Robert Wilson (b. 1941, USA)
Video 50, 1978

K21, Düsseldorf, Germany / Visited 21/01/2020

98 video episodes, 30 seconds each. No consistent story or set. Just a brief story that could be told in half a minute – and thus not requiring too much time from the viewer.

I find it to be an interesting approach to scalability for a time-based medium – lasting for nearly an hour it is quite huge for a video piece, but can also be engaged with one tiny bite at a time. It is also an interesting creative restriction – what stories can be told in 30 seconds?

As I am working with sound and also some video, duration is always an issue for me – how much can I demand from the audience, how can I make it worth their time? Or should I care?.. anyway, an interesting input to that consideration.