Faye Gleisser ‘This isn’t Charlie Rose’: The Making of On Art and Artists and the Politics of Information Distribution

In 1974, the young and aspiring Chicago- art educational value, and the tapes’ ability ing and exposing political or provocative based artists Lyn Blumenthal and Kate to preserve the aesthetics of 1970s grass- material. According to a citation from The Horsfield began videotaping informal inter- roots culture, much work remains to be Nation in 1869, “the ‘interview,’ as at pres- views with women artists. In the years that done with respect to assessing the lasting ent managed, is generally the joint product followed, as both Blumenthal and Horsfield political implications of the collection as a of some humbug of a hack politician and completed MFA degrees at the School of whole, and the various types of information another humbug of a newspaper reporter.”4 the Art Institute and established the Video (beyond the biographical) embedded within Data Bank (VDB) there in 1976, the two the act of its distribution. This essay argues Today, the standard definition of the “inter- continued to collaboratively videotape in- for a different approach to On Art and Art- view” builds from this journalistic sensibility terviews, formalizing the interview series ists, one that delves into the social and po- by placing emphasis not on the experience under the name On Art and Artists (OAA). litical mechanics of the “artist interview”—as of seeing one another on a personal level, By 1982, when New Examiner writer Hedy an object and form integral to the history of but rather, on the accrual of data and its Weiss reviewed the holdings of the VDB, art—and the historically specific stakes of management. Reflective of this develop- she described the OAA collection as the Horsfield and Blumenthal’s distribution of ment, Merriam-Webster’s contemporary very “heart” of the archive.1 Today, among the tapes to universities, museum libraries, dictionary definition of the interview reads the VDB’s extensive collection of historical and art festivals in the 1970s and 1980s. In as such: the interview is “a meeting at which box set compilations and new video art, On what follows, I argue that the videotaping of information is obtained from a person, a Art and Artists continues on as the major artist interviews during this early period of report or reproduction of information so legacy forged by its two co-founders. Com- the VDB’s development was itself a unique obtained,” or, in a more specific context of prised of over 400 videotaped interviews and important act, contributing to the instru- business, is “a formal consultation usually to and artist-made video portraits, featuring mentalization of artistic labor as a vehicle for evaluate qualifications (as of a prospective a range of internationally renowned artists, ethical engagement, as well as the redefini- student or employee).”5 critics, architects, theorists, and art collec- tion of “information” that occurred in the late tors, the OAA collection persists as one of 20th century. While the interview as a historical object has the most unassuming yet vast archives of long been a central component of the art non-print artist dialogues in existence today.2 Defined in the early 1500s as a formal meet- historical record, consideration of the art- ing or face-to-face encounter, the meaning ist interview, as a particular type within the Although scholars and critics over the years of the word “interview” originated from the larger categorization of the genre, remains have remarked upon the collection’s rich French expression entrevue, and more spe- understudied. In the scholarship that does cifically from the verbs’entrevoir —to see or discuss the artist interview directly, authors 1 Hedy Weiss, “From the Horse’s Mouth: A Look at the visit one another.3 By the late 19th century, tend to focus on the circulation of printed Video Data Bank,” New Examiner (November 1982): 10. the term had become associated with the transcripts and texts, leaving out the medi- 2 For an excellent overview of the various formats of tapes included in the OAA collection please visit http:// journalistic practice of interviewing, in the vdb.org/oaa or refer to Kate Horsfield’s introduction to sense that the exchange was one of glean- 4 The Nation, January 28, 1869. Quoted in “interview” the collection in Feedback: The Video Data Bank Cata- in online etymology dictionary. Accessed June 2014. log of Video Art and Artist Interviews ed. Kate Horsfield 5 “Interview,” Merriam-Webster, Inc. Online Dictionary. and Lucas Hildebrand (Philadelphia, PA: Temple Univer- 3 The Nation, January 28, 1869. Quoted in “interview” Accessed June 2014. http://i.word.com/idictionary/ sity Press, 2006). in online etymology dictionary. Accessed June 2014. interview. 02

um of video altogether and its impact on the catalyzed the initiation of On Art And Artists reductive packaging of subjecthood. Al- process of data translation. In spite of this forty years ago. All are fundamentally tied to though the television series Charlie Rose, oversight, Iwona Blazwick’s essay, “An Anat- the question of how to share information in a talk show in which executive producer omy of the Interview,” printed as an introduc- ways that confront the uneven planes of ac- Rose interviews leaders, activists, and ath- tory essay to Talking Art: Interviews with cess. The privileging of certain figures, and letes among others, would have been con- Artists Since 1976 (2007), accounts for the the mobilization of networks that reinforce sidered somewhat radical in relation to the direct impact of new communications tech- these hierarchies of knowledge production standards set by 1970s television, it stays nologies, such as the Internet, upon the art- are, in short, the underpinnings of the poli- close, nonetheless, to a formal structure in a ist interview in more recent years.6 tics of distribution. controlled studio environment.

Although, as Blazwick explains, the artist I. The Information Era and the Stakes The early OAA tapes were low-tech, half- interview has for centuries shaped the art of the “Artist Interview” in the 1970s inch open reel, unedited, and produced historical canon, dating back to Giorgio Va- using a Sony Portapak system.10 Upon its sari’s sixteenth-century Lives of the Most Horsfield and Blumenthal’s cultivation of a 1965 invention, the machine expanded the Excellent Painters, Sculptures, and Archi- video archive of artist interviews in the ‘70s potential for amateur documentation of ev- tects, she asserts that the proliferation of and ‘80s, which recorded a marginalized eryday encounters in non-official spaces. the artist interview in the late 20th and 21st group of radical thinkers, and developed a Horsfield and Blumenthal traveled to New centuries is a pointed “manifestation of our new way of sharing information, offers in- Mexico, New York and California, and re- ever-expanding capacity to translate the sight into the larger social implications of corded interviews inside artist studios, temporal into the material, the private into information management, and the responsi- apartments, and offices, thereby framing do- the public, and the individual into the icon.”7 bility inherent within the politics of data col- mestic spaces, otherwise deemed private, For Blazwick, as for many others, the blur- lecting and distribution. as part of the public sphere of information. ring of such distinctions occurs as a result Because of the informal setting and gritti- of information acceleration unfolding from In a charming but brief “How-To” video pro- ness of the tapes, the OAA provided visual the digital era of documentation at the end duced for VDB staff in 2004, in anticipation information that differed considerably from of the 20th century, an event making signifi- of her upcoming retirement in 2006, Hors- formats of artist interviews on television and cant impact on the role and purpose of artis- field offers strategies for presenting the “art- in polished, glossy magazines. The close-up tic production. In relation to this heightened ist interview” as a legible and accessible shots emphasized vulnerability of the sub- sense of connectivity and the proliferation of form. With her musical Southern twang, she ject, radically undoing the flattened veneer images world-wide, Tom Holert also explains faces the viewfinder, which she, for many of the packaged talk show. In stark con- in his 2013 Artforum essay titled, “The years, focused on others. She speaks of trast to the perfect studio shot, the range of Burden of Proof,” that indeed, “now is the practical things, such as microphone adjust- close-ups, and off-centered, poetic refram- time” in contemporary art practice and art ment during OAA interviews, as well as how ing of the body was readily legible as a ges- discourse when, “responsibility [itself] might her move to Chicago from Texas, while in her ture intended to critique television’s stylized be reframed as a heuristic and performative twenties, informed her own trajectory as an packaging of celebrity status, and who (and notion—an arena of indeterminacy, of pos- artist. Clearly at ease, Horsfield’s expertise who was not) then considered talk-worthy. sible experimentation,” if we are to address attests to her experience as director of the Black and white promotional cards, pro- the transformation of processing visual and VDB, a position she held singularly for two duced by the VDB in the mid-‘80s, show- textual information in an era of global visual decades following the untimely passing of case the OAA’s signature aesthetic through culture.8 The concerns raised by scholars Blumenthal in 1988. She carefully empha- selected stills from the OAA tapes made in like Blazwick and Holert in relation to tech- sizes, however, for future VDB interviewers, the following decade. In these postcards, nologies of documentation, and the acceler- that the “interview” format is a constructed dramatic framing of Barbara Kruger and ated speed of information distribution, are at story in which the interviewer and camera- Hollis Sigler, for example, tightly frame the their base, rooted in the same anxieties that handler take an active part in shaping the artist’s faces, accentuating their eyes and emotional landscape of the content. “It’s mouths. These stylistic decisions, reflective 6 Iwona Blazwick, “An Anatomy of the Interview,” origi- not like Charlie Rose,” Horsfield insists, “it of both Horsfield and Blumenthal’s ongoing nally printed in October (1996), reprinted in Patricia should be more dynamic.”9 commitment to artistic experimentation, ex- Bickers and Andrew Wilson’s edited volume Talking Art: Interviews with Artists Since 1976 (London: Riding- emplify the dynamism and emotional topog- house, 2007), 25. From the start, Blumenthal and Horsfield’s raphy the two used as a model for the OAA. 7 Blazwick, 25. Patricia Bickers discusses Vasari and efforts to create intimate portraits of women also argues that Paul Freart de Chantelou’s account of Bernini’s visit to France in 1665 is the artist interview artists in the ‘70s sought to challenge TV’s prototype, in “Introduction,” Talking Art: Interviews with Artists Since 1976 (London: Art Monthly, Ridinghouse, 2007), 13–23. 9 Kate Horsfield, “How to Interview for OAA,” April 10 Kate Horsfield, “Lyn Blumenthal: A Brief Work His- 8 Tom Holert, “Burden of Proof: Holert on Contempo- 2004. Chicago Video Data Bank. Non-circulating Train- tory,” Lyn Blumenthal: Force of Vision, (Los Angeles: Los rary Art and Responsibility,” Artforum (March 2013): 254. ing Video. Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions, 1989), 3. 03

