Date: 5 March 2004 | Season: Vasulka Video
PARTICIPATION
Friday 5 March 2004, at 7pm
London Candid Arts Trust
“Today it’s hard to imagine the excitement generated by the introduction of the Sony Portapak in 1969. Though not ‘portable’ by today’s standards, using half-inch reel-to-reel tapes (much like audiotapes, and only recording in black & white); the Portapak revolutionised a generation of artists’ understanding of image and time. In comparison to the simplest 16 mm sound sync set-up with crew, the Portapak finally made spontaneous roving sound and image documentation technically feasible and as well as affordable, and the attraction of instantaneous playback or closed circuit room situations proved irresistible in an atmosphere still reeling from the upheavals of the sixties.” —Arnold Dreyblatt
Steina & Woody Vasulka, Participation, 1971, b/w, sound, 62 min
Performers : Paul Ambrose, Ian Anderson, Billy Andrews, Gary Bartz, Tally Brown, Larry Chaplan, Don Cherry, Kevin Coe, Jackie Curtis, Candy Darling, Miles Davis, Jack De Johnette, Eric Emersion, Estelle !, Christmas Eve, Michael Enderson, Jimi Hendrix, Stephen Holt, Keith Jarret, Jay Johnson, Aunt Josie, Agosto Machado, Taylor Mead, Buddy Miles, Geri Miller, Mario Montez, Airto Moreira, Paul Morrissey, Ondine, Rita Redd, Al Sayegh, Silva, Ekathrina Sobechanskaya, Steve Stanwick, Steina, Artchie Strips, David Susskind, Tinkerbelle, Jethro Tull, Richard Weinstock, Holly Woodlawn.
PROGRAMME NOTES
PARTICIPATION
Friday 5 March 2004, at 7pm
London Candid Arts Trust
PARTICIPATION
Steina & Woody Vasulka, 1971, b/w, sound, 62 min
After acquiring their first video portapak, the Vasulkas, like other early video practitioners, took their camera to the streets to document the counterculture life in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Through their newly arrived eyes, the alternative movements of American culture presented unlimited possibilities. They later wrote of this time: “We were interested in certain decadent aspects of America, the phenomena of the time – underground rock and roll, homosexual theatre, and the rest of illegitimate culture. In the same way, we were curious about more puritanical concepts of art inspired by Marshall McLuhan and Buckminster Fuller. It seemed a strange and unified front – against the establishment.”
In Participation the Vasulkas present vignettes of marginal culture – rock concerts, gay theatre, and impromptu street theatre. These tapes embody the originality and spontaneity that characterise early experiments with video: Don Cherry eloquently playing his trumpet in Washington Square Park, Jimi Hendrix and Jethro Tull performing at the Fillmore East, Andy Warhol’s gang arguing vehemently on the David Susskind Show about whether or not they are being exploited, and transvestites acting impromptu skits in makeshift theatres.
Participation evokes not only the utopian moment of the counterculture at a time of political upheaval but also the utopian moment of the video medium, when a sense of immediacy seemed to imbue every shot – a time when video practitioners like the Vasulkas were excitedly discovering the possibilities of electronic imaging.
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