Alternative Convention: Top Value Television's Four More Years September 8– October 9, 2021 Works by

Top Value Television (TVTV)

Curated by Eli Kerr

This exhibition is produced as part of the requirements for the MVS degree in Curatorial Studies at the John H. Daniels Faculty of Architecture, Landscape, and Design, University of Toronto.

We gratefully acknowledge the continued support of the Reesa Greenberg Curatorial Studies Award and International Travel Fund.

2021 MVS Curatorial Studies Projects

Open Windows Curated by Talia Golland October 27–November 20, 2021 Justina M. Barnicke Gallery Alternative Convention: Top Value Television’s Four More Years

Cover: TVTV, Four More Years Scrapbook, 1972. Courtesy of the Berkeley Art Museum Pacific Film Archive.

Right: TVTV, Four More Years (video still), 1972. ½ video 61:28. Courtesy of Electronic Arts Intermix.

In the summer of 1972, against the backdrop anti-establishment roots. This agile outfit was over 25 years old. TVTV’s crew had women Alternative Convention foregrounds TVTV’s of the , the countercultural video would allow the group to continue working operating the camera and directing interviews. Four More Years as an object-lesson to consider collective Top Value Television (TVTV) was on a project-by-project basis as it aspired to They wore denim instead of suits. The men had the legacies and implications of Guerilla founded by Allen Rucker, Michael Shamberg, produce fresh and youthful programs for both beards and long hair, and their unassuming Television, considering both the potentials Tom Weinberg, Hudson Marquez, and Megan public and network television. cameras provided a ruse that allowed them to and limits for artists and activists seeking to Williams. TVTV emerged out of a fertile period be perceived as dismissible amateurs. subvert mainstream information ecologies when portable video recording systems, such In 1971, the year prior to the formation of through participation in them. Featuring as the Sony Portapak, first appeared on the TVTV, Raindance Corporation member With official press credentials in hand and a montage of disparate archival materials, consumer market. In 1967–1968, Marshall Michael Shamberg published Guerilla a crew of 20, TVTV’s lightweight equipment the exhibition also focuses on shifting McLuhan was a guest professor at Fordham Television, a meta-manual and how-to guide allowed them to navigate the convention technological platforms, highlighting TVTVs University in New York City, and it was through for independent video production. Clearly floor and infiltrate the processes of politics alternative coverage through remediation as it McLuhan’s research assistant, video artist modelled after Stewart Brand’s Whole Earth and television. Their shooting philosophy brings digitized files back onto 1970s television Paul Ryan, that Portapak equipment first came Catalog, which had published its last issue was to point its cameras in the opposite sets, juxtaposing ’s CBS into the hands of the artists who would form only a few months earlier, Guerilla Television direction to the networks to capture the stories program of the 1972 Republican Convention the countercultural thinktank Raindance paired illustrations and instructional texts with that the mainstream media overlooked. with TVTV’s alternative coverage. Corporation in 1969. From 1970–1974 Shamberg’s polemical critique of television’s Correspondents would interview common Raindance published Radical Software, the archaic industrial and corporate structures. people and get within inches of Ronald TVTV and the practitioners of Guerilla first journal dedicated to the new technology Encouraging activist video collectives to Reagan and . In an act of Television envisioned a future where of video. Radical Software solidified an active start up around the country, the publication detournement, TVTV would interview the video would allow civics and prosumer community that brought together theorists, attempted to distill and popularize the ideas of media—and report on their reporting. They media to merge as a political currency in a practitioners, and artists who were thinking Radical Software in book form, while the term covered the neglected story of the antiwar communicative democracy. Nearly 50 years and making at the intersections of media, Guerilla Television—adapted from McLuhan’s protestors outside the convention center, later, this vision lives on in the emergence philosophy, and politics presented by video. “Guerilla Media”—became the name of the even sneaking some of them in on borrowed and predominance of the internet and niche genre of alternative documentary that press passes. participatory media, making newly visible TVTV can be thought of as a meta-collective. TVTV’s work would exemplify. the psychic, social, and structural impacts Members of the New York–based collective TVTV’s productions presented innovative of the shifting, if not disappearing television Videofreex, Raindance Corporation, and the The collective’s first tape, 1972’s The and decentralized ways of making television. environment. San Francisco art and architecture group Ant World’s Largest TV Studio, covered that