On Screen (1972)

Overview

Analog video was not only an alternative to more expensive motion picture film for artists. It was also a viable new medium with specific attributes all its own. In On Screen, characteristics such as video snow and audio static become more pronounced and distorted with each subsequent version of the artist within the “TV” frame. As Lynda Benglis performs a sequence of pulling faces for the camera in triplicate, we become aware that the performance is based on memory, sometimes faulty—a kind of symbiotic conflation of artist and machine.