Preserving Pixelvision

Abstract

From 1989 to 1998, the artist Sadie Benning created nine video artworks using a Fisher-Price PXL-2000 camera, which records to audiocassette. The resulting video format is known as Pixelvision. This essay, written by video archivists, reviews the history of these works through the lens of audiovisual media preservation, and emerges from research and a series of interviews with the artist and other stakeholders. It aims to create a foundation for a collection assessment of Benning’s early video works, and explores the feasibility of preserving them. With this in mind, the essay traces the creative and technical processes involved in the production, exhibition, conservation, and distribution of such precarious media works, and discusses the innovative, ephemeral, and ultimately vulnerable media created by the PXL-2000 camcorder. This is a study of the fleeting nature of media technology, personal and social histories, and the meaning contained in audiovisual works of art.