The New Television: A Public/Private Art

Based on Open Circuits: An International Conference on the Future of Television. Organized by Fred Barzyk, Douglas Davis, Gerald O'Grady, and Willard Van Dyke for The Museum of Modern Art.

Edited by Douglas Davis and Allison Simmons. The MIT Press: Cambridge, MA and London, England. Copyright 1977 Electronic Arts Intermix.

New Television is a seminal text of the early video art movement. This 289-page publication, currently out of print, is one of the first collections of serious writings on video as an art form. Based on the 1974 conference Open Circuits at The Museum of Modern Art, the publication includes essays, statements and documentation of videotapes by forty contributors. The content was organized into three sections: The Aesthetics of Television; The Support Structure: Change and Resistance; and The Politics, Philosophy and Future of Television. New Television also included a Video Chronology (beginning in 1959) and a Video Bibliography.

The contributors included Vito Acconci, John Baldessari, Gregory Battcock, Stephen Beck, Wolfgang Becker, Rene Berger, Russell Connor, Douglas Davis, Ed Emshwiller, Hans Magnus Ensensberger, Vilem Flusser, Hollis Frampton, Frank Gillette, Jorge Glusberg, Wulf Herzogenrath, Joan Jonas, Allan Kaprow, David Katzive, Howard Klein, Shigeko Kubota, Jane Livingston, Barbara London, Edward Lucie-Smith, Toshio Matsumoto, John McHale, Gerald O'Grady, Nam June Paik, Robert Pincus-Witten, David Ross, Pierre Schaeffer, Richard Serra, Allison Simmons, Gerd Stern, Paul Stitelman, Harald Szeeman, Stan Vanderbeek, and Evelyn Weiss.

Contents

Allison Simmons: Introduction: Television and Art: A Historical Primer for an Improbable Alliance

I. The Aesthetics of Television

Gregory Battcock: The Sociology of the Set

Hollis Frampton: The Withering Away of the State of the Art

Nam June Paik: The Video Synthesizer and Beyond

Stephen Beck: Video Synthesis

Ed Emshwiller: Image Maker Meets Video, or, Psyche to Physics and Back

Stan Vanderbeek: Social Imagistics

Frank Gillette, Robert Pincus-Witten: Panel Remarks

Joan Jonas: Panel Remarks

Douglas Davis: Time! Time! Time! The Context of Immediacy

Vito Acconci: Some Notes on Video as a Base

Jane Livingston: Panel Remarks

David Katzive: Notes on the Open Circuits Conference

Wulf Herzogenrath: Notes on Video as an Artistic Medium

Allan Kaprow: Video Art: Old Wine, New Bottle

Shigeko Kubota: Women's Video in the U.S. and Japan

Paul Stitelman: Observations on the Open Circuits Conference

Richard Serra: (Interview with Liza Bear) ÜPrisoner's Dilemma¹

John Baldessari: TV (1) Is Like a Pencil and (2) Won't Bite Your Leg

David Ross: Video and the Future of the Medium

Barbara J. London: Video in the Museum of Modern Art

An Interview with Evelyn Weiss: Establishing a Museum Video Collection in Europe

Harald Szeeman: Video, Myths and the Museum


II. The Support Structure: Change and Resistance

Gerd Stern: New York State Council on the Arts

Howard Klein: The Rise of the Televisualists

Russell Connor: A is for Art, C is for Cable

The International Setting

Bruce Kurtz: Video in America

Edward Lucie-Smith: Video in the United Kingdom

Rene Berger: Video in Africa and Asia

Wolfgang Becker: Central Europe: A Technological Province

Toshio Matsumoto: Video in Japan

Jorge Glusberg: Video in Latin America


III. The Politics, Philosophy and Future of Television

Rene Berger: Video and the Restructuring of Myth

Gerald O'Grady: Soundtrack for a Tele-vision

Pierre Schaeffer: Message for the Alone

Vilem Flusser: Two Approaches to the Phenomenon, Television

Hans Magnus Ensensberger: Television and the Politics of Liberation

John McHale: Telefutures: Prospective Observations


A Video Chronology (begins in 1959)

A Video Bibliography

The New Television: A Public/Private Art: Preface (1977)
Fred Barzyk, Douglas Davis, Gerald O’Grady, Willard Van Dyke

In this two-page introduction to the publication The New Television: A Public/Private Art, the organizers discuss the Open Circuits conference, which they describe as fulfilling a Üneed both for an occasion and a catalyst,¹ and which functioned as Üa provocation, not a pacifier.¹ They also discuss the changes in video art that took place between the 1974 conference and the publication of this book, three years later. They point out the Ümercurial pace of activity since 1974¹ and state that by 1977, there were Üvideo collections and exhibitions in almost all the major museums of contemporary art in Europe and the United States.¹ They conclude that ÜVideo is no longer the province of a few pioneers; it is becoming as common as pencil or paint.¹

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