Unit 13: Overview
Television and video art share a medium (the moving image on a screen) but differ in almost every other way. Commercial television is driven by advertising, narrative convention, and audience expectations. Video art is experimental, often rejecting narrative entirely in favor of pure visual and temporal experience.
Unit 13 examines both. On the television side, it covers the structure of the episodic series, the serial, and the emergence of what is sometimes called "prestige television" (shows like The Sopranos, The Wire, and Downton Abbey that critics have compared to literary fiction). On the video art side, it introduces artists who use the moving image for purposes that have nothing to do with storytelling: Nam June Paik, Bill Viola, and others.
This is the last genre-specific unit. After completing it, you will have encountered every major art form the course covers. The final exam will ask you to apply the vocabulary and critical tools you have built across all thirteen units.
Learning Objectives
After completing this unit, you should be able to:
- Distinguish between commercial television and video art
- Describe the structure of the self-contained episode and the television serial
- Explain why some critics consider recent television series to be a serious art form
- Identify key video artists and describe their approach to the moving image
- Apply the critical frameworks from the course to television and video art
What you'll do in this unit
- Explore the Watch & Listen at the top of the lesson, taking your time with each work
- Work through the lesson and open each numbered section
- Try the Experience It activity at the end of the lesson
- Write your reflection, then take the quiz