The Emergence of Video Processing Tools: Television Becoming Unglued

738 Pages·2014·15.085 MB·English

by  Kathy High, Sherry Miller Hocking, Mona Jimenez

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THE EMERGENCE OF H THE

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VIDEO PROCESSING TOOLS M
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TELEVISION BECOMING UNGLUED H
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Edited by KATHY HIGH, SHERRY MILLER HOCKING and MONA JIMENEZ
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volume 2

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A case study written with intimacy and commitment and from within a talented and seminal commu- E
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nity of artists, technologists, and intellectuals, The Emergence of Video Processing Tools: Television
Becoming Unglued demonstrates the productive relations between artists, scientists, and the machines
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they use and develop. An enchanting, unique, and highly usable contribution to video history and H
TOOLS
technology studies, the anthology relies upon a lively mix of both new essays and archival documents, E

to historicize and theorize the development of early video tools. From the diverse and eclectic voices of E volume 2
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artists, scientists, arts administrators, and scholars, organized with great care by its editors, arises a
definitive history of video art, and its tools, from this period. E
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– Alexandra Juhasz, Ph.D, Professor of Media Studies, Pitzer College, and author of Learning from G
YouTube (2011). E
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The Emergence of Video Processing Tools presents stories of the development of early video tools and C
systems designed and built by artists and technologists during the late 1960s and 1970s. Split over E

two volumes, the contributors examine the intersection of art and science and look at collaborations O
among inventors, designers, and artists trying to create new video tools to capture and manipulate F

images in fascinating and revolutionary ways. Volume Two includes the section ‘Tools’ that describes V
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the particular collaborations and technologies that created these custom-made video instruments.
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The contributors include “video pioneers” who have been active since the emergence of the aes- O
thetic, and technologists who continue to design, build, and hack media tools. The book also looks
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at contemporary tool makers and the relationship between these new tools and the past. Video and R
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media production is a growing area of interest in art, and this collection will be an indispensable
guide to its origins and its future. C
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Kathy High is Professor in the Department of Arts at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute.
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Sherry Miller Hocking is Assistant Director at the Experimental Television Center. I
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Mona Jimenez is Associate Arts Professor and Associate Director in the Moving Image
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Archiving and Preservation Program at New York University.

T
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TELEVISION BECOMING UNGLUED
V
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intellect | www.intellectbooks.com Edited by KATHY HIGH, SHERRY MILLER HOCKING and MONA JIMENEZ
The Emergence of Video Processing Tools
Television Becoming Unglued
Volume 1

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Why We Make Art
The Emergence of Video Processing Tools
at why it is taught
Television Becoming Unglued
Volume 1
by Richard Hickman
edited by Kathy High, Sherry Miller Hocking and Mona Jimenez
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First published in the UK in 2014 by
Intellect, The Mill, Parnall Road, Fishponds, Bristol, BS16 3JG, UK
First published in the USA in 2014 by
Intellect, The University of Chicago Press, 1427 E. 60th Street,
Chicago, IL 60637, USA
Copyright © 2014 Intellect Ltd
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced,
stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by
any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise,
without written permission.
A catalogue record for this book is available from the
British Library.
Cover image: Photo courtesy Experimental Television Center Archives.
Production manager: Tim Mitchell
Cover designer: Ellen Thomas
Copy editor: Michael Eckhardt
Typesetting: John Teehan
ISBN 978-1-84150-663-0
ePUB ISBN 978-1-78320-301-7
ePDF ISBN 978-1-78320-300-0
Printed and bound by Hobbs the Printers Ltd, UK
Dedication
For those who have passed on – Barb Abramo, Connie Coleman, Evangelos Dousmanis, Dara
Greenwald, Bill Hearn, David Loxton, Don McArthur, Phil Morton, Nam June Paik, Mary
Ross, Steve Rutt, George Stoney and Jud Yalkut. Your work helped shape this project and still
inspires.
And for the artists and technologists who have contributed to the creation of instruments
and those who continue to do so
v

Contents
ACKNowLEDGMENTS xi
PREFACE xiii
SeCtion 1: HiStorieS
Introduction 1
Kathy High
Beginnings (with Artist Manifestos) 7
Kathy High
Mapping Video Art as Category, or an Archaeology of the
Conceptualizations of Video 33
Jeremy Culler
Impulses – Tools 53
Christiane Paul and Jack Toolin
The Art-Style Computer-Processing System, 1974 83
Tom Sherman
Machine Aesthetics Are Always Modern 89
Tom Sherman
Electronic Video Instruments and Public Sector Funding 103
Mona Jimenez
TV Lab: Image-making Tools 131
Howard weinberg
The New Television workshop at wGBH, Boston 145
John Minkowsky
The National Center for Experiments in Television at KQED-TV, San Francisco 151
John Minkowsky
The Experimental Television Center: Advancing Alternative Production
Resources, Artist Collectives and Electronic Video-Imaging Systems 159
Jeremy Culler
Interstitial Images: Histories 167
SeCtion 2: PeoPle anD networkS
Introduction 177
Sherry Miller Hocking
From Component Level: Interview with LoVid 181
Michael Connor
Memory Series – Phosphography in CRT 5", Mexico, 2005 195
Carolina Esparragoza
The Rhetoric of Soft Tools 199
Marisa olson
Jeremy Bailey and His ‘Total Symbiotic Art System’ 213
Carolyn Tennant
De-commodification of Artworks: Networked Fantasy of the open 223
Timothy Murray
Virtuosity as Creative Freedom 249
Michael Century
Distribution Religion 263
Dan Sandin and Phil Morton
A Toy for a Toy 269
Ralph Hocking
woody Vasulka: Dialogue with the (Demons in the) Tool 273
Lenka Dolanova with woody Vasulka
A Demo Tape on How to Play Video on a Violin 309
Jean Gagnon
Application to the Guggenheim Foundation, 1980 323
Ralph Hocking
Thoughts on Collaboration: Art and Technology 329
Sherry Miller Hocking
Interstitial Images: People and Networks 337
INDEx Index: 1
CoLoR PLATES Color Section: 1
aCknowleDgmentS
First and foremost, many thanks to Ralph Hocking, for your vision in starting the
Experimental Television Center and for inspiring so many to think and work in the service
of creativity. We deeply appreciate your honesty, pioneering and irreverent attitude, and
always insisting on rigorous thinking. Of course, we thank you for your amazing cooking.
We are very grateful to all of the contributors – present in the texts, interviews,
photographs and ephemera. For the writers, we give special thanks for their effort,
generosity and patience.
There were many along the way who helped us with our understanding of the tools and
their context, guiding and correcting us and enriching our work. Gifted in comprehending
the most complex of processes and patient in describing them, Hank Rudolph gave us
many hours of his time. Dave Jones (Dave Jones Design), who has a mind like a tack and a
memory to match, also took numerous questions and provided endless technical counseling
sessions and assistance. We especially appreciate your good humor discussing technical
issues over meals at the Tioga Trails Café. We also give big thanks to Carolyn Tennant
for her countless hours of work, contagious enthusiasm and thoughtful commentary; she
contributed substantially to the overall content and shape of the book.
Many thanks to the very generous Jason Livingston, who spent time researching,
consulting and giving insightful feedback on our essays. Along with Dave and Hank,
Pamela Hawking’s excellent work on the DVD set Early Media Instruments was essential
to making visible the processes of the tools. Diane Bertolo, thank you for your expert
graphic design work and wise counsel on a very short timeline. We also give thanks to
Suzie Silver, Jeff Martin and Anna McCarthy, among others, for taking the time to read
and comment on essays.
We are very grateful to Denise Rohlfs for deciphering and transcribing many hours of
old audio recordings. NYU research assistants Violet Lucca and Maria Vinogradova also
helped with many tasks, in particular interview transcriptions. Sean Lachut and Allison
Berkoy gave us attentive help with much-needed early copyediting and citations. Thanks
to Rebekkah Palov and Yaminay Chaudhri for their assistance with gathering photo
permissions and preparing images for print.
We found very useful the online archives of the Vasulka Archive and Radical
Software and Harald Bode. Special thanks to Vincent Bonin for his assistance while
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