Community Activist Video and the Origins of Video Art

Abstract

On the basis that it is communication between us that makes us human and that real communication is a feedback process, moves were made in the mid-twentieth century to create a two-way media from the prevailing top-down communication processes of capitalism with the development of various forms of community-based media.

The history of video art, perhaps the earliest of the media arts, is deeply rooted in Community-based Video. This paper outlines the development of the community documentary as it was defined by John Grierson of the British Post Office Film Unit and later manifested in the Canadian National Film Board's Challenge for Change project, British activist video produced by John “Hoppy” Hopkins and Sue Hall's Fantasy Factory. In Australia community activist video from film-maker activists such as John Hughes in Melbourne and Tom Zubrycki in Sydney created a context for a community video experiment at the Aquarius Universities Arts Festival at Nimbin in 1973. This led to the creation of a network of Video Access Centres in Australia. In the U.S. it was to become part of the Cable Television system with many stations required to provide airtime for community documentary work. The primary example being the PBS network.

In parallel with these Community video experiments and the access concept, however it manifested, there was a large amount of experimental video which laid the foundations for many film-makers and visual artists to develop Video Art as a form and to range far from the original activist video notion.