Barbara Kruger,: An Interview, Blumenthal/Horsfield 1980 Hollis Sigler: An Interview, Blumenthal/Horsfield 1983

Though exemplary of quotidian interview- dramatic effect of Pollock’s aggressive fling- few years of that you challenged the whole ing practices by 2006, when Charlie Rose ing of paint across a glass sheet, the film- of the artistic values that then existed. What first aired in 1991, it appeared decades makers applied a post-filming voice-over of did you so dislike about them that made after the initial the hey-day of televised talk Pollock discussing his process, juxtaposed you launch that attack?”13 Duchamp, in a shows. During the development of On Art with a score of improvisational, experimental suit and tie, captured from the shoulders up, and Artists throughout the ‘70s programs music. Seen and heard together, Pollock’s shakes his head in agreement. A moment such as the Phil Donahue Show and The flattened, almost robotic intonation, and as- later, as the camera jumps to a full studio Late Night Show topped popularity charts. sertively short declarations of uninhibited shot of both interviewer and interviewee, Yet, the guests and organizers of these pro- artistic creation aggrandized the mythic pro- Duchamp’s persona as a talk-worthy fig- grams were not representative of the Ameri- portions of his public persona. The film’s ure, legible not only as male but white and can masses. On the contrary, the majority of portrayal of Pollock presented him as an Western, codifies beneath the bright lights producers and protagonists on these talk unaffected cowboy, similar to his previous calibrated to capture pale skin on screen.14 shows—and the many that followed in the framing by Life magazine in which he was 1980s and 1990s—were predominantly potentially “the Greatest Living Painter in Although these representations of Pollock white and male, and addressed a narrow the United States.”12 By emphasizing his and Duchamp differ in terms of aesthetic range of topics. Likewise, the packaged per- rugged masculinity through the imaging of production and intended effect, together sona of the white male artist was also the forceful application of paint to surface, the they exhibit the spectrum of legitimized im- dominant figure imaged on television and in filmmakers’ special attention to the virile ages of artists in the sixties. Namuth and film. force of the paint’s impact cemented the Falkenberg’s filmic portrayal of Pollock, visual metaphor of virility. though unconventional in its use of disrup- Two iconic moving-image documents, a tive syncopated music and paired robotic 1951 film of Jackson Pollock and the 1968 Similarly, when Duchamp appeared on the monologue, contributed to the convention- BBC interview with Marcel Duchamp on BBC’s Late Night Line-Up in 1968, he ex- ally accepted persona of the “Artist” as an Late Night Line-Up, attest to such gender, tended the popularized, packaged consum- autonomous, idiosyncratic, and aggressively class, and racial biases of talk-worthiness er object of heterosexual masculinity and masculine subject. Likewise, the exchange as defined by popular culture in the U.S. whiteness to which the film of Pollock had between Bakewell and Duchamp culls from Produced for art world constituents by film- contributed. Sitting across from the petite, and adds to long-standing cultural scripts makers Hans Namuth and Paul Falkenberg female journalist Joan Bakewell, the tele- in which the recognition of artistic genius in 1951, the film of Pollock at work on his vised interview positioned the older artist is collapsed with the professed, overt rejec- rural property in upstate New York received as an uncompromising innovator. Bakewell tion of previous generations of male artists. renewed interest when it accompanied his opened the interview with the following in- Because Duchamp is a man, his dismissal retrospective hosted by the Museum of quiry: “Marcel Duchamp, at the age of fif- 11 Modern Art in 1967. In order to bolster the teen, you were painting pictures that looked 13 “Marcel Duchamp BBC Interview,” 1968, Late Night very like [sic] the Impressionists; within a Line-Up, online. 11 Fred Orton, “Jackson Pollock, Painting, and the Myth 14 For an insightful exegesis on the racism of televi- of Photography,” in Avant-Gardes and Partisans Re- sion’s aesthetic structuring of visual information refer to viewed ed. Fred Orton and Griselda Pollock (Manches- 12 “Jackson Pollock: Is He the Greatest Living Painter in Richard Dyer’s White (London, New York: Routledge, ter: Manchester University Press, 1996), 166. the United States?,” Life (August 8, 1949). 1997). 04

of art precedents registers as innovative, rather than reactionary on the basis of his gender or political agenda; had he been a woman, such aggressive experimentation would probably have been labeled “mascu- line” or defiantly “feminist.”

Above all, these formats for producing and disseminating biographical information about the artist by way of their performance of self, whether filmed for an art audience in the former, or the TV-watching masses in the latter, stand in stark contrast to the OAA series. Because Blumenthal and Horsfield imagined different audiences for their tapes of women artists speaking inside their pri- vate studios or homes, their reformulation of the artist interview produced a different kind of record.

Horsfield and Blumenthal’s decision to Joan Mitchell: An Interview, Blumenthal/Horsfield 1974 capture women artists on video intervened in processes of legitimization that deter- face, the painting by Franz Kline above her and discomfort of the interviewee remains mined and maintained which subjects were head, and spirals of cigarette smoke dis- accessibly raw and palpable in the tape.18 deemed worthy of interviews. In other words, solving into the space of the apartment. OAA challenged a problematically homoge- By recording informal—and sometimes neous image of the artist. Reflecting upon The artist’s responses to Horsfield’s ques- uncomfortable—conversations, the early the radicality of Blumenthal’s camerawork, tions display an attitude indicative of this interview tapes included in OAA altered Horsfield makes clear the necessity for a particular historical moment—when the art processes of conventional exchange. As new set of aesthetics in the 1970s. She re- scene of the ‘50s was a “boys club”—in discussed by Robert Storr, the early work minds contemporary viewers that, “We can which to speak of one’s position as a wom- of Blumenthal and Horsfield’sOAA series look at television now and see close fram- an was to undermine one’s artistic status. replaced the mythologized, idealized scene ing, but in the ‘70s everything was a perfect At one point, Mitchell looks into the camera of the artist-at-work (like that of Pollock) studio shot.”15 and asserts that, “I never felt I was compet- with straightforward portraits of women in ing with them [her male peers]… [it] never private spaces. Aesthetically, as Storr con- A 1974 interview with Abstract Expression- occurred to me.”16 Only five minutes into tends, “the very awkwardness of the Data ist painter Joan Mitchell provides insight the conversation, the intensity of the ex- Bank style underscored the authenticity of into both OAA’s aesthetic sensibility and change escalates when Horsfield inquires its project and, as much as anything, that its engagement with the effaced identity further about the support she received from frankness was an extension of Lyn’s anar- politics articulated by the mainstream artist Willem de Kooning and Franz Kline. Mitch- chic temperament.”19 As he explains further, interviews, that the portrayals of Pollock and ell answers defensively in an aggravated “Lyn’s genius was to break the frontal and Duchamp had both contributed to and ben- tone: “Men have always encouraged me… essentially static format of talk show videog- efited from. you want to get into a feminist bit, right?”17 raphy in order to explore the simultaneity of Mitchell’s agitated reluctance to speak optical, auditory and even tactile events that During the video interview, Mitchell ap- about her experience as a woman artist pre- take place during a conversation.”20 pears in a sparely decorated room. She serves the predicament of women artists in leans across her bed, smoking cigarette af- a male-dominated art world. Horsfield, to What often drops out of the historical re- ter cigarette. Mitchell combatively answers this day, says it is difficult for her to watch tellings or memories of the OAA collec- Horsfield’s questions about her start as an Mitchell’s OAA interview, since the distrust tion, or the initial years of the VDB, is the artist and circles of influence in New York. larger cultural context and the debates sur- Throughout the tape, Blumenthal adjusts the rounding information sharing and database range of the camera’s viewfinder to capture a variety of shots: a close up of Mitchell’s 16 “Joan Mitchell: An Interview,” On Art and Artists. Blu- 18 Kate Horsfield phone conversation with author. May menthal/Horsfield. 1974. 2013. 17 “Joan Mitchell: An Interview,” On Art and Artists. Blu- 19 Storr, “Essays on Lyn Blumenthal” 15 “Kate Horsfield, Interview,” Women of Vision, 103. menthal/Horsfield. 1974. 20 Storr, “Essays on Lyn Blumenthal” 05

construction that dialectically informed the ‘regular job.’ Assuming responsibility told otherwise.”24 To be ‘told otherwise’—or “packaged” look of information presented for the Data Bank has no connection be intentionally misled or misinformed—was on television. Blumenthal and Horsfield’s with clock hours or even job title cate- to be undermined, often deliberately, by decision to keep the label ‘video data bank’ gories: what would you call us—teach- those who feared the impact of potentially as a designation for the collection reflects er, artist, babysitter, janitor, curator, revolutionary modes of connectivity. In other their immersion in theories of education and grant writer, technician, secretary? It words, the maintenance of information, and radical resistance circulating during the late has more to do with something some- the archiving or sharing of it, at a time when ‘60s and early ‘70s in the U.S. one loves.22 the landscape of knowledge was so heavily embroiled with political meaning, embodied Television talk shows were not the catalyst Exposed to the term, “data bank,” by its coin- a radical act of engagement. for OAA, however. Fittingly, Blumenthal and age in the alternative publication Radical Horsfield’s decision to collaborate grew Software, a mouthpiece of the countercul- The word and concept of the “data bank” from a period of intimate dialogue like that ture media movement, in 1970, Horsfield ex- did not belong to, or originate from, the of the interviews they would later conduct plains that the concept came from the coun- counterculture. In fact, the language was together. The two met in 1973 during a trip terculture’s need to make its own record.23 one of bureaucratic dominion and federal to Colorado, and upon returning to Chicago, This gesture was one of devotion. These governance. In 1965, the American govern- where they were neighbors, Blumenthal efforts to disseminate information about ment had submitted a proposal for a data- dropped by Horsfield’s apartment often to video technology also resonated with, and bank project known as the National Data chat while the latter worked on her illustra- borrowed from, the alternative video subcul- Center.25 Although the original proposal tions for children books. The two quickly de- ture’s overarching model of DIY education. for the Data Center was economically mo- veloped a romantic partnership and collab- The act was one of love and commitment, tivated—a singular databank project would orative work practice, before each enrolled not only to the project at hand, but also to cut costs of information collecting—ensu- in the MFA program at the School of the the larger cause of information sharing and ing government hearings on the threats of Art Institute in Chicago (SAIC) in 1974.21 It its political stakes. computerized databanks in 1966 killed the wasn’t until 1976, however, after Horsfield bill. A 1967 article by Vance Packard, titled and Blumenthal graduated with degrees in Like Blumenthal and Horsfield who imag- “Don’t Tell it To the Computer,” extends the painting and video, respectively, that they ined their role as full-time caregivers of hearings’ outcome to the impact of informa- began envisioning their role maintaining the such materials and their distribution, other tion sharing on the masses. He attacked the burgeoning library of videotapes at SAIC. video collectives forming during this period idea of a centralized government data ware- envisioned their missions in a similar man- house, voicing a common fear of “falling un- In its infancy, the VDB at SAIC was com- ner. One such collective, the Videofreex, der the control of the machine’s managers.”26 prised of approximately 100 student-made pursued a lifestyle of communal growth and The Center was ultimately defeated in 1969 tape recordings of visiting artist lectures artistic experimentation, and created an ed- when it was met with heavy resistance from and some experimental video art. Philip Mor- ucational publication, the Maple Tree Farm polled Americans who feared that a singu- ton, a pioneer in video technology and the Report. This report epitomized the type of lar databank of personal information would first chair of the video department at SAIC, earnest resources available to aspiring invade their privacy.27 As historian Simson had amassed the tapes for student use and videographers. For the Videofreex, whose Garfinkel explains succinctly, the impact of labeled their storage container in the SAIC hand-drawn, Xeroxed newsletter educated the Center’s defeat was the government’s library, “video data bank.” In the summer of readers on “tapeography” and served as a consequential formation of an “idea of data 1976, Blumenthal and Horsfield wrote a pro- guide for aspiring video users, part of the protection” for American citizens.28 posal to create a more formal position for endeavor of instructing others how to use the organization of the tape collection. Their video was one of politically charged revi- proposal is telling of the intersection of re- sion. Indicative of the challenges facing sponsibility and art. They wrote: the documentation and circulation of video 24 Videofreex, “Everybody’s Wondering About Cable technology, the Freex’s report reads, “There Television,” Maple Tree Farm Report no. 2 (Fall 1971). “In order for the Video Data Bank to is no difficulty (technical) in plugging ½ inch Box 73, folder 10, “Serials,” Irving Sandler Papers, Getty operate as a full-range facility it needs equipment into cable. Let us know if you are Research Institute. 25 Simson Garfinkel. Database Nation: The Death of to become someone’s major focus. Privacy in the 21st Century (Sebastpol, CA: O’Reilly and The way we conceptualize it at this 22 Original proposal, dated March 31, 1976. Video Associates, Inc., 2000), 13. point is that it requires more than the Data Bank Archive. 26 Garfinkel, 14. Quoted from Vance Packard, “Don’t 23 Kate Horsfield phone interview with author. May Tell it To the Computer,” New York Times (8 January regular amount of energy that goes 2013. Radical Software was founded in 1970 by Phyllis 1967), n.p. with whatever one assumes to be a Gershuny, Ira Schneider, and Beryl Korot. Michael Sham- 27 As an indication of the overarching malaise of the burg and others involved with the Raindance Corpora- American population, Jerry Rosenberg published the tion eventually took over its editing. For further informa- book The Death of Privacy in 1969 to great critical ac- 21 Kate Horsfield, An Interview: The Early Years of the tion refer to Radical Software’s official website: http:// claim. Video Data Bank and On Art and Artists. Faye Gleisser. www.radicalsoftware.org/e/. 28 Garfinkel, 35. 06

Whether Blumenthal and Horsfield were an Piper, Vito Acconci, and the members of revisited within the context of database dis- aware of the proposed National Data Cen- Group Frontera, “question our prejudices,” courses, On Art and Artists’ organization ter, the contentious ownership of information by exposing the inadequacy of information as part of a larger video “data bank” conse- and the ability to disseminate facts widely systems, and denaturalizing the role of the quently serves as a kind of counter model. was at the foundation of changing notions of museum in the display of its objects.31 This As media-theorist Mark Poster explains, radical resistance. The ideas of privacy and exhibition was also a self-conscious at- “with databases, the individual is constitut- the need to protect certain kinds of informa- tempt to confront the impact of technology ed in absentia” through a specific form of tion from being effaced emerged simultane- on gatekeepers of the art world. McShine representation embodied in the database’s ously in dominant and counter-culture. The mentions this anxiety in his catalogue essay, collection of “facts,” such as social security phrase “information society” had in fact be- asking, “How is the museum going to deal numbers and credit scores, that creates gun to circulate like electricity throughout with the introduction of new technology as the performative effect of information.”34 Al- the U.S. in the wake of a series of lectures an everyday part of its curatorial concern?”32 ternatively, Blumenthal and Horsfield’s de- published by the scholar Clark Kerr almost Most recently, the Information exhibition velopment of On Art and Artists within the a decade before the initiation of the Video has been made the focus of Eve Meltzer’s VDB sought to cultivate the social subject Data Bank. Titled The Uses of the Universi- book, Systems We Have Loved: Concep- through the presence, not the absence, of ty, Kerr outlined the relationship of informa- tual Art, Affect, and the Antihumanist Turn the individual as they articulated their rela- tion, consumerism, and military intervention (2013). In this text, Meltzer contends that tionship to cultural and historical ideas of art in 1967, by citing economist Fritz Machlup’s the very term “information” is not only criti- making in the real time of audiovisual docu- studies on the increasingly entangled re- cal for coming to terms with American art mentation. lationship of information and the economy. practice in the 1960s and ‘70s, but impera- Kerr posited that, “Intellect has…become tive to understanding artists’ “relationship to It is not merely coincidental, therefore, that an instrument of national purpose, a com- fantasies about contemporary technologies Blumenthal and Horsfield’s initiation of a da- ponent of the military-industrial complex.”29 of communication and the politics that grew tabank of interviews occurred in the 1970s. Building from the theories of Kerr, authors up with such fantasies.”33 Rather, this gesture is part and parcel of a of Radical Software proclaimed that, as of significant conversation surrounding the 1970, “Power is no longer measured in land, Reflective of these shifts and their effect idea of privacy and information manage- labor, or capital, but by access to informa- on popular culture, the authors of Radical ment in the U.S. In 1973, for example, build- tion and the means to disseminate.”30 Software proclaimed in 1970, the same ing from the landmark report issued by El- year of the Information exhibition, that the liot Richardson, Nixon’s secretary of Health, The very definition of the artist during the late provisioning of an “alternative history of the Education, and Welfare (HEW), Congress ‘60s and early ‘70s became one mired in the world” would ideally denaturalize the hege- passed the “Code of Fair Information Prac- construction of ideas and dissemination of monic ideologies then policing cultural and tices,” essentially a “bill of rights for the com- information. With the advent of conceptual political institutions. In this sense, the notion puter age.”35 Richardson’s research built art and institutional critique, the exposure of of the “data bank,” as a source for dissemi- from the failed proposal for the centralized stylized systems of information management nated materials, offset and denaturalized the National Data Center, as well as in acknowl- became fodder for artistic pursuits. Perhaps concept of information storage otherwise edgment of the growing industry of personal the most iconic example of this impulse to accepted as an objective and necessary identification information and credit report- position information as the subject of art’s component of institutionalized databases. ing. As anxieties surrounding the treatment critique can be found in the well-document- of personal information in databanks height- ed and discussed exhibition Information, The Video Data Bank, and its role as a hous- ened, the circulation of personal information which opened at the Museum of Modern ing site for the On Art and Artists collection, to the masses, via the format of the televised Art in New York in 1970. This exhibition is best understood when contextualized or filmic artist interview, became an increas- underscored how the representation of ad- within the fraught symbolism of informa- ingly popular, albeit unquestioned, medium ministrative knowledge and the durability of tion management and changing definitions of data. In response, the display of video facts had become an urgent site of explora- of American citizenship in the ‘70s. When was associated with the undermining of sys- tion and contestation for artists. According tems of data management and control. to curator Kynaston McShine, works in the 31 Kynaston McShine, “Introduction to Information,” show by artists, such as Hans Haacke, Adri- from Alberro and Stimpson, Conceptual Art (Cam- Michael Shamburg, writing as an advocate bridge: MIT Press, 1999), 214. for the counterculture epitomized by the 32 McShine, 214. efforts of Guerrilla Television, insisted that 29 Clark Kerr, The Uses of the University, (Cambridge, 33 Meltzer convincingly points to Robert Barry and MA: Harvard University Press, 1963), 20. Quoted in Adrian Piper as examples of artists who confronted the the “information environment” didn’t have From Counterculture to Cyberculture: Steward Brand, political capacities of withholding as artistic strategies the Whole Earth Network, and the Rise of Digital Uto- with political critique. Refer to her chapter, “The Dream pianism, Fred Turner (Chicago: University of Chicago of the Information World,” Systems We Have Loved: 34 Mark Poster. The Second Media Age (Cambridge, Press, 2006), 12. Conceptual Art, Affect, and the Anithumanist Turn (Chi- UK: Polity Press, 1995), 90. 30 Radical Software. vol. 1, no. 1. (1970): 9. cago: University of Chicago Press, 2013), 35–7. 35 Garfinkel, 7. 07

to be one of dependency and addiction.” intentionally subverted privacy protocol by Instead, he noted that although “Americans making public the confidential numbers as- are information junkies,” the use of “video signed to American citizens to differentiate tape, particularly portable video systems, them in a database. Similarly, the purpose can enhance survival and generate power in of the Center Focus program—to promote Media-America.”36 Above all, he concluded, the distinct and radically public possibilities “Information is simply not information unless of video—intervened in and challenged re- it’s applied, or processed.”37 Thus, to create ceived ideas about how, when, and where new forms of information and disseminate it certain types of information could or should was considered a gesture resounding with be deployed. This playful but subversive revolutionary bravado and radical possibility. invitation to the event set the tone for the screenings, which embodied an ethos of It is significant that Blumenthal and Horsfield resistance and disruption of conventional were involved in various models of peer-to- codes of sharing. peer dialog during 1976, the year the OAA collection and the VDB as an institution be- Peer-to-peer information sharing was pro- gan to expand. It was most likely from these moted in 1976 beyond the video com- programs and their successes that the im- munity, as suggested by another event, in portance of video sharing was made evident. which Blumenthal was also a participant, One such interactive video festival, named and Horsfield, an attendee. Developed as the Center Focus… A Video Event, offered a fundraiser for the New Art Examiner and a rigorous schedule of screenings and video N.A.M.E. Gallery in 1976, a pool tournament workshops in Chicago during the first four organized in Chicago sought to bring to- days of February 1976. Blumenthal, in col- gether a constellation of art world members laboration with Greg Dawe, Jody Gillerman, to generate new ideas and debates about Drew Browning, and Mary O’Kiersey, pro- art.39 N.A.M.E. Gallery, a space established duced the festival under the title of “Video by SAIC alums in 1973 for the display and Tape Playback Data.” During the days of the discussion of alternative art practice in Chi- event, the VDB screened OAA tapes of cago, hosted the program. The facilitators Nancy Grossman, Louise Nevelson, Agnes staged conversations between various per- Martin, and Ree Morton for the public, free mutations of unlikely art world duos. Publi- of cost, in addition to screenings of Her- cized with the tag line, “Come and see the mine Freed’s work by Videopolis, a video Chicago art world decide its pool champion,” resource and teaching center established in the fundraiser paired dealers and painters, 1971 in Chicago by Anda Korst. collectors and sculptors, critics and aes- theticians, and collectors and the M.C.A. The promotional material for Center Focus… president (then Lou Manilow) in staged A Video Event captures the attitude of the conversations. Blumenthal, labeled as an program facilitators and provides a visual “installation artist,” was pitted against Den- Center Focus… A Video Event promotional material, 1976 metaphor for the aim of their project, as nis O’Shea, generically named an “artist” well as their desire to target a specific audi- without further delineation.40 Each couple vocabulary of the handmade and low tech ence attuned to the politics of information sought to assess the status of contempo- documentation, and embodied similar aes- management. Showcasing Xeroxed copies rary art through public dialogue using the thetics as those used in the OAA collection. of the organizers’ identification cards on notions of play and competition,. The gritty This event, its promotion, and other visual the promotional flyer, then including their and informal format of the event’s flyer’s, a cues like it, lend further historical context to Social Security numbers, the organizers hand drawn illustration of woman leaning historian Jeanne Siegel’s reflection that the made public their identification data, which over a pool table, a cat sitting on her hip, artist emerged as a “truly public figure” in would otherwise be kept secure and private imagining a “five” ball, collapsed the visual the ‘60s and altered the figure of the artist in a government database.38 This gesture in the ‘70s.41 personal information, and the politics of surveillance that continues to shape social relations, visual culture, and 36 Michael Shamburg. “Media America,” Guerrilla Tele- technologies of publicity in the present moment. 41 Jeanne Siegel. Artwords: Discourse on the ‘60s and vision (New York: Holt, Rinehart, and Winston, 1971), 11. 39 For a brief history of N.A.M.E. Gallery please refer to ‘70s (New York: Da Capo Press, 1988), 1. A brief but 37 Shamburg, 1-2 Bridget Esangga’s essay, “Artist-Run Archive,” available excellent discussion of the evolution of the artist inter- 38 The social security numbers were erased for the online: http://my.saic.edu/?page=name. view appears in Patricia Bicker’s introductory text in her reproduction of this material as it appears in this essay, 40 “Pool Tournament” Publicity flyer, addressed to Kate edited volume, Talking Art: Interviews with Artists Since thereby underscoring and complicating the protection of Horsfield. 2 June 1976. Video Data Bank Archives. 1976 (2007), 17–22. 08

The notion of the artist speaking as a “pub- lic figure” developed alongside activism that celebrated the act of going “out into the streets” to pursue face-to-face encoun- ters.42 For organizers of the art world, in- novation was equally based on competitive and constructive camaraderie as a form of democratic responsibility. Tellingly, as the “flow of writing and talking” created by con- temporary artists in the ‘70s increased, El- len Johnson has made a link to the “direct outcome of artists’ own perception of their changing role in a democratic, industrial, and technological society” and the genre of the interview.43 Blumenthal’s co-facilitation of the Center Focus… A Video Event and the first annual “Chicago Art World Pool Tournament,” exemplify this impulse towards public discourse, and the need for a network of idea and information sharing that worked beyond the established institutions of art museum, government, or corporate market.

Not coincidentally, authorship of the “art- ist interview” changed in the ‘60s and ‘70s, from the domain of the art critic to that of the artist. By cutting out the middleman of the art critic or journalist, artists such as Dan Graham, Robert Smithson, Mel Boch- ner and Sol Le Witt, answered to Americans’ so-called addiction to information. These artists began publishing articles about their own process in Artforum, often as indepen- dent works of art.44 As a result, the voice and language of the artist became acces- sible as never before. By 1969, when Andy Warhol founded Interview, a magazine that transcribed words of the art world’s celebri- ties and juxtaposed them with glossy con- sumer ads, the “age of the interview” had debuted.45 the increasing publicity of the genre during I’m so empty I just can’t think of any- the late ‘60s. He explained, thing to say.46 Warhol’s description of the interview sums up the rise in skepticism that accompanied Interviews are like sitting in those Warhol’s reference to vacuity and disinter- Ford machines at the World’s Fair that est is tongue in cheek. The artist is notorious toured around while someone spoke for his own sculpted performance of vacuity a commentary. I always feel that my in the ‘60s, which aestheticized “emptiness” 42 Franklin Rosemont and Charles Radcliffe. Dancin’ in the Streets! Anarchists, IWWs, Surrealists, Situationists words are coming from behind me, as a subject and medium for the cultural cri- & Provos in the 1960s as recorded in the pages of the not from me. The interviewer should tique achieved by his Pop idiom. Neverthe- Rebel Worker & Heatwave (Chicago: Charles H. Kress just tell me the words he wants me Publishing Company, 2005). 43 Ellen H. Johnson. American Artists on Art: From to say and I’ll repeat them after him. I 46 Gretchen Berg, “Andy: My True Story,” Los Angeles 1940 to 1980 (New York: Icon editions, Harper & Row, think that would be so great because Free Press (17 March 1967), 3. Reprinted from East Vil- 1982, preface), 18. Quoted and contextualized in Bick- lage Other. Reproduced in Theories and Documents of er’s introduction to Talking Art, 18. Contemporary Art: A Sourcebook of Artists’ Writings ed. 44 Anastas, 81. Kristin Stiles, Peter Howard Selz (Berkeley: University of 45 Anastas, “A Response,” 81. California Press, 1996), 345. 09

less, his assertion that during an interview transcribed conversations, thereby miss- Writer, artist, and feminist activist, Arlene his words seemed to unfold from someplace ing out on the possibilities existent within Raven, in her 1976 OAA interview, refers “behind him” rather than from him encap- a video archive of interviews for information to female artists’ gestures to fight their op- sulates the pervasive belief that television, sharing. pression “through supportive criticism and and its cookie-cutter framing and editing, self-criticism,” a method of information shar- turned those who appeared on screen into In an essay, which delves into the possi- ing based on creating a community of think- mere actors within the screenplay written bilities of different kinds of communication, ers and theorists.51 In more explicitly political by television producers and their patrons. and specifically the mode of exchange la- terms, Cecilia Dougherty described Raven’s Moreover, Warhol’s reference to Ford ma- beled “gossip,” Irit Rogoff emphasizes the OAA interview, itself, as a “document that chines at the World’s Fair further reiterates importance of finding alternative forms of reads like a manifesto, a pure statement the anxieties surrounding technology and knowledge production, and recognizing of ideology about feminist art education.” 52 information management, also articulated their potential. Rogoff asserts that, “So con- Blumenthal and Horsfield’s initiative to re- by McShine and the artists involved with the ditioned are we by the hierarchical values of cord women artists talking about their work Information exhibition. Whether evading or what constitutes serious cultural endeavor, promotes a pedagogy of connectivity, an un- troubling the notion of interiority in the era of that we either co-opt these small-scale nar- learning of conditioned, legitimized forms of television, Warhol’s commodification of the ratives into the grand schemes of heroic data-collecting in favor of something differ- artist interview as an object for conspicuous activity or we allow them to slip into a kind ent—an embrace of alternative tones, forms, consumption anticipates the turn towards of domesticated netherworld.”49 Rogoff’s and scales of investigation. the reassessment of the “interview” as a emphasis on the significance of small-scale thing to make or produce rather than a col- narratives is instructive. The OAA collec- This strategy grew from the wider pedagogy lection of fixed facts. tion does not circulate as gossip but its ar- of feminist connectivity at play in the 1970s. chiving of the technological advances and In her 1971 film, Growing Up Female, Julia While face-to-face exchange was promoted discourses of communication asks that we Reichert asserts that the methodology be- as an important form of activism in the ‘60s put into question how hierarchies of fact hind distribution is a core feminist principle. and ‘70s, the study of the types of informa- and fiction, or real and imagined narratives, “The idea of collective action, not individual tion embedded within these encounters define the cultural endeavor of engaging in genius,” she explains is, “not just a busi- was simultaneously reconsidered within the a conversation. ness cycle, but a learning cycle. You learn realm of science. Linguist H.P Grice argues to know your audience.”53 Whereas more in his 1967 lecture “Logic and Conversa- According to Horsfield, the necessity for typical formats of artist interviews available tion,” that when speaking to one another, distribution of video as an alternative form at this time upheld structures of art world hi- “we flout rules of conventional language, us- of information that challenged the easy erarchy (read: artist-curator, artist-collector, ing irony, understatement, hyperbole, ambi- and reductive consumption of “facts” re- artist-editor dichotomy), the humility of art- guity, obscurity, and prolixity to imply things ceived in printed materials surfaced, first ists assuming the responsibility of author- that are outside its scope. Such tendencies and foremost, in response to the lacuna of ship by questioning other artists or critics make the meaning of conversations both documentation of experimental artists, and about their practices on video allows the context-bound and indeterminate.”47 Grice specifically documentation of women artists. humanity of the effort to shine through in un- concluded therefore, that, “the meaning As Horsfield explains, “Before the seventies, expected and irreproducible ways. of conversations is not carried by what is artists didn’t speak publicly about their work. said but only by the saying of what is said, In the seventies, the NEA began supporting Paired with the unorthodox aesthetics of the or by ‘putting it that way.’”48 Discussion of visiting artist programs. Mitchell and Agnes videotaped interviews, Horsfield and Blu- this study appears in the 2005 special topic Martin were of an earlier generation, so it menthal’s mode of questioning interceded issue dedicated to the “artist interview,” pub- was important to record them, since their in the coded rhetoric of interviews that ap- lished in Art Journal. Although the authors voices hadn’t been heard previously (and peared in mainstream art criticism and talk addressed the under-examined politics of wouldn’t be heard otherwise).”50 In short, shows. Notes from Blumenthal’s sketch- the interview as market-driven and perfor- the production of face-to-face encounters book, penned in red handwriting across mative, the focus remained on printed and and ensuing cultivation of discussion put into practice the feminist agenda of non- 51 “Arlene Raven: An Interview,” On Art and Artists, 47 H.P. Grice, “Logic and Conversation (1975),” The hierarchical communication also mobilizing 1976. Video Data Bank. Philosophy of Language. Ed., A. P. Martinich (Oxford the OAA series. 52 Cecilia Dougherty, “Stories from a Generation: Video and New York: Oxford University Press, 2001), 175. This Art at the Woman’s Building,” From Site to Vision: The quote appears in “Against Criticism: The Artist Interview Woman’s Building in Contemporary Culture, ed. Son- in ‘Avalanche’ Magazine, 1970-1976,” by Gwen Allen, dra Hale and Terry Wolverton (Woman’s Building, Inc., Andy Warhol, Willoughby Sharp, Liza Bear, Edward Rus- 49 Irit Rogoff, “Gossip as Testimony: A Postmodern Sig- 2007), 289. http://www.womansbuilding.org. cha, W.R., Vito Acconci, Chris Burden, Lawrence Weiner, nature.” In The Feminism and Visual Culture Reader ed. 53 Julia Reichert quoted in “Julia Reichert, Interview” and Yvonne Rainer. Art Journal vol. 64, no. 3 (Fall 2005): Amelia Jones (New York: Routledge, 2003), 270. Women of Vision: Histories in Feminist Film and Video, 55. 50 Kate Horsfield in conversation with author. May ed. Alexandra Juhasz (Minneapolis: University of Minne- 48 Grice, 175. 2013. sota Press, 2001), 126. 10

II. The Political Power of Archival Distribution

With the OAA collection, Blumenthal and Horsfield challenged more than the hege- mony of television. Their practice as artists interviewing artists produced an altogether different variety of information than that cir- culated by art criticism in the mainstream art world. Not only did their work expose the politics of representation that determined who was or wasn’t talk-worthy, but their methods of distributing the tapes, catalyzed by a feminist agenda, circulated marginal- ized voices in an alternative format by strate- gically reimagining the viewing and listening communities they wished to create through such distribution.

The commitment to analyzing an interview as more than an objective document formalized during the 1980s and 1990s as a result of the pushback against multiculturalism and a larger critique of Anthropology. Critical race theorists began to approach the construc- tion of identity through a co-articulation of self that interviewers and interviewees culti- vated. Mobilized by the emergence of post- colonial theory and its critique of multicultur- Program of events for video program, summer 1976, The Woman’s Building, Los Angeles alism, staged by theorists such as Gayatri Spivak and Audre Lorde, the historical ob- graph paper, illuminate the process of pre- consumption, were tackled head-on during ject of the interview came under scrutiny as paring for the OAA interviews. In prepara- the interviews. In doing so, Blumenthal and a document of privilege and inlaid power tion for the 1976 interview with art critic and Horsfield enabled their subjects to begin dynamics.57 scholar Lucy Lippard, Blumenthal lists a self-consciously locating their own practice series of questions: “How did the women’s with and against these seemingly impen- Much more than merely the recording of movement change your approach to criti- etrable institutions. Artists, consequently, marginalized voices was at stake with the cism? Definition of feminist art? In the intro were positioned as art makers, but also as decision to interview women artists in the to From the Center, you described a story responsible art-citizens, tasked with under- ‘70s. The larger, and much more difficult to about the time when you finally accepted standing and redefining the institutions that achieve, goal was to shift the very frame your feminism… could you tell us how this had for so long shaped interpretations of through which women artists’ actions and happened?”54 Further down the list, some their art. In this way, the OAA collection al- ideas were interpreted. Even more poi- of Blumenthal’s questions have a line drawn tered the frame as well as the conventional gnantly, certain risks were involved upon through them: “What is the role of the art script of the artist interview. In hindsight, the accepting the invitation to be video taped critic in a capitalist society? Whether L.A. OAA interviews’ model of questioning also in any cultural setting. To agree to even should be absorbed into the male-dominat- contributed to a larger shift occurring in the be interviewed carried a set of political ed art world.”55 ‘60s and ‘70s when the artist’s voice as a consequences for participants and view- self-made entity was endowed with unprec- ers, based on who ultimately controlled the The terms of exclusion that shaped the edented cultural capital.56 distribution or circulation of the material. In history of art, such as conventions of criti- cism, gender bias, and capitalist modes of 57 Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak. Other World: Essays in Cultural Politics (New York: Routledge, 1988); Can the 54 Lyn Blumenthal, sketchbook, Summer, 1975. Page Subaltern Speak? Reflections on the History of An Idea. unnumbered. Video Data Bank Archive. Ed Rosalind C. Morris (New York: Columbia University 55 Lyn Blumenthal, sketchbook, Summer, 1975. Page 56 Rhea Anastas, “A Response,” Art Journal vol. 64 Press, 2010). Audre Lorde. Sister Outsider: Essays and unnumbered. Video Data Bank Archive. no. 3 (Fall 2005): 81. Speeches (Trumansburg, NY: Crossing Press, 1988). 11

one such example, African-American activist and Black Panther, Angela Davis’s declined an invitation to appear on The Dick Cavett show in 1972—a well-known talk show that aired between 1968 and 1975 in New York, and hosted interviews with “big names” like Buckminster Fuller, Groucho Marx, Judy Garland, John Lennon and Yoko Ono, and Alfred Hitchcock. Her decision points to the urgency of strategically navigating the sys- tems of power and visibility informing public interviews.58 If Davis had appeared on the show, she would have relinquished to the media executives her ability to control or manage her image and voice as a mouth- piece of the Black Power movement (she was to be paired with either the conserva- tive William Buckley Jr. or William Rusher to have a “balanced” viewpoint). Davis’s refus- al to appear on this particular TV talk show, but agreement to participate in an interview while in jail with producers of the filmThe Black Power Mixtape, exposes the political Trinh T. Minh-ha: An Interview, Blumenthal/Horsfield 1989 implications present, albeit often elided, in choosing to speak in certain formats and contexts. television, points to stakes of the interview notion of the “interview” itself as an object form and its proliferation during this period. shaped by cultural and political positioning. The invitation to appear on television posed As such, Horsfield and Blumenthal’s efforts Speaking of her latest film (1989), Surname various risks and outcomes for individuals of to construct an archive of interviews for Viet Given Name Nam, and the fictions diverse backgrounds in the ‘70s. Shamburg and by artists tackled the hegemony of TV shaped by her exploration and documenta- addressed such concerns in his text Guer- interview aesthetics and cultural scripts of tion of the interviews of Vietnamese women, rilla Television, admonishing the televised questioning. Minh-ha simultaneously complicates her interview’s problematic linkage between own relationship to the format of the inter- fashionable consumer entertainment and Through the lens of postcolonial critique, view in which she participates for the VDB. radical politics, which emptied the latter of the interview reinforced certain relations of its critical edge.59 While the stakes of ap- power and ways of seeing that were closely By combining theory and practice through pearing on a conservative-leaning talk show linked to a history of European colonialism. her confrontation of the “politics of the in- were too high for Davis, activist-artist and In the 1989 OAA interview, the filmmaker terview,” Minh-ha effectively invites viewers co-founder of the Yippie movement Abbie and artist Trinh T. Minh-ha articulates the to take a more critical approach to the me- Hoffman accepted an invitation in 1968 to ways in which the forces of ethnocentrism diation of information, while also suggesting appear on The Dick Cavett show. Sham- and colonialism often eclipse the politics of that conversations are invaluable tools for burg recalls, “as somebody (John Brockman translation inherent within the (re)telling of the construction of identity, public memory, actually) once said: ‘The revolution ended histories. These concerns, among others, and cross-cultural communication.61 The when Abbie Hoffman shut up for the first shape Minh-ha’s own work as both an artist issue of representation, of course, extends commercial.’”60 This sentiment, regarding and post-colonial theorist. In her OAA inter- beyond that of women, to all gendered, Hoffman as having “sold out” to the estab- view, facilitated by Pam Falkenberg, Minh- raced, or classed subjects—those marked lishment by merely appearing on network ha discusses her decision to move to Dakar, as “other” in social and political realms. As Senegal, and the impetus for the produc- Horsfield contends, “criticism and biogra- 58 Peggy Phelan famously attends to the politics of vis- tion of her first film, Reassemblage (1982), phy alone tend to isolate artists, transform- ibility inherent to performance and suggests that invisibil- which was meant to oppose the institutional ing them into voiceless, iconic figures or ity can also be a form of power in Unmarked: The Politics 62 of Performance (New York: Routledge, 1993). knowledge of “Africa” depicted by the co- mythic presences.” The OAA collection 59 David Joselit, “Yippie Pop: Abbie Hoffman, Andy lonial administration. In addition to provid- Warhol, and Sixties Media Politics,” Grey Room (2002): ing insight into the guiding questions that 61 “Trinh Minh Ha: An Interview,” On Art and Artists 67. Collection, 1989. 32 minutes. Color. Video Data Bank 60 Shamburg quoted in Joselit, 67. Shamburg and Rain- catalyze and sustain her films, this particular archive. dance Corporation, Guerrilla Television, 27. interview offers a meta-commentary on the 62 Weiss, 10. 12

self-consciously sought to create a network ity of attendees at early screenings of the munication and Civic Engagement (CCCE). of diverse voices. By inviting Falkenberg OAA tapes were SAIC painting students, in- Today, the CCCE creates databanks in the to facilitate the interview with Minh-ha as vested in the legacy of painting and portrai- ‘70s sense of the word (versus databases) a guest interviewer, Horsfield and Blumen- ture. Yet, it is the subtlety of the OAA series as gestures of political activism and agency. thal expanded the script and repertoire of disruption of hegemonic regimes of repre- questioning offered by the series. Unlike sentation, and its entanglement with estab- The goal of the CCCE, and others like it, is Charlie Rose or The Dick Cavett Show, lished forms of art historical discourse—the to combat “disarticulation,” defined by An- which star a singular interviewer, Horsfield portrait, the interview—that allowed this col- gela McRobbie as “the devaluing of coming- and Blumenthal’s decision to diversify the lection to intervene without censorship. In- together.”65 Both the CCCE and the OAA pool of interviewers and introduce other deed, radical potential “exists not in forms collection seek to bring people together perspectival points of departure, greatly ex- of ‘resistance’ but in non-branded strategies through information sharing, not in the uto- tends the scope of their series. Invitations to and tactics,” those acts and gestures that pian sense of community or idealization of various artists and art professors, such as mutate conventions of speaking out but do consensus, but literally to help us see each Mary Jane Jacob and Steve Reinke, helped not get caught in the red tape of bureau- other, and better understand how textual the VDB overcome geographical distances cracy or shut down.64 These are the claims fragments and abbreviated images inform and the financial burden of travel that would made by scholars of civic engagement and our lives within a larger system of represen- have otherwise limited the rigor of the proj- radical pedagogy, Mark Cote, Richard Day, tation. ect. and Greig de Peuter, in their introductory text to Utopian Pedagogy: Creating Radical Not by chance, the CCCE includes among When Blumenthal and Horsfield began Alternatives in the Neoliberal Age (2007). its list of initiatives the “WTO Oral History videotaping women artists their effort was Throughout this text, these co-editors attest Project,” a data and interview archive docu- unique and extremely forward thinking. to the fluidity and cacophony of meanings menting the activities of those who orga- Only the Institutional History Division at the related to “civic engagement” and civic nized and participated in the public demon- Smithsonian Institution Archives had begun responsibility. Much like Holert’s mandate strations at the World Trade Organization’s developing its Oral History Program in an for the use of responsibility as a heuristic ministerial meetings held in Seattle in 1999. effort to supplement the written documenta- or performative frame in artistic production The online overview of the archive asserts tion of the Archives records and manuscript and its interpretation, these scholars of that this collection of interviews “sheds light collection. While significant in its endeavor, social theory articulate the potential in the on the behind-the-scenes cooperatives and these interviews were audio-recorded, and gestures of engagement so subtle that they relationships among social movement or- therefore cannot offer the multiplicity of un- appear familiar, much like that of the OAA ganizations involved in the protests.”66 For spoken information that the videotaped re- collection. the scholars running this organization, this cords of OAA offer. Alternatively, Electronic type of information is invaluable to the cen- Art Intermix, an early archive of alternative It is through the OAA collection’s infinite ter’s larger effort: “to understand the ways media established in 1971, which had be- possibilities of distribution, and the VDB’s in which digital technologies are reshaping gun cultivating a collection of video art, con- continued project of reorganizing and repre- how and what young people learn.”67 The tributed to the preservation of early art tapes, senting the collection, that the series gener- CCCE and the OAA interviews, essentially, but did not amass video interviews. In this ates possibilities for accessing cultural and create portraits of the processes and poli- respect, historical precedents for a distribu- historical knowledge. Moreover, this posi- tics of information and information sharing tion of data recorded on video were few and tioning resonates with models of engage- over time. far between, underlining again the unique ment today. Decades ahead of the current aptitude for new modes of knowledge pro- state of coalitional practice, the OAA collec- Within their historical and cultural mo- duction that the OAA series shaped at this tion anticipated politically engaged models ment, however, the appeal of video and particular time. of learning and teaching, like those outlined the documentation of artists for Horsfield in Utopian Pedagogy, and set up by orga- and Blumenthal was specifically tied to the Despite these innovative gestures, Blumen- nizations, such as the World’s Information opportunity to create and expand a collec- thal and Horsfield’s artist peers at SAIC saw Access Project and the Center for Com- tive feminist consciousness. The wording the duo’s decision to create artist interviews, of Blumenthal and Horsfield’s application ironically, as too traditional, in comparison to Snyder and provides unique entry into the Chicago art video art practices.63 As a result, the major- community’s role within the larger history of cinema and 65 Angela McRobbie, “Feminism Undone? The Cultural video. Presented here by Youngblood, the image pro- Politics of Disarticulation,” in The Aftermath of Feminism cessing technology that emerged in the city positions Gender, Cultural and Social Change (Los Angeles: 63 Phone interview with Kate Horsfield, May 2013. For Chicago as one of the three integral sources of tech- SAGE Publications, 2009), 49. an excellent discussion of Chicago’s role in the world of nological experimentation and creative fervor in the US 66 “Mission Statement,” Center for Communication and video art and video technology refer to “Gene Young- during the 1970s. Civic Engagement. Accessed 7 June 2013. http://ccce. blood: An Interview” (2006) in the OAA collection. This 64 Mark Cote, et al., “Introduction,” Utopian Pedagogy: com.washington.edu/about/index.html. interview offers unique reflection on the work of Chica- Creating Radical Alternatives in the Neoliberal Age (To- 67 “Mission Statement,” Center for Communication and go-based artists Philip Morton, Dan Sandin, and Bob ronto: University of Toronto Press, 2007), 125. Civic Engagement. 13

for an NEA/AFI Video Preservation grant tion program of its video tapes to groups the messiness of human exchange, but they captures this sentiment through phrases un- and institutions within a 90-mile radius of also map and preserve a history of cultural derlining how they saw education as a po- Chicago.”71 Listing several series in addition and social taste. Each distribution set argu- liticized imperative, carrying serious stakes to the OAA titles, the VDB offers up access ably provides insight into the types of top- for the future of experimental thought. The to the “video tape review” (the name given ics that Blumenthal and Horsfield believed application, submitted in 1986, tenders the to the collection of video art tapes produced would spark interest in their art world con- purpose of VDB’s early formation in the fol- by local and national artists exploring vari- temporaries. lowing terms: “The Video Data Bank Study ous possibilities of the electronic medium, Center was co-founded in 1976 by Lyn a collection established in 1982), and the Moving image scholar, Jacqueline Stewart’s Blumenthal and Kate Horsfield who shared Video Art Study Collection (including 20 current work on the racial politics of archi- a conviction that experimental video (art video art tapes representing the “classics” val description sheds further light on the tapes, as well as video documents of per- of the ten-year history of video as an art form, political efficacy of the OAA collection’s formances, artist interviews, readings and made by “nationally recognized video artists categorizing strategies. As Stewart insight- experiments in ‘new technology’ by its inven- who were instrumental in the development fully explains, the mere act of “description” tors—Sandin, Defanti, Etra(s), Vasulka(s), et of video”). For individuals involved in the vid- in an archive—via subject headings or genre al.) was the sort of primary data that should eo community, Blumenthal and Horsfield’s groupings—“creates surrogate identities form an integral part of art education.”68 In organization of the OAA collection and the for the documents and also imagines their addition to feminist art world models of radi- larger collections of the VDB served as a audiences.”74 Such “controlled vocabularies” cal or avant-garde connectivity and distribu- groundbreaking model. may appear to be innocuous, but they be- tion, the theorization of cybernetic commu- come the very structure for “hierarchies of nication in the 1970s offers further historical The earliest version of VDB’s distribution knowledge” that privilege certain topics and specificity to the Video Data Bank’s operat- system for sharing such primary data re- figures, while burying others. In light of these ing mode. As historian Fred Turner recalls, sembles a chain letter; the same tapes politics of the archive, Blumenthal and Hors- within the burgeoning cybernetics stud- were passed on from one school to the next, field’s early commitment to reorganizing ies of the period there was a “a vision of a with each participant responsible for ship- information and cultivating new categories world built not around vertical hierarchies ping the contents on to the next venue in a in the ‘70s and ‘80s shows them as front- and top-down flows of power, but around timely manner. The point of this pilot proj- runners of an ethically inflected practice of looping circuits of energy and information... ect was to pair well known and emerging archival reform. This collection rendered ac- an ebb and flow of communication” was en- artist’s work to help expand viewers’ knowl- cessible topics or objects such as “women visioned.69 To produce a record of unheard edge base. In the archive of the VDB, order in art” and “politics and art,” otherwise bur- voices, and propose new modes of organiz- forms for the OAA series capture the tone ied in more heavily institutionalized libraries ing and processing the content, was a radi- of the distribution system and its changes of knowledge, thereby enacting a model of cal act of engagement. For Blumenthal and over several decades. Each phase of cat- engagement subversive in its relationship Horsfield this gesture was deliberately one egorization rephrases the very ideas of the with the archive. These contemporary ideas by which they were able to “participate in ‘70s generation through the VDB’s repack- have deeply informed today’s current use of the ideas of [their] generation.”70 aging of the OAA interviews. For example, networks as well as the language used to one form offers varying options by which to develop their theorization. A promotional letter on SAIC official let- request OAA tapes, ranging from, Contem- terhead, titled “1982/1983 Circulation porary survey A-C, Women in art, Painting For individuals involved in the world of video Program,” documents the rapid pace of A, Painting B, Aspects of Realism, Politics distribution, Blumenthal and Horsfield’s cir- the interview program, and highlights the in Art, Sculpture A-B, Film, New Narrative, culation of the OAA tapes was considered geographical obstacles that Blumenthal On Criticism, Photography, to Custom Se- a groundbreaking model. Attesting to this and Horsfield faced in their efforts to dis- ries.72 On a different form, the arrangement sentiment are the many events, workshops, tribute the OAA collection. The letter reads, of the tapes promotes an alternative set, this and panels, to which Blumenthal and Hors- “The Video Data Bank is offering a circula- time comprised of categories such as, For- field were invited as representative speakers mal Investigation, New Wave, Women/Po- on the forefront of leading concerns of the litical Perspectives, Contemporary Survey, times. They presented tapes of Judy Chica- 68 NEA/AFI Video Preservation Grant Application, 73 1986. Prepared by Lyn Blumenthal. Video Data Bank and Art/Artist for the more specific inquiry. go (1974), Arlene Raven (1976), and Miriam Archive. These groupings reflect efforts to organize Schapiro (1976) at Long Beach Museum of 69 Fred Turner. From Counterculture to Cyberculture: Art, September 4th–6th, 1983 as part of the Steward Brand, the Whole Earth Network, and the Rise of Digital Utopianism (Chicago: University of Chicago 71 “1982/1983 Circulation Program,” promotional let- Press, 2008), 38. ter, Video Data Bank, Archive. 74 Jacqueline Stewart, unpublished public lecture, 70 Kate Horsfield quoted in “Kate Horsfield, Interview” 72 “Blue Order Form,” Video Data Bank, archival mate- “Black Films Under Intellectual Control: The Racial Poli- Women of Vision: Histories in Feminist Film and Video, rial, blue binder “1983.” tics of Archival Description,” delivered at the symposium ed. Alexandra Juhasz (Minneapolis: University of Minne- 73 Pink order form, n.d. Archival material, blue binder Photography and the Archive in the African Diaspora, sota Press, 2001), 103. “1983.” Video Data Bank. Northwestern University, 22 May 2014. 14

“At Home: Video, Roles, Relationships, and communication, underwrite these questions. factors. Beneath a heading “towards a defi- Sexuality” event. Videos selected from VDB At the intersection of distribution, technol- nition”, Blumenthal exhibits her thought pro- and the Long Beach Museum of Art were ogy, and artistic practice, VDB’s distribution cess, listing in her sketchbook the words: included in the program, along with work legacy offers a prehistory to what is today “confessional, vulnerable, autobiographical, presented by featured artists, including termed informatics, the “direct outcome of embarrassing, sentiment, emotionalism, per- Eleanor Antin, Suzanne Lacy, Joan Logue, technological supercession that allows the missive cynicism, literary generalism.”83 The Susan Mogul, Linda Montano, Maren Has- vast transportation of information in virtual purpose and conclusion of the list is open- singer, and Hildegarde Duane.75 Blumenthal space.”79 ended—perhaps a brainstorming of feminist and Horsfield’s participation in these sorts art work, but also fitting for the aspirations of programs, as both contributors and co- As the ‘70s bled into the ‘80s, and the Rea- and achievement of the OAA series itself. organizers, point to their influential role, and gan administration developed its platform The last question, posed on the overspill to the importance of the OAA collection to of trickle-down economics, the status of art, to the back, “Do you regard art criticism as their positioning in the video community. criticism and the role of artists in popular fiction?,” raises the stakes of these rumina- culture shifted, thereby altering the need for, tions. This question points to Blumenthal’s In another example, the Foundation for In- and status of, artist interviews. The opening own struggle with creating fiction in the rep- dependent Video and Film (FIVF), Inc., in paragraph of a 1983 catalog of VDB ma- resentation of subjects, a struggle that also New York City hosted a 1983 event at the terials marks this shift, and the eclipse of informed the subject of her video art, mired Millennium Film Workshop, titled, “A Panel contemplative studio practice by the pres- in the misrepresentation of individuals and discussion on the state of independent sures of the art market and celebrity culture, groups.84 video distribution to non-broadcast markets.” felt passionately by Blumenthal and Hors- Blumenthal and Horsfield were invited to field. The co-directors state here that, “the Blumenthal and Horsfield’s awareness of speak as leaders in the field. In an effort to ‘cultural situation’ of the visual arts, is not, fiction within the shaping of the history of cultivate and enrich this developing effort as a rule, well received,” in part as a result contemporary art, and the interviewer’s role and discourse, FIVF organized this panel so of the separation of art from its audience in this construction, cannot be overstated. that aspiring video makers could “meet with through the rise of the successful careerist The urgency of this subject appeals to art some of the major distributors, learn what artist.80 This separation, the VDB’s mate- historians and artists alike since, as Iwona they have to offer and feed back to them rial argues, occurs since art criticism “has Blazwick has argued, the artist interview is what your concerns are in the current state been plagued by words” whose meanings an “important genre of art history and criti- of the art of video distribution.”76 Blumenthal are vacuous and ambivalent, or unstable “for cism” because it is “based on exchange, represented the VDB, alongside Gregory different people in different places at differ- contestations, and affirmation,” consequent- Miller of the Kitchen Distribution Service, ent times.”81 The OAA collection’s self-con- ly exhibiting how the “interviewer is [always] Lori Zippay (Electronic Arts Intermix), and scious attempt to “bridge the gap between inscribed into art history along with the Dara Birnbaum (video artist).77 Questions critical discourse and primary information” artist.”85 In an illuminating recollection of a potentially posed during the panel, as sug- in the early ‘80s, preserves significant cul- 1988 series of interviews with critic Coosje gested by program coordinator Isaac Jack- tural specificity.82 van Bruggen, Bruce Nauman attests to the son’s letter of invitation to participants, cov- significance of the art interview in the retell- ered a series of concerns: “How and why Responding to these interventions, by the ing of artistic process and intention. Nau- are tapes selected over others? What are early ‘80s the promotional materials for the man explains, “I would tell [van Bruggen] the advantages of using a distributor over OAA collection deliberately framed the inter- something that had been very important to self-distribution? What do you see as the view series as a corrective to the violence me, in terms of how to structure a perfor- difference between the distributors?”78 of prosopopeia (the act of speaking for mance or some art activity and she would While catering towards the practical and lo- others). Blumenthal and Horsfield regularly gistical coordinates of distribution, contest- grappled with this challenge and the strug- 83 Blumenthal Sketchbook, 1975, Video Data Bank Ar- ed definitions of ownership, efficiency, and gle shaped the OAA project. Notes written chive. 84 Before her untimely death in 1988, Lyn Blumenthal in the margins of Blumenthal’s sketchbook exhibited her work in numerous exhibitions at the Kitchen, 75 “At Home” promotional flyer, 1983. VDB Archive. attest to the duo’s consideration of such P.S. 1, the Biennale de Paris, the Museum of Contempo- 76 “Beyond the Bicycle: A Panel Discussion on the rary Art, and was a member of the Heresies collective. In State of Independent Video Distribution to Non-Broad- 1983, Artweek, critic Colin Gardner discussed Blumen- cast Markets,” Foundation for Independent Video and 79 Steve McCaffrey, “From Muse to Mousepad: In- thal’s tape, Social Studies (part I), a twenty minute-long Film, Inc. “FIVF’s June Video Program,” 1983, Flyer/Cor- formatics and the Avant-Garde,” in The Darkness of videotape, included in exhibition at Los Angeles Contem- respondence. Video Data Bank Archive. the Present: Poetics, Anachronism, and the Anomaly porary Exhibitions, alongside the work of Martha Rosler 77 “Beyond the Bicycle: A Panel Discussion on the (2012), 76. and Nancy Buchanan. See: Colin Gardner, “Addressing State of Independent Video Distribution to Non-Broad- 80 Introductory text to Video Tape Review, Video Data Political Issues,” Artweek Vol. 14, no. 36 (October 29, cast Markets,” 1983. Bank publication (Chicago: Video Data Bank, 1983): 1. 1983): n.p. Video Data Bank Archive. For a more com- 78 “Letter to Lyn Blumenthal from Isaac Jackson, Pro- 81 Introductory text, Video Tape Review, Video Data prehensive overview of Blumenthal’s work refer to the gram Coordinator,” Correspondence, 9 May 1983. Foun- Bank: 1. essays in the exhibition catalog Lyn Blumenthal: Force dation for Independent Video and Film, Inc. Video Data 82 Introductory text, Video Tape Review, Video Data of Vision (1989). Bank Archive. Bank: 1. 85 Blazwick, 26–27. 15

say: ‘Oh, but it wasn’t like that.’ I said: It’s Blumenthal and Horsfield’s efforts antici- come increasingly desensitized to the labor the way I remember it. So she calls what pated what has become a long-term con- of producing video portraits, and the shap- I did a ‘creative misreading or a creative versation surrounding the management of ing of informational hierarchies. Eclipsed by misunderstanding.”86 This notion of “creative information. Scholars and artists have strug- the ubiquitous nature of editing software misunderstanding” of information opens up gled with the question of documentation for that seamlessly alters digitally rendered in- an entirely different way of organizing or re- many years. Jeff Rothenberg writes on the terviews or TV episodes, most viewers to- assessing the types of information embed- scope of the problem surrounding the very day understand that the visual and symbolic ded within the forty-year old OAA archive, obsolescence of technology in his chapter, information of video documentation offers one that diverges from the privileging of “Avoiding Technological Quicksand,”88 while, artificial interfaces, rather than facts or au- “facts” and instead reminds us of the very in 2003, the University of California, Berke- thentic experiences. As savvy cultural con- slipperiness of memory and the impossibility ley Art Museum hosted a symposium titled, sumers, the acceptance of the non-reality of fixed histories. Though such a review falls “Archiving the Avant-Garde” to address of TV and films has become more and more beyond the scope of this essay, it serves as these questions and their ongoing saliency. ubiquitous. And yet, this apathy towards the a point of departure for reassessing the con- The symposium was organized around the cosmetics of visual culture increasingly ef- tent and potential types of information pre- central concern that without strategies for faces any shared sense of urgency to chal- served within the OAA collection as a whole. preservation, many modes of art making to- lenge such modes of presentation. day, such as Internet art, will be lost to future Though the voice of the interviewer has generations. Speakers presented papers Analyzing the modes of questioning, paths been edited out in many of the more recent addressing several questions as ‘answers,’ of circulation, and the significance of its OAA tapes, in many of the early recordings, raising concerns verging on the philosophi- uses, offers only a few points of entry into Horsfield’s voice can be heard. Alternatively, cal elements of immortality and human con- understanding the OAA collection as a re- as the handler of the Portapak, Blumenthal’s nection. They asked: “Will the future expe- source and model for transforming data aesthetic voice can be heard through the rience these works as physical traces and into knowledge. By reconsidering the sig- framing and camerawork. Beyond the OAA documentation? Emulated media artifacts? nificance of the VDB co-founders’ act of collection, Blumenthal also took control of Dynamic cultural events re-performed? All collecting spoken histories within their his- her own position as an interlocutor within of these?”89 The status of the artifact in art torical and cultural moment, we gain deeper the larger context of video documentation continues to be a main point of contention entry into the content of the OAA series as and its role within the art world and the when the preciousness of art versus the a portrait of much more than its collective academy. In 1985, only a few years before preciousness of artists opens up debate biographies and conversations. Through the her passing, Blumenthal chaired a panel at in museums, galleries, and art publications. lens of information sharing, then, the format the College Art Association’s annual confer- The privileging of the durable object as and distribution of the “artist interview” high- ence. The panel, titled “Video and the Edu- evidence exposes how institutions privilege lights potential forms of connectivity that cation of the Un-Artist,” made reference to certain forms of information over others—just restructure exchange between and across Allan Kaprow’s iconic essay from the early one component in the larger politics of dis- individuals and institutions. Alternatively, ‘70s, which addressed the becoming of tribution that the OAA series confronted in by reassessing the OAA collection within the Un-artist as a result of new information- the ‘70s and ‘80s. emerging debates on data management, sharing pressures. The panel co-chairs, in- we can better understand the collection’s cluding Martha Gever (of the Independent Conclusion: Recognizing the engagement with shifting definitions of “in- Foundation for Video and Film, Inc, NYC), Possibilities of Exchange formation” that have characterized cultural Catherine Lord (Cal Arts), Antonio Munta- notions of subjecthood over time, to better das (Center for Advanced Visual Studies, It is not surprising that viewers today tend appreciate how this act reinvested the “in- MIT), Robert Rosen (National Center for to overlook the larger political implications terview” with its original sensibility—the en- Film and Video Preservation, AFI), and Mar- or social dynamics always operating within deavor of truly seeing one another. tha Rosler (then an art professor at Rutgers an interview. As consumers of webcams, University) updated Kaprow’s conversation. YouTube videos, and television, we’ve be- We must ask ourselves, moving forward, The panel sought to address “the relations what other kinds of information are embed- between technology, social institutions, and ded within the format of the videotaped art- 87 88 Jeff Rothenberg, Avoiding Technological Quicksand: culture” at this new historical juncture. Finding a Viable Technical Foundation for Digital Pres- ist interview as opposed to art criticism or ervation. Council on Library and Information Resources. television programming? How else has the 86 Chris Dercon, “Keep Taking It Apart: An Interview January 1998. Available online: http://www.clir.org/pubs/ “interview” form constituted our understand- with Bruce Nauman,” Parkett 10 (September 1986), reports/rothenberg/contents.html. reprinted in Bruce Nauman (London: Hayward Gallery, 89 Press release, “Archiving the Avant-Garde: Preserv- ing or recognition of cultural participation 1998), 100. Discussed in Martha Buskirk, The Contin- ing Digital/Media Art,” University of California, Berkeley and civic responsibility? How have histori- gent Object of Contemporary Art (Cambridge, MA: MIT Art Museum & Pacific Film Archive. Event took place on cal processes transformed the interview Press, 2003), 224. 12 November 2003. Release accessed online 6 June 87 CAA press release for panel. Session 9:30 am Sat- 2013. http://www.bampfa.berkeley.edu/about/preservin- into an obligation and object for art histori- urday, February 16, 1985. VDB archives. gavantgarde. cal discourse and collecting? What myths 16

are preserved? What hopes? What kinds haunt our political system forty years later. has more to do with something someone of processes should artists, activists, stu- As a result, social scientists, scholars, and loves.” 92 Although the word ‘love’ may seem dents, and scholars document now? And activists have more recently made a case far from a discourse about political efficacy, with what kinds of technology and methods for interventions that, although seemingly civic engagement, and its visual manifesta- of distribution? small, have the potential to evade conven- tions, inquiry as care (and care as inquiry) tional cultural law and alter the ground of po- lies at the center of artistic pursuit and our The artist interview tapes within the OAA litical intervention by operating on a “lower responsibility as engaged cultural consum- collection invite us to reconsider the histori- frequency.”91 By recognizing how historical ers. Hedy Weiss’s 1982 description of the cal weight of the “artist interview” as a com- encounters are tied not only to the monu- OAA collection, mentioned at the fore, as plex, ideologically, and culturally conditioned mental impact of wars and economic crises, the video archive’s “heart” is not accidental object that accrues value and meaning over but also to intimate moments of resistance, but entirely apt.93 The OAA collection offers time. It also asks that we delve deeper into community building, and ephemeral forms us a better sense of the textured complexity how this rich history of documentation and of expression, it becomes possible to track that links responsibility and art through the information has shaped the study of art as shifts in methods of resistance across a form of the artist interview and its accumula- it exists and continues to invent audiences much wider spectrum of potential agency. tion in a video archive. The On Art and Art- and publics today. Poignantly, the very mis- In effect, by better understanding how the ists interview archive also stands as a his- sion of VDB to “improve equity in informa- “artist interview” and its collection and distri- torical and cultural portrait, one that not only tion access and create ongoing educational bution functions as a model for inquiry and maps the trajectory of relational encounters dialogue” resonates beyond art discourse, engagement, we can continue to unpack from the ‘70s to today, but also provides as this essay has contended, into the eth- these structures and undertake the ongoing entry into the intimate process of radical ics of engagement.90 Speaking with one assessment of the value of one’s ideas in thinking over the last forty years. It is critical another and documenting these encounters relation to the ideas of others. that we continue to sit down with the OAA for future viewers and listeners delineates collection, and attend to it and each other, in a form of activism with social and political I believe that the key to sustaining such order to understand the potential of various consequences. endeavors can be found in Blumenthal and moments of exchange. We must continue Horsfield’s original proposal for the VDB, this act of honoring and collecting conver- Blumenthal and Horsfield’s OAA project re- mentioned earlier. As part of their applica- sations, no matter how seemingly small or minds us that the questions initiated by lead- tion to oversee the very small collection of subtle the gesture may at first appear to be. ers in the video community, in the shadows SAIC videotapes in 1976, they wrote, “It of the televised Vietnam War and civil rights 92 Original proposal, dated March 31, 1976. Video Data Bank Archive. and feminist movements, bring to the fore 91 Two methodological blue prints for this endeavor, 93 Weiss, 10. the question of how media documentation among many others, include: Paul Gilroy, Darker than reinforces cultural ideologies as a means of Blue: On the Moral Economies of Black Atlantic Culture For insightful comments on previous drafts of this essay, (Cambridge, Mass.: Belknap Press of Harvard University I am indebted to Abina Manning, Lindsay Bosch, Kate social control. These concerns continue to Press, 2010); Gilroy. The Black Atlantic: Modernity and Horsfield, Antawan Byrd, Jordana Cox, Elliot Heilman, Double Consciousness (Cambridge: Harvard University and Brynn Hatton. I am also incredibly grateful to the Press, 1993); Fred Moten. In the Break: The Aesthetics staff of the Video Data Bank for generously sharing their 90 “Mission Statement,” Video Data Bank. http://vdb. of the Black Radical Tradition (Minneapolis: University of workspace and institutional knowledge with me over the org/content/mission. Minnesota Press, 2003), among others. duration of this research project.

Video Data Bank School of the Art T 312.345.3550 Institute of Chicago F 312.541.8073 112 S Michigan Ave [email protected] Chicago, IL 60603 www.vdb.org