The conventions that dictate how stories are told carry traces of the societal realities from which they originate. In the European and North American contexts, this has resulted in the favoring of narrative principles “developed in a pointedly masculinist academic culture, [that is] based on theories […] by men who grounded their models in the study of male-written texts.”[1], so called “mimetic” narratives are structured to portray characters, settings and plots in a way that mirrors our perception of the “real” world. Examples for this writing style can be found in novels by Dickens or Tolstoy. Robyn Warhol, who greatly contributed to the conceptualization of feminist narrative theory, sees an overlap between texts that challenge such conventions and those that reflect on issues of gender and sexuality. Warhol points out that many feminist novelists and theorists have interpreted “the very act of writing outside generic realist boundaries” as “a subversive gesture.”[2] The artists included in Tell Me a Story apply this strategy to video, distorting established narratives while simultaneously creating new access points.
Joan Jonas, Volcano Saga (USA, 1989). Courtesy LIMA, Amsterdam
The first video, Joan Jonas’s Volcano Saga (1989) is based on the thirteenth-century Icelandic Laxdæla saga, in which a woman named Gudrun turns to a soothsayer to interpret four mysterious dreams. Originally staged as a live performance with Jonas as the sole narrator, the artist hired actors Tilda Swinton and Ron Vawter for the video adaptation. The medial transformation of artworks for different contexts is part of Jonas’s interdisciplinary approach that asks us “to adapt our methodological frameworks […] to understand her work holistically.”[3] In the case of Volcano Saga, the double-transformation from legend to performance and then from performance to video enhances this effect. By focusing on the story of Gudrun and her four husbands, Jonas highlights the parts of the medieval material that center female desire and agency. The artist abandons the tale’s linear structure by weaving in scenes detailing how she obtained the incorporated video footage of Iceland. The resulting tensions and connections between past/present, nature/human, and reality/fiction play out embedded in the eternal, volcanic landscape.
Similarly, Dara Birnbaum’s Will-o’-the-Wisp (1985) centers on Marguerite, the female protagonist of Goethe’s Faust tragedy. Birnbaum presents Marguerite’s psyche through close-ups of the character’s face, frequently zooming in on her mouth. The confessional atmosphere of the video makes the character seem familiar and relatable. “I think you tend to deform the past and fit it according to your desires or your needs. Because you never will know really how the other person felt or how the other person is,” states Marguerite. Her memories are presented as unstable and fluctuating – a hint that every longing for a true and objective portrayal of the events will remain unfulfilled. Marguerite’s perspective can finally unfold outside of the narrative conventions that have shaped the numerous retellings of the legend.
Lydia Schouten, Split Seconds of Magnificence (Netherlands, 1984). Courtesy LIMA, Amsterdam
The characters populating the candy-colored fantasy world of Lydia Schouten’s Split Seconds of Magnificence (1984) act out fragmentary tales of desire, violence, and death. Schouten’s cinematographic choices, such as static camera shots and the integration of text with incomprehensible plot lines, both evoke and parody the graphic novel. The artist explains:
Unlike what you might call the traditional storytelling style, where there’s an attempt to create order from chaos, I strive to make my work more reflective of how we naturally observe and think about things. I aim for a parallel storytelling style: I talk to you, simultaneously thinking about something, looking at that plant, and still hearing music. It’s an unexplored territory. People can appreciate a different structure beyond merely illustrating text.[4]
The clips that float in and out of the screen depict the protagonist, portrayed by Schouten herself, in various settings reminiscent of classic Hollywood movies and luxury advertisements. Superimposed lines of text such as “I’m tired of Yves St. Laurent” express fatigue around clichéd depictions of women across different kinds of media and the strategic coupling of femininity and consumerism.
Peter Greenaway and Tom Phillips’s A TV Dante (1985) is an ambitious project that aims to adapt Inferno, the first part of Dante’s fourteenth-century epic poem The Divine Comedy, for television. The artists felt that the format of the poem had become inaccessible to modern audiences and used video as a medium to transform the source material.[5] The visually impressive result is an example of how the possibilities of video fostered technological innovation.
The program concludes with Ansuya Blom’s Lady Lazarus (1984), which constructs a visual world around Sylvia Plath’s poem of the same title. While the text is read aloud via voiceover, the camera moves through a domestic setting. This disorienting perspective, that feels like a point-of-view shot, renders the poem’s motifs of depression, isolation, and morbidity, personal. By immersing the viewer into the world of Lady Lazarus, Blom creates a sensory experience able to intensify the emotions captured in the poem.
Since the production of these videos in the 1970s, artistic media have become increasingly diverse. Interactive applications such as video games or social media performances invite audiences into the plot, further escalating narrative possibilities. As a result, questions around how, where, and by whom stories are told remain complex and urgent. The works screened in Tell Me a Story showcase how video art developed into a platform for the articulation of subversive viewpoints and narrative experimentation. A shared desire to explore technological boundaries and to escape institutional value judgements connect the artists of the program to the generation currently innovating the possibilities of new media art.
About the Author
Michelle Adler is former time-based media and contemporary art curator in training at the Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam. She curated the screening program IDFA x Stedelijk: Video Club – Tell Me a Story (2023).
[1] Robyn Warhol. “A Feminist Approach to Narrative.” In Narrative Theory : Core Concepts and Critical Debates. Columbus: Ohio State University Press, 2012, 10.
[2] Warhol, Narrative Theory, 9.
[3] Robin Kathleen Williams, “A Mode Of Translation: Joan Jonas’s Performance Installations,” Stedelijk Studies Journal 3 (2015). DOI: 10.54533/StedStud.vol003.art05.
[4] From the artist’s personal sketchbook, 1980s. Shared with the author via e-mail correspondence, November 6, 2023. Original: “In tegenstelling tot wat je de traditionele verteltrant zou kunnen noemen, waarin wordt geprobeerd om uit de chaos orde te scheppen, probeer ik mijn werk meer te laten zijn zoals we in werkelijkheid kijken en over dingen denken. Ik wil een paralelle verteltrant: ik praat tegen jou, tegelijk denk ik aan iets én kijk naar die plant én ik hoor ook nog muziek. Dat is nog een onontgonnen gebied. Mensen kunnen best een andere structuur aan dan uitsluitend illustratie van tekst.” Translation by Carlos Zepeda.
[5] Leon Steinmetz, The World of Peter Greenaway (Boston: Journey Editions, 1995), 80.
