Feedback: The Video Data Bank Catalog of Video Art and Artist Interviews

Edited by Kate Horsfield and Lucas Hilderbrand, Published 2006

(ISBN: 1-59213-182-4)

"Feedback should be in the library of every media scholar, teacher, and curator who ever addresses late-twentieth Century media art, performance art, or documentary. I would certainly recommend it to anyone in that position, and will be delighted to possess a copy myself." 

— Margaret Morse, University of California, Santa Cruz

Founded in 1976 at the inception of the media arts movement, the Video Data Bank is the leading resource in the United States for videotapes by and about contemporary artists. The VDB collection includes seminal works that, seen as a whole, describe the development of video as an art form originating in the late 1960s and continuing to the present.

The first printed catalog of the Video Data Bank's complete holdings, Feedback offers readers essays on the history of media arts, the Video Data Bank, video activism, experimental performance art, and the On Art and Artists interview collection, including:

• Introduction to the Video Data Bank Collections — Kate Horsfield
• Busting the Tube: A Brief History of Video Art — Kate Horsfield
• Grow Gills and Swim: The Evolution of Activist Video — Gregg Bordowitz
• Vertical Hold: A History of Women's Video Art — Vanalyne Green
• Performance Art and Experimental Video: Highlights from the Video Data Bank — Peggy Phelen
• On Art and Artists: An Introduction — Kate Horsfield

It includes 325 frame grabs and stills from some of the VDB collection's most important pieces, and outlines the styles and directions taken by artists throughout the entire history of video art. An indispensable guide and reference for artists, students, teachers, and collectors, Feedback is an essential book for any film and video bookshelf.