Proposals, Conference Schedule, and other Documents

This page includes documents relating to the original proposal for Open Circuits, which was envisioned as an exhibition, conference, and catalogue. Also included are the 1974 conference schedule, a list of participating artists and their galleries, and a review of the conference in Artforum by Robert Pincus-Witten. Please click on the links to view the full documents.

     
 

Open Circuits: Art at the Beginning of the Electronic Age: Project Proposal (1972)

This document is the original 12-page proposal for the Open Circuits project, written in 1972, two years before the conference was realized at The Museum of Modern Art. Organizers Fred Barzyk, Gerald O'Grady and Douglas Davis present the project as the first to †bring together the international TV/Art movementÿ and the first †thoroughly electronic exhibition ever hosted by a major museum.ÿ They stress the importance of Open Circuits being hosted by a major museum, such as MoMA, and point out that the exhibition could later travel to other institutions around the world. The project proposal, which includes diagrams and illustrations, includes the following components: an exhibition at MoMA, a televised version of the exhibition to be broadcast over the public access channels in Manhattan, an international conference held at MoMA and a catalogue in two versions - one printed and one on cassette. The organizers conclude the proposal by naming a range of artists, critics, writers, academics and broadcasters that they would like to involve in the conference. The list demonstrates the organizers' international aspirations and broad scope, and includes such varied individuals as William Paley, Marshall McLuhan, Buckminster Fuller, Ingmar Bergman, Karlheinz Stockhausen, Paul McCarthy and John Cage.

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Project Statement (undated)

This unidentified and undated statement most likely derives from a grant proposal for the Open Circuits project. According to this statement, the aim of the exhibition is to change current attitudes toward television. “The necessity of encouraging more meaningful, esthetically provocative use of this enormously influential aspect of contemporary culture is apparent.” According to this statement, the history and future potential of television will be examined by bringing together “the finest video works created from the beginning of television until 1974” and complement them with an international conference, a catalogue and broadcast programs.

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“Open Circuits: The Future of Television”: Conference Schedule (January 23-25, 1974)

This three-page document is the schedule for the Open Circuits conference, held at The Museum of Modern Art from January 23-25, 1974. Each day featured a specific theme, and included videotape screenings, panel discussions, and the presentation of papers. The three themes were “The Structure of Television,” “The Esthetics of Television,” and “The Politics and Philosophy of Television.” The first day featured panel discussions such as “Global Trends in Experimental Television,” “The Rise of the Video Synthesizer,” and “The Artists in the Experimental Television Center.” The second day included presentations by Gregory Battcock (“Not Good For the Family: The Sociology of the Set”) and Hollis Frampton (“The Withering Away of the State of Art”), among others. The third day included papers by Hans Magnus Enzenberger (“Television and the Politics of Liberation”) and a panel discussion, chaired by Willard Van Dyke, on “Video and The Museum.”

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Gallery List (1974)

This one-page document features a list of artists “who work in video tape” and the galleries that represent them, including Leo Castelli Gallery, Bykert Gallery, Ronald Feldman Fine Arts, and Sonnabend, among others. Several of the galleries were showing tapes on request in conjunction with the Open Circuits conference. Among the artists listed are Vito Acconci, Peter Campus, Lynda Benglis, Joan Jonas, Bruce Nauman, Nam June Paik, Dennis Oppenheim and Lawrence Weiner.

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Robert Pincus-Witten, Review
Artforum, No. 12, April, 1974

In this Artforum review, Robert Pincus-Witten discusses the Open Circuits conference and identifies it as a needed discussion on video as a medium. The conference “examined the enormous number of social and esthetic issues provoked by the advent of video technology.” However, to Pincus-Witten the video medium itself is no more interesting than a pencil. He states that the pioneers of video art have been focusing less on the aesthetic and more on the technical issues of video, a decision deriving from a belief in the revolutionary potential of the new tools.

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