Video Art Experience: Hale Tenger’s “Beirut”

Abstract

Video, as a medium, was transformed from mass media in the 1960s into an artistic material by Nam June Paik as a rebellion against television. This transformation led to the emergence of video art and different video art concepts. In Turkey, video art became a widely used art discipline after 1995. The experience of video art has a different structure from the experience of other artworks. These works ofter experiences in which the viewer uses her sensory organs the most. Video artworks are presented to the audience by combining visual messages, sound effects and, elements that affect many sensory organs. Video art has offered many different experiences to the audience since its emergence. These experiences differ according to people's cultures, environments, knowledge and, lifestyles. In this paper, the experience of the viewer, the work’s relationship with space, and how this relationship differs from other works of art, is examined through Hale Tenger's Beirut (2005- 2007), which is exhibited at the Istanbul Museum of Modern Art.