Radical Software
July 1, 2023 7:48 PM Subscribe
Radical Software Is “print about tape - a magazine by “underground” video people designed to spread ideas and applications for new television technology.” - Raindance Corporation, 1971
Great post!
Also fascinating and digitized is the CTL VideoTools Catalog, which was put out by C. T. Lui, an early NYC video tech vendor that worked with a number of these video artists, including Nam June Paik. It’s not just a catalog per se, it’s essentially a zine. Lui is still active and now mostly working to conserve video art reliant on vintage TV tech. In all of this, you can really see people’s excitement for the possibilities of video and TV tech and the art and communication they could enable.
Phyllis (Gershuny) Segura, one of Radical Software’s creators, wrote about this era about a decade ago. It’s a great essay, and touches on a lot of perennial issues in creative and radical movements, including conflicts over power and money, seeing people talk over you about your own work, and gender equity. She was a single mother at the time, which naturally made her experience a lot different from some of the other figures in the era with fewer responsibilities, especially many of the men who by most accounts sort of elbowed their way to the front.
From her essay: Years later, visiting New York, I dropped by to see C.T. Lui of the eponymous electronics store. He told me I'd gotten a $1000 NYSCA CAPS grant for individuals while working on Radical Software. I never received it but someone did. I phoned the Council and inquired. It was the kind of grant that could have been used for anything, even buying refrigerators, the director said. Or, diapers.
Michael Shamberg was also part of this scene and wrote Guerrilla Television, a book which really evangelized the idea that everyday people armed with newly affordable(-ish) video cameras could democratize the media and change the world. He later became a successful Hollywood producer: A Fish Called Wanda, Get Shorty. And at least two movies involving TV and the erosion of youthful idealism: The Big Chill and Reality Bites.
Deirdre Boyle’s Subject to Change: Guerrilla Television Revisited is a great history of this period. It looks like you can find a PDF pretty easily though I’m not sure that’s authorized.
posted by smelendez at 9:39 AM on July 2, 2023 [3 favorites]
Also fascinating and digitized is the CTL VideoTools Catalog, which was put out by C. T. Lui, an early NYC video tech vendor that worked with a number of these video artists, including Nam June Paik. It’s not just a catalog per se, it’s essentially a zine. Lui is still active and now mostly working to conserve video art reliant on vintage TV tech. In all of this, you can really see people’s excitement for the possibilities of video and TV tech and the art and communication they could enable.
Phyllis (Gershuny) Segura, one of Radical Software’s creators, wrote about this era about a decade ago. It’s a great essay, and touches on a lot of perennial issues in creative and radical movements, including conflicts over power and money, seeing people talk over you about your own work, and gender equity. She was a single mother at the time, which naturally made her experience a lot different from some of the other figures in the era with fewer responsibilities, especially many of the men who by most accounts sort of elbowed their way to the front.
From her essay: Years later, visiting New York, I dropped by to see C.T. Lui of the eponymous electronics store. He told me I'd gotten a $1000 NYSCA CAPS grant for individuals while working on Radical Software. I never received it but someone did. I phoned the Council and inquired. It was the kind of grant that could have been used for anything, even buying refrigerators, the director said. Or, diapers.
Michael Shamberg was also part of this scene and wrote Guerrilla Television, a book which really evangelized the idea that everyday people armed with newly affordable(-ish) video cameras could democratize the media and change the world. He later became a successful Hollywood producer: A Fish Called Wanda, Get Shorty. And at least two movies involving TV and the erosion of youthful idealism: The Big Chill and Reality Bites.
Deirdre Boyle’s Subject to Change: Guerrilla Television Revisited is a great history of this period. It looks like you can find a PDF pretty easily though I’m not sure that’s authorized.
posted by smelendez at 9:39 AM on July 2, 2023 [3 favorites]
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posted by beagle at 7:24 AM on July 2, 2023 [3 favorites]