Video History

Tuned In, Turned On! Videofreex Tape the World

Formed in 1969 at the legendary Woodstock Music Festival by David Cort and Parry Teasdale, who met while taping the events with the newly available Portapak video equipment, the Videofreex (also known as "the Freex") were one of the very first video collectives. After working together to pitch a program to the major broadcasting station CBS, they toured the country interviewing counter-cultural figures of the day, including Fred Hampton, a leader of the Black Panther party, and Abbie Hoffman, so called leader of the Yippies.

Videofreex

Subject to Change

In early 1969, inspired by the raw energy of their Woodstock tapes, a CBS television executive named Don West commissioned the nascent Videofreex collective to produce a new kind of TV program with "contemporary relevancy" to be aimed at the youth market. Armed with the latest portable video equipment, and with their travel costs funded by the TV company, the Freex travelled America taping the alternative cultural events and happenings that took place along the way.

Videofreex

Probably the World's Smallest TV Station -- Video Television Review: Lanesville TV

The town of Lanesville, NY was home to the Videofreex for more than ten years, and their house was know as "Probably the World's Smallest TV Station." This overview details the regular activities of the collective and their work, and includes examples of productions they made for the Media Bus project. Russell Connor hosts the program and interviews various Media Bus members.

Includes:

Videofreex

Shirley Clarke and the Camera

Parry Teasdale, David Cort and Chuck Kennedy visit The Kitchen in New York looking for Shirley Clarke, and bump into Steina and Woody Vasulka who are overseeing a show in progress. A few doors down they find Shirley in her studio, dressed in white and full of energy. She shows them around, pointing out monitors and lighting set ups.

Parry shows her an arm-mounted video camera he has made and bought along for her to try out -- the first time she has seen one. Amid lively banter, Shirley jokes about how one day cameras will be small enough to store on a wristwatch.

Videofreex

Money

Taped on Prince Street in Soho, New York, Skip Blumberg creates a one-word performance. Shouting the word "Money" over and over, he attracts the attentions of New York's finest. The crew attempt to explain to the policemen that there is no public disorder as the streets were empty when they began to tape.

The video is an unwitting early example of the reaction of the state to the use of video cameras on the streets.

Takahiko iimura

Early Conceptual Videos

A collection of early conceptually oriented videos which were produced in Tokyo in the early 1970s using words along with images, except for the first two flicker-effect pieces: A Chair (1970) and Blinking (1970).

Time Tunnel (1971) is an attempt at time travel in a very conceptual sense.

Man and Woman (1971) shows full body images of a naked man and woman shot from above without movement. They are shown alone as well as together, one over (or under) the other, symbolizing words at the same time as their positions.

Takahiko iimura

Seeing / Hearing / Speaking

Realizing the words by Jacques Derrida.

Takahiko iimura

OBSERVER / OBSERVED and Other Works of Video Semiology

This video trilogy of Camera, Monitor, Frame, Observer / Observed, and Observer / Observed / Observer creates a semiology of video as a work on video rather than a written text. Its main purpose is to study the structural relationships between video and language, in this case using the English language. I designed a system depicting the relationship between the observer and the person being observed using words such as "I" and "YOU" through a video feedback system as the basis. This trilogy is a remake of my 1975-76 piece. It is shorter in

Skip Sweeney

Illuminatin' Sweeney

Skip Sweeney was an early and proficient experimenter with video feedback. A feedback loop is produced by pointing a camera at the monitor to which it is cabled. Infinite patterns and variations of feedback can be derived from manipulating the relative positions of camera and monitor, adjusting the monitor control, becoming a swirling vortex. Sweeney and others were intrigued with feedback's ability to generate pulsing images like a living organism.

Surveying the First Decade: Volume 1

This comprehensive anthology on the history of experimental and independent video is an essential tool for teachers, libraries, and researchers. Volumes 1 and 2 include over 16 hours of historic video on eight thematically curated programs, exploring conceptual, performance-based, image-processed, feminist, documentary and grassroots community-based genres.

Volume 1 includes:

Program 1: Explorations of Presence, Performance, and Audience

Surveying the First Decade: Volume 2

This comprehensive package on the history of experimental and independent video is an essential tool for teachers, libraries, and researchers. Volumes 1 and 2 include over 16 hours of historic video on eight thematically curated programs, exploring conceptual, performance-based, image-processed, feminist, documentary and grassroots community-based genres.

Volume 2 includes:

Program 5: Performance of Video-Imaging Tools

Surveying the First Decade: Video Art and Alternative Media in the U.S. 1968-1980

Since its original release in 1995, this comprehensive two-volume, eight-program package on the history of experimental and independent video curated by Christine Hill was available only on VHS tape. The DVD launch brings this essential tool for the understanding of the development of media arts to a whole new generation of teachers, libraries, students and researchers.

Vito Acconci

Sounding Board

Acconci literally feels the music in this tape as he lays down on speakers playing jazz. The sound pulses through his body while a collaborator massages his nude back in time with the music, occasionally striking Acconci like a rhythm instrument.

This title was in the original Castelli-Sonnabend video art collection.

Edward Rankus

Ed Rankus Videoworks: Volume 1

Susan Mogul

Untitled (Menses)

I moved three thousand miles from the east coast to join the feminist art program at CAL ARTS in 1973. I had only been in LA three weeks when Judy Chicago took us to a "Menstruation" art exhibition at Womanspace Gallery. The exhibit included every conceivable medium about menstruation - paintings, weavings, sculpture. I was amazed - nothing was taboo. Being outrageous was normal in this LA feminist art environment. Around the same time I read "Female Eunuch" by Germaine Greer. She wrote, and I paraphrase, "If you taste your blood when you scratch your fin

Video History

Search