Video Collaboratory
- Identifier
- P.0726
- Type
- Performance art;Screenings;Workshops
- Category
- New Media
- Date
- May 29 – July 7, 1979
- Description
-
Video Collaboratory
Artists: Chris Creighton-Kelly, Rick Gibson, Mike McDonald, Karen Helmusson, Shawn Preus, Bill Bartlett, Douglas Simpson and Hugh MacPherson
Date: June 29 to July 7, 1979
The Video Collaboratory was designed as a "concentrated amalgam of video experience." It served as a consolidation of the Gallery's existing video program and also pointed towards new perspectives. The collaboratory included performance pieces, production workshops, an examination of video as 'art object' and a 'stay-at-home event' in which the public had the opportunity to participate in the Open Space event by turning on the television in their living rooms.
A review of Video Collaboratory explained the significance of these artistic experiments which helped to make the avant-garde practices more accessible to the public:
"The public continues to be misinformed about the role of video in the telecommunications future and as a result regards alternative television activities with combination ignorance and condenscension.
Ultimately this may be the greatest value of the Collaboratory. It helped to bridge the video gap between the arcane and the accessible without placing these activities under the pretense of community programming."
"Open Space Video Collaboratory" Open Space Archives, Victoria, B.C. Box 5, File 1979: F1b.
Events:
June 5: Mike McDonald of Vancouver Metro Media showed his anti-nuclear tapes
June 7: First Cablevision telecast
June 12: A Seattle video anthology that included Karen Helmusson
June 14: Seattle video artist, Karen Helmussion cablecasted on channel 10
June 17: Tapes by women artists which included work by Shawn Preus
June 21: Shawn Preus cablecasted on channel 10
June 23: Victoria artist Bill Bartlett showed his multimedia work 47 Draculas which incorporated slow-scan and real-time images.
June 26: Studio work at Victoria Cablevision channel 10
June 28: "Create your own video"
July 3: Compilation of the under 3-minute tapes produced during the collaboratory
July 4: Studio work at Victoria Cablevision channel 10
July 6 and 7: Hugh MacPherson presented a new work which combined video and movement.