{"data":{"id":"12812","type":"artwork","attributes":{"id":12812,"topgoose_id":11749,"portfolio_id":null,"tms_id":12812,"title":"Vertical Roll","display_artist_text":"Joan Jonas","display_date":"1972","accession_number":"2000.189","dimensions":"Aspect Ratio: 4:3","medium":"Video, black-and-white, sound, 19:38 min.","department":"collection","classification":"Video","credit_line":"Purchase, with funds from the Film and Video Committee","is_virtual":false,"is_portfolio":false,"portfolio_tms_id":null,"portfolio":null,"edition":null,"publication_info":"","description":"\u003cp\u003eJoan Jonas, \u003cem\u003eVertical Roll\u003c/em\u003e, 1972. Video, black-and-white, sound, 19:38 min., aspect Ratio: 4:3. Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; purchase, with funds from the Film and Video Committee 2000.189. © Joan Jonas. Courtesy Electronic Arts Intermix (EAI), New York\u003c/p\u003e","object_label":"\u003cp\u003eJoan Jonas’s \u003ci\u003eVertical Roll\u003c/i\u003e is widely considered a seminal work in single channel video. In the work, the video monitor’s vertical hold is used as a formal device to rupture the perceived wholeness of the image on the screen. Interrupting the electronic signal, a rolling black bar scrolls relentlessly downward, revealing a segment of the image for a fraction of a second, in a staccato rhythm that echoes the process of blinking. Each “blink” offers a fleeting glimpse of a section of Jonas’s body as she performs in front of the camera–either garbed in a feather headdress, wearing a mask, in a belly dancer’s costume, or nude. The rhythm of the images is punctuated by the sound of Jonas relentlessly banging a silver spoon on a surface, which introduces an assertive tone. In her refusal to sustain her image within a fixed pictorial space, Jonas uses the mirror-like qualities of the video camera to present herself as a sequence of fragments, suggesting the impossibility of reading identity as something singular and unified.\u003c/p\u003e","ai_alt_text":"Woman's midriff and waist wearing a decorative belt and beaded costume.","alt_text":null,"visual_description":null,"on_view":false,"created_at":"2017-08-30T16:54:14.000-04:00","updated_at":"2026-02-06T12:00:40.219-05:00","images":[{"id":103409,"url":"https://whitneymedia.org/assets/artwork/12812/2000_189_still.jpg"}]},"relationships":{"artists":{"data":[{"id":"5523","type":"artist"}]}}}}