The Audiovisual Field in Bruce Nauman’s Videos

Abstract

This article investigates the audiovisual field in some of Bruce Nauman’s early videos. Historians of science and anthropologists have pointed to the necessity of considering seeing and hearing as faculties that are acquired. I argue that media technology plays a crucial role in that process. Nauman’s videos explore the relation of perception, the human body, and media technology, bringing to the fore the extent to which this seemingly self-evident relationship is artificial and constructed. In particular, Nauman’s Violin Tuned D.E.A.D. employs techniques of musical training that emerged in the late nineteenth century from the physiology of movement and fatigue.