The Art of Pop Video

Long before the music television network MTV launched on August 1, 1981 with the Buggles clip "Video Killed the Radio Star," the pop video had been firmly established as a format for the dissemination of musical and aesthetic innovation. Today, visual artists such as Tom Dale, Christian Jankowsky, Michael Smith, or Wolfgang Tillmans increasingly draw on the form of the music video for their own work. With the spread of high speed Internet access, more and more clips are made by amateurs. At the same time, many pop video directors, breaking free of television's blandness diktat, are exploring polarizing issues such as teenage violence or politics, driving a new boom of the music video. The Art of Pop Video displays the whole range of forms of expression in the music video, presents its filmic precursors, and ventures a glimpse into its future. Essays by Michael P. Aust, Daniel Kothenschulte, and others; interviews by Michael Gondry and others.