“Video installation is a three dimensional realization of video elements used spatially, architecturally, sculpturally, sometimes with multiple objects placed in relation to each other.”

Mary Lucier has been creating video installation exhibits since the early ’70s. With artwork displayed in New York, Madison and soon to be at the University of Wyoming, Lucier has made a name for herself.

Living in New York while still commuting twice a month to the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee to teach, she spoke about the peculiarities of the art world, most specifically video installation.

“Video installation is a three-dimensional realization of video elements used spatially, architecturally, sculpturally, sometimes with multiple objects placed in relation to each other,” says Lucier. “These multiple objects could be multiple projections or monitors that occupy space much more the way sculptures and architecture do.”

Growing up, Lucier’s parents would always draw and paint, and they carried down this form of expression to their children. Although Lucier continued to create art in her free time, she wasn’t sure if she wanted to make that world an occupation.

Attending college in New York, she majored in English Literature and kept art as a hobby, with ambitions of perhaps becoming an English teacher. It was not until her senior year of college when she took “Sculpture 1.”

“I just flipped,” Lucier says. “That (class) was what really changed my life, and at the end of the semester, I knew that I was going to go into the arts.”

This all happened at age 19. The next year, she married a professor who was involved in the music world. Her husband and his colleagues both immersed Lucier into what was going on in New York at the time in the avant-garde arts.

She then made the move from sculpture to photography, followed by performance art with her husband and his colleagues. It was during this time that she decided to make video pieces to be placed in a performance — video installation.

Lucier says that neither the architecture nor the image have more emphasis over one another; they work mutually with a sense of equality. She works meticulously on editing the representation of time within the images which are placed within a specific pattern that is arranged within the space of the work.

Since the ’70s, technology has dramatically evolved, placing positives and negatives upon video installation. With camera equipment shrinking in size and the emergence of three-and-a-half inch videos, recording and editing has become easier and faster. The arrangement in video installation has also grown larger. With the easier accessibility in editing, artists were able to install more screens and edit in synch more fluidly.

“In the beginning video installation usually was just one screen with the same images being looped over and over, as it was much harder to precisely edit images together within the installation structure,” Lucier says.

Some people might think that there really isn’t a difference between film and video installation. On the contrary, “film is a still practice that is dedicated to a single element on a single screen,” Lucier says. “Video installation shoots video for the exhibition and installations, the art itself, rather than the people staring at a single screen.”

Mary Lucier encourages young artists to not think about being famous and to be prepared for rejections. Even though there are hard times, the key is to keep pursuing one’s ambitions, she says. Getting out and witnessing art in galleries and museums doesn’t hurt, she adds.

Mary Lucier, who will be working for a New York television channel specifically broadcasted in high definition next year, will give continuity to her UWM ties. She will teach two classes in the spring: a video installation class that examines the history and production (Film 380) and a class incorporating dance and the digital medium (Film 420).

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