Not too surprisingly, video art is often considered to have begun with a Korean artist called Nam June Paik in the early 1970s. Though it is not concretely known about the motivation of this type of art, there are two most obvious suppositions: the artistic possibility of technology and the antithesis against the formalistic art movement. As it is, Paik was famous as an avant-garde artist even before he began video art.

Regardless of the hidden motivation of the icebreaker of video art, the point is the pursuit of freedom of the audience in interpreting the pieces, as Dadaism suggested. It requires more of the participation of the audience whether it would be intrinsic or extrinsic. Video art could be considered as one of the leading forces that shifted single-directional communication of art to the symmetric communication of art.

Although several decades have passed since video art has been introduced to the public, there is no formal or systemized definition of video art. This is what gave and will give video art infinite possibility, potential and extension.

Along with the infinite possibility of variety, the most tried are single-channel and installation. The single-channel just shows the ideology or philosophy of the artist through the screen. The installation is more like what we think of video art as: 9m-tall piles of televisions or a turtle-like arrangement of numerous televisions.

Also, there are many derivatives to video art. Digital art is one of the many examples. The beginning of digital art was considered as, excitingly, the editing process of video art. At the end of the installation, the video artists used computers and animation to give more meaning to the pieces. Now with the distribution of Internet, digital art allows the interactivity between the creators and the audience. And newly developed editing software makes life easier and the work more streamlined.

Technology-derived art possesses the infinite potential for application. For thirty years, video art went through numerous changes and shifted to the foundation of digital art. The fusion of technology and art, with the immeasurable potential, spawns the continuous openings of new eras.