While these is much overlap between the genres of art cinema and video art, the former differs in both intention and substance—challenging and exploring time, space and structure within the medium. While German artist Wolf Vostell was the frist ot incorporate television sets into his installations, the first formal explorations of video art came during the Pop Art movement of the mid-twentieth century. Artists like Andy Warhol and Nam June Paik recorded conceptual performance and installation pieces, incorporating music, objects and visual effects. Paik worked with early Sony video recorders, where as Warhol captured films such as Sleep (1963) and Chelsea Girls (1966) on 8mm and 16mm film.

In the 1970s conceptual artists began to actively incorporate video into their work, pushing the boundaries of how the finished work could be presented. Peter Campus, Joan Jonas and Bill Viola all established themselves as innovators in the medium, on both a creative and technical level. Other notable artists include Vito Acconci, John Baldessari, Doris Totten Chase, and Bruce Nauman, all of whom incorporated video into their multi-disciplinary oeuvres. While the methods and medium of video art has changed with the progression of technology, contemporary artists like Sadie Benning, Miranda July, Eve Sussman, Stan Douglas, Douglas Gordon, Martin Arnold, and Pipilotti Rist continue to explore unique and innovative uses for video.