkinje knj. br. 4. Beograd: Narodna knj.
• Fazenda, M. J. (1997). Between the pictorial and the expression of ideas: the plastic arts and literature in the dance of Paula Massano. N.p.
• Gerón, C. (2000). Enciclopedia de las artes plásticas dominicanas: 1844-2000. 4th ed. Dominican Republic s.n.
• Oliver Grau (Ed.): MediaArtHistories. MIT-Press, Cambridge 2007. with Rudolf Arnheim, Barbara Stafford, Sean Cubitt, William Mitchell, Lev Manovich, Christiane Paul, Peter Weibel a.o. Rezensionen
• Laban, R. V. (1976). The language of movement: a guidebook to choreutics. Boston: Plays.
• La Farge, O. (1930). Plastic prayers: dances of the Southwestern Indians. N.p.
• Restany, P. (1974). Plastics in arts. Paris, New York: N.p.
• University of Pennsylvania. (1969). Plastics and new art. Philadelphia: The Falcon Pr.

External links[link]

• ArtLex - online dictionary of visual art terms.
• Art History Timeline by the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Media related to Visual arts at Wikimedia Commons

Richie Hawtin
Background information
Birth name	Richard Hawtin
Born	(1970-06-04) June 4, 1970 (age 42) Oxfordshire, England
Origin	Windsor, Ontario
Genres	Techno, minimal techno, Detroit techno, ambient
Labels	Plus 8, M-nus, NovaMute
Website	richiehawtin.com

Richard (Richie) Hawtin (born June 4, 1970, Banbury, Oxfordshire) is an English-Canadian electronic musician and DJ who was an influential part of Detroit techno's second wave of artists in the early 1990s and a leading exponent of Minimal techno since the mid 1990s. He is best known for his abstract, minimal works under the alias Plastikman, a pseudonym he still uses today.

Hawtin is known for DJing minimal techno sets making use of laptop computers and digital mixing equipment. In May 1990, Hawtin and fellow second-waver John Acquaviva founded the Plus 8 record label, which they named after their turntable's pitch adjust function.^[1] In 1998, Hawtin launched Minus records.^[2]

Biography[link]

Hawtin was born in Banbury, Oxfordshire, England,^[3] but moved when he was aged nine to LaSalle, Ontario, a suburb of Windsor, Ontario, and just across the river from Detroit, the birthplace of techno. His father worked as a robotics technician at General Motors, and was a fan of electronic music, introducing his son to Kraftwerk and Tangerine Dream at an early age. He has one brother, Matthew, who is a visual artist and ambient music DJ. Hawtin attended Sandwich Secondary High School in LaSalle. He began to DJ in clubs in Detroit at 17, and his early style was a mix of house music and techno.^[4]

With Canadian DJ John Acquaviva he formed the label Plus 8 in 1990 to release his own tracks under the name F.U.S.E.^[4] He spent part of 2002 and 2003 living in New York City, and has since moved to Berlin, Germany. He said, "I’d always wanted to move to Europe. I needed somewhere that was inspiring and where there were like-minded musicians and artists, somewhere you could still experiment with music and with life. Berlin is so liberal in so many different ways; there’s an amazing club scene, there’s a great development software tech scene, there are so many resources here."^[4]

Career[link]

	"Substance Abuse" noicon "Substance Abuse" was released in 1991 under the F.U.S.E pseudonym
Problems listening to this file? See media help.

	"Ping Pong" noicon The minimalist track "Ping Pong" was recorded under the Plastikman alias
Problems listening to this file? See media help.

Hawtin has recorded music under the aliases Plastikman, F.U.S.E., Concept 1, Forcept 1, Circuit Breaker, Robotman, Chrome, Spark, Xenon, R.H.X., Jack Master, Richard Michaels and UP!. He also recorded and performed, in combination with other artists, under group names such as The Hard Brothers, Hard Trax (with his brother Matthew Hawtin), 0733, Cybersonik (with Daniel Bell and John Acquaviva), Final Exposure (with Joey Beltram and Mundo Muzique), Just For Fun (with Holger Wick), Narod Niki (with Akufen, Cabanne, Dandy Jack, Daniel Bell, Luciano, Ricardo Villalobos, Robert Henke and Thomas Franzmann), Two Guys In The Basement (with John Acquaviva), Spawn (with Fred Giannelli and Daniel Bell) and States Of Mind (with Acquaviva).

He was the mastermind of huge raves in the Detroit area, he ran several club nights, a yearly party at City Club and a crazy one at The Necto (nightclub) Additionally, Hawtin and Pete Namlook collaborated to produce the From Within series of albums which blend minimal techno and ambient. He has also released an album Sounds of the Third Season with Sven Väth.^[5]

In 2006, Hawtin collaborated with choreographer Enzo Cosimi on a composition called "9.20" for the Winter Olympics opening ceremony. He said, "Enzo and I are very much interested in pushing boundaries, both as artists and for our audiences. Working together for the Opening Ceremonies of the Winter Games delivers the creative endeavor to not only entertain a huge audience, but to also introduce them to sights and sounds that they may have never experienced before."^[6]

Slices magazine launched a series of biographies in 2007 called "Pioneers of Electronic Music"; their first issue was a 60 minute biographical documentary on Hawtin. The film follows his career from his early days crossing the border to Detroit to his current life in Berlin, and contains interviews with many colleagues and family members.

2011 saw the release of Arkives 1993 - 2010, a massive box set containing everything Hawtin has released under his Plastikman moniker, as well as a new mixed set and previously unreleased material. The collection includes CDs, vinyl, digital downloads and a DVD.

Hawtin dismisses speculation as to the demise of dance music. In an interview he said, "In the last few years, the interest in electronic music has gone back up, the quality of the music has gone back up, there’s a buzz which reminds you of the early days,” he insists. “From where I’m sitting right now, dance music is more vibrant than ever. In some countries you’ll always have the press saying it’s going down and writing it off, but somewhere else the interest level is soaring and people are discovering this music for the first time, like in South America, where it’s completely kicking off – it’s unbelievable down there. There are some great festivals and parties in Europe, and over the last five years I’ve seen Ibiza go from complete cheesy shite music to the resurgence of a number of different types of progressive electronic music."^[4]

Selected discography[link]

Albums[link]

• F.U.S.E.: Dimension Intrusion, 1993
• Plastikman: Sheet One, 1993
• Plastikman: Musik, 1994
• Plastikman: Recycled Plastik, 1994
• Plastikman: Sickness (EP), 1997
• Concept 1: 96:CD, 1998
• Concept 1: 96:VR, 1998 (remixed by Thomas Brinkmann)
• Plastikman: Consumed, 1998
• Plastikman: Artifakts [bc], 1998
• Plastikman: Closer, 2003
• Plastikman: Kompilation, 2010
• Plastikman: Arkives, 2011

DJ mix compilations[link]

• Richie Hawtin: Mixmag Live!, 1995 (Live DJ mix album)
• Richie Hawtin: Decks, EFX & 909, 1999 (DJ mix album)
• Richie Hawtin: DE9: Closer to the Edit, 2001 (DJ mix album)
• Richie Hawtin and Sven Väth: Sound of the Third Season, 2002 (DJ mix album)
• Richie Hawtin and Ricardo Villalobos Live at the Robert Johnson, Offenbach, Germany, 2004 (11 hour DJ set)
• Richie Hawtin: DE9 | Transitions, 2005 (DJ mix album)
• Richie Hawtin: DE9 lite: Electronic Adventures, 2006 (DJ mix album, produced with MixMag)
• Richie Hawtin: Sounds from Can Elles, 2008 (unmixed various artist compilation, free with DJ Magazine issue 467)
• Richie Hawtin: Mixmag presents: Richie Hawtin - New Horizons, 2012 (DJ mix album)

Awards[link]

References[link]

External links[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Richie Hawtin

• Richie Hawtin's official site
• Plastikman's official site
• Richie Hawtin's Minus record label site
• Richie Hawtin's discography at Discogs

Lisa Steele (b. 1947 in Kansas City, Missouri) is a Canadian artist, a pioneer in video art, educator, curator and co-founder of V tape in Toronto. Born in the United States, Steele moved to Canada in 1968 and is now a Canadian citizen. She has collaborated exclusively with her partner Kim Tomczak since the early 1980s.

Biography[link]

Lisa Steele was born in Kansas City, Missouri in 1947 and immigrated to Canada in 1968. An important pioneer of video art in Canada since the early 1970s,^[1] Steele has shown internationally at the Venice Biennale (1980), the Kunsthalle (Basel), the Museum of Modern Art (NYC), the National Gallery of Canada, the Institute of Contemporary Art (Boston), 49th Parallel Videoseries, the Vancouver Art Gallery and the Long Beach Museum. Her videos are in collections worldwide, including The National Gallery of Canada, the Art Gallery of Ontario, the Museum of Contemporary Art (Houston, Texas), Ingrid Oppenheim, Concordia University (Montreal), Newcastle Polytechnic (England), Paulo Cardazzo (Milan), the Canadian Embassy (Tokyo) and the Akademie der Kunst (Berlin). She is a founding director of V tape in Toronto, a national information and distribution service for independent video and a founding publisher and editor of FUSE Magazine.

Early work[link]

Steele's best known early work^[2] Birthday Suit – with scars and defects (1974) is a thirteen-minute black and white video tape where she "presents her naked body to the unblinking gaze of the camera.^[2] The tape itself is characterized by common practices of early video art,^[2] unedited with a static shot. Steele turns the camera on, walks to the end of the room/set and removes her clothing. She approaches the camera and begins to examine the various scars she's accumulated over her life up to that point. The work represents what critic Dot Tuer indicates is "an offering to the technological gaze [which] downplays the representation of the body as a gendered subject,"^[3] and as film historian Catherine Russell points out, the work is a "counter-image to the emergent critique of the female body in narrative cinema." ^[2] Steele's describes the work:

On the occasion of my 27th birthday I decided to do a tape that chronicled my passage through time. I have always been clumsy, tripping, dropping, falling with alarming regularity. This tape accepts the extent of the consequences.

^[4]

Steele and Tomczak[link]

Since the early 1980s Steele has worked exclusively in collaboration with Kim Tomczak.^[5] Their individual and collaborative work was the subject of a major survey exhibition at the Art Gallery of Ontario in 1989-90. In 1993, Steele and Tomczak were recognized with two awards: the Bell Canada Award for excellence in the field of Canadian video art and a Toronto Arts Award (the Peter Herndorf Media Arts Award). In 1996, their work The Blood Records: written and annotated, received a world premiere at the Museum of Modern Art in New York. Their installation work We're Getting Younger All the Time has been installed in several locations in England, in Venice and was at the Centre d'art Contemporain in Basse-Normandie in November 2002. In 2005 Steele and Tomczak won the Governor General's Award in Visual and Media Arts.^[6]

Works[link]

Select Videography[link]

• Birthday Suit - with scars and defects (1974)
• A Very Personal Story (1974)
• The Ballad Of Dan Peoples (1976)
• The Gloria Tapes (1980)

with Kim Tomczak:

• Working The Double Shift (1984)
• Legal Memory (1992)
• The Blood Records: written and annotated (1997)
• We're Getting Younger All The Time (2001)
• Make Love Not War (2003)
• Practicing Death (2003)
• Free Speech (2006)
• Speak City (2009)

References[link]

Further reading[link]

• Ardenne, Paul. Lisa Steele, Kim Tomczak: Before I Wake. Paris: Centre culturel canadien, 2003.
• Ferguson, Bruce. Canada Video: Colin Campbell, Pierre Falardeau/Julien Poulin, General Idea, Tom Sherman, Lisa Steele. Ottawa: The Gallery for the Corporation of National Museums of Canada, 1980.
• Gale, Peggy and Lisa Steele, eds. Video re/View: The (best) Source Book for Critical Writings on Canadian Artists' Video. Toronto: Art Metropole, 1996.
• Monk, Philip. 4 hours and 38 minutes: Videotapes by Lisa Steele and Kim Tomczak. Toronto: Art Gallery of Ontario, 1989.
• Russell, Catherine. "The Lisa Steele Tapes: Investigation and Vision." North of Everything: English-Canadian Cinema Since 1980. William Beard and Jerry White, eds. Edmonton: University of Alberta, 2002. ISBN 0-88864-390-X
• Steele, Lisa and Kim Tomczak. The Blood Records: written and annotated. Oakville: Oakville Galleries, 1999.
• Steele, Lisa. "A Capital Idea: Gendering in the Mass Media." Women Against Censorship. Varda Burstyn. ed. Toronto: Douglas & McIntyre, 1985. ISBN 0-88894-455-1

External links[link]

• V tape
• Canada Council Awards
• Lisa Steele at the Internet Movie Database
• Legal Memory at the Internet Movie Database
• Video of "I Will Still Make Boring Art" Lecture at University of Toronto