Audiovisual Analysis of Insanity and Liminality in Video Art of the Second Half of the XXTH Century

This article is devoted to the analysis of ways of audiovisual representation of insanity and liminality in video art of the second half of the twentieth century. The problems of the embodiment of the constructs of insanity and normality, the representation of psychological trauma, the effect of detachment in the art of video on the example of the work of Sam-Taylor Wood, Tina Keane, Bruce Nauman and Bill Viola are touched upon. The authors analyze the attempts of artists using video art to make the viewer experience a mental disorder. As a result, the authors come to the conclusion that the decisive role in this process was taken by the artist himself and his body, the use of a “self-portrait” shooting point to reveal simplified inside dramatizations of vivid mental states, balancing on the verge of normal and abnormal, and often flirting with established ideas about the norm.