"For [Hall] the video medium was an unexplored territory for artists, its codes yet uncracked. He argued that video art was integral to television and not just its technical by-product. TV - and its subversion - was where video's vital core was located, well beyond the ghettos of film co-ops, arts labs and art galleries. This view opened an unusual space, somewhere between high art formalism (which it resembled) and the mass arts (which it didn't). Anti-aesthetic and anti-populist - conceptual art with a looser, dada streak."
-A L Rees
Interruption piece and Tap piece from TV Interruptions (7 TV Pieces). 1971.
In unfortunate news this week, David Hall passed away.
A pioneer in broadcast and monitor-based media, Hall built a legacy in video art installation and interventions. He is most well known for TV Interruptions, a series of video works that were broadcast, unannounced, on public television. In 1976, he founded London Video Arts - now LUX - which provided video artists with a platform to exhibit and distribute their work
TV Interruptions. Tap Piece. 1971.
David Hall (b. 1937) was awarded first prize for sculpture at the Biennale de Paris in 1965 and took part in other key shows including Primary Structures, New York in 1966 which marked the beginning of Minimalist art. Soon he was using photography, film and video to make single screen and installation work and exhibiting internationally at many venues including Documenta Kassel, Tate Gallery London, Centre Georges Pompidou Paris, National Museum Reina Sofia Madrid and the Museum of Modern Art Vienna.
His first television interventions appeared on Scottish TV in 1971 and his first video installation was shown in London in 1972. He participated in forming the Artist Placement Group with John Latham and others in 1966; was co-organiser of The Video Show (first major international show of artists' video in the UK) at the Serpentine Gallery, London in 1975; and was co-curator of the first video installations exhibition at the Tate Gallery, London in 1976. In the same year he initiated and was a founder of the artists' organisation London Video Arts (now part of Lux, London).
Appointed Honorary Professor at Dundee University in 2003 he has taught at the Royal College of Art, St Martin's School of Art, Chelsea College of Art, San Francisco Art Institute, Nova Scotia College of Art and many others. He introduced the term 'time-based media' through his writings, and created the first time-based art degree option with emphasis on video at Maidstone College of Art, Kent in 1972 (now University for the Creative Arts). He has made work for broadcast by, among others, BBC TV, Channel 4 TV, Scottish TV, Canal+ TV and MTV.
Installation of 1001 TV sets tuned into the 5 analogue channels that will slowly fade into static as the analogue signal get switched off. In 2012 at Ambika P3, London.