Video group
Video group was a group of people who jointly produced non-commercial videos in the 1970s and 1980s.
Creation of the first video groups in the USA
Small groups and initiatives soon formed around the Portapak cameras, which discovered in them a means of alternative audio-visual communication. The emergence of these groups can be seen in connection with the Vietnam War and the student movement and the desire for communication "from below": The proponents of "Peoples Video" believed that there was a counter- public to the existing communication structures (ibs. American commercial television) to accomplish. This desire is also reflected in the names of the first video groups and projects: Radical Software , Peoples' Video Theater , Global Village , Raindance , Alternate Media Center , Challenge for Change , etc.
The video groups mostly consisted of artists, social workers, film and television professionals, students and teachers. The first of them got involved in the conflict-ridden districts of the metropolitan areas, provided consumer education and public relations work in neglected areas of social and health care and sought communication opportunities for minorities who were neglected by the major media. Their criticism was mainly directed against "Big TV", the commercial television of the large networks, which in their opinion neglected the everyday problems of the citizens.
Technically perfect products were not the goal (and would not have been possible with the recording technology, which is miserable from today's perspective). Rather, the video groups were "process-oriented": the discussions and actions that broke up the video recordings should be more important than the end product. Video work should bring together interest groups who advocate social change processes - difficult to understand from today's perspective, but certainly in line with the zeitgeist of alternative groups at the time.
Creation of the first video groups in Germany
From the American and Canadian video groups in the early 1970s, the spark jumped to West Germany and the other countries of Europe. The goals were similar to there:
- The media consumer should be freed from his passivity; Those affected should be able to be "journalists on their own behalf".
- In the local area, communication should be encouraged about topics that are rarely or not at all in the established media.
- Neighborhood and local community should be revitalized through information and communication about common interests and problems.
- Local history should be documented.
- A space should be given to interest groups that have so far not been able to make a name for themselves in the media.
- The medium of television should be demystified.
An overview published in 1980 listed 100 addresses of contact points for "alternative media work" and video groups (see below: Köhler: video groups). However, it remains to be investigated how many of these groups were really video groups in the narrower sense.
Public funding of video groups
A comprehensive study of how much taxpayers' money was spent on "People's Video" has not yet been carried out. Nor has it been critically examined how much public money was spent on inconclusive videography. The following is documented:
In West Germany there was sporadic public funding for video groups; z. B. in Munich, where several initiatives in 1978 received DM 3000 each from the city's cultural department. To do this, you should create local video newsreels for one or more districts. The results were demonstrated in pubs or on the street.
In Berlin, the media center mob (see below) was publicly funded.
At least for Austria, it has been proven that the state also financially supported video groups: The Video Initiative Graz was funded by the federal government, several states and municipalities in its video project "Local TV". The project showed the chances of a citizen program in later cable television.
Own media centers in Germany
In order to create a basis for their media work, video groups founded their own media centers in Hamburg and Berlin. They made equipment available and assisted in production. Soon after the establishment of the Medienpädagogik Zentrum Hamburg e. V. In 1973 the "medienoperative berlin e.V." was founded in Berlin in 1977 as the largest media center at the time. (mob). It was publicly funded and was involved in the areas of youth work, the integration of foreigners, teacher training, drug aid, elderly aid and traffic obstruction (urban planning). In 1994 the center was renamed "Mediopolis eV".
Attitude towards open channels
The integration of video groups into future open channels was initially viewed critically: It was feared that public participation would have to hold out as an alibi for the expansion of the future cable network. It had already been shown in the USA that the cable companies made access to the "public access" channels that were previously required more difficult. Most of the video groups doubted that the "open channels" would also provide "communication assistance" and that therefore only those interest groups that were already organized and those capable of articulation made use of them.
Diffusion problems
The goal of creating a "counter-public" was missed because there were no means of dissemination without own transmitters or cable networks. As a stopgap, video groups exchanged productions with one another by post. But they rarely reached an audience outside their scene.
Some groups therefore showed their production as a pre-program at the cinema or in pubs, at street festivals, in youth centers and at events organized by citizens' groups.
Little interest in participating
In 1980 a good 400,000 video recorders were sold in Germany, but only 31,000 video cameras: Most people would rather consume than produce videos even after a hard day's work. If you take mass as a measure of success, the concept of video groups had already largely failed at this point. Nevertheless, this type of group still exists today, even with the same ambitions, such as B. the ViDEOGRUPPE from Leipzig , which works under exactly this name . This union of free media and installation artists says of himself on their site, they understand their work as a political task in the fight against the commercialization of a free culture (see philosophy. Accessed May 15, 2008 . ).
literature
- Margret Köhler (Ed.): Alternative media work: Video groups in the Federal Republic of Germany , Opladen 1980.
- Christiane Schlötzer: Video: Alternative or consumer medium? Freedom of communication or commerce? In: Michael Wolf Thomas (ed.): The local anesthesia or the citizen and his media, Berlin / Bonn: Dietz 1981, pp. 96–110. Reconstructs the history of the first video groups from the perspective of the late 1970s / early 1980s, mainly in Germany.
- Barry Schwartz: Video Tape and the Communications Revolution. In: Barry N. (sic!) Schwartz (Ed.): Human Connection and the New Media. Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey: Prentice Hall 1973 [The Human futures series], pp. 66-79. A very euphoric article that praises the portapaks, which were still quite new at the time, as a means of artistic development and political awareness-raising.
Web links
- Inge Arns: Social Technologies. Deconstruction, subversion and the utopia of democratic communication. In: MedienKunstNetz.de