Vertical Roll

The video work »Vertical Roll« from 1972 is one of the well-known early works of the American artist Joan Jonas. It is exemplary of her groundbreaking experimental exploration of the then still young medium of video. The black-and-white video is based on an image glitch that suggests a malfunction of the television set: A rolling video bar runs across the screen from top to bottom. Again and again, fragments of images appear – the face, the arms or legs, the clothed or unclothed body of the artist – which disappear from the viewer’s gaze in the next moment. The rotating moment is rhythmized by penetrating tapping noises, which Jonas produces by banging a spoon.

In the video, the artist creates a convoluted, not clearly tangible atmosphere through the permanent changeover between seeing and not seeing. Jonas deliberately interrupts the transfer of images, which counteracts the continuous consumption of media-generated images, as well as female role models, through television.