Run-out and out-field. Heritage and video-artistic research between sign, drawing and action

Abstract

In the research context of the "moving images", the concept of "run-out" and "out-field" have been often considered as a productive “void" in between the notion of «interval» – already discussed by Vertov and Ejzenstein - and an imaginative dimension placed elsewhere. It is an “outside” possibly inhabited by idea, a hint to reflect upon, a reference of meaning, but also a drawing. In electronic art—and especially in the video-installations—that "outside" often coincides with a drawing. Yet, besides its inherent, generative value, and its recurring intervention in the creative process as "studium", it has a primary role also in the action and fruition of the viewer after the completion of the artwork. Starting from artists and theoreticians of the historical avant-garde, through the sign and the drawing, this essay intends to follow the paths of the concepts of "run-out " and " out-field" and explores their connections with the video-artistic international research, mainly through the work of Wolf Vostell, Bruce Nauman, Bill Viola and William Kentridge.