I just saw the short essay by Tom Sherman, The Premature Birth of Video Art, on the iDC list and found it very interesting. Sherman’s conclusion:

[…] the myth of Paik’s first work of video art appears to pre-date its own possibility. While Paik undoubtedly was a pioneer user of portable video equipment, he probably shared the original moments of video art with other artists, including Frank Gillette, Ira Schneider, Les Levine, and Juan Downey. The mythic story of Nam June Paik shooting the first Portapak-generated video art out of the back of a taxi in 1965 is apparently just that, a myth.

He goes on to say:

I […] welcome information that supports or undermines this challenge of the myth of the birth of video art.

Read the entire essay at the iDC archives.

Obviously, I have no idea. If I see further compelling info or evidence, I’ll post it here. permanent link to this post