Summer 1974
The conditions that sustained the embryonic video community in 1970 differed markedly from those that prevailed four years later. For one thing, the landscape had evolved to include a wide variety of forms. Some types of video art were finding acceptance in galleries and museums. And with the advent of time-base correction, documentary and narrative videotapes produced on half-inch portable equipment were beginning to appear on television.
Also, the number of people who called the video community home had expanded exponentially. The community had grown from a handful of video pioneers, who knew each other more or less well, into a national movement with hundreds of practitioners. Non-profit organizations dedicated wholly or in part to 1/2-inch portable video production had sprung up across the nation and a generous support system of grants and fellowships had evolved to meet their funding requirements. It seemed to be a rosy picture and, in some respects, it was.
But for some of the people who encouraged it all - the community represented by Radical Software, its contributors and readership - the perceived emphasis on product marked a troubling departure from their goal of evolutionary change. There was less a sense of challenging the information order of the day and more a sense of becoming part of it.
There is some feeling of this in the opening paragraphs of this last issue of Radical Software, “Video & Kids”, put together by Peter Haratonik and Kit Laybourne of the Center for Understanding Media. Concerned mainly with the use of video for educating children, and sensing a community-wide feeling of doubt about goals and methods, they called together a conference of educators and video activists who shared their concerns, and challenged them to explicate their own work and goals. This last issue of Radical Software is the remarkable result.
Contributed by
Juan Pablo Macías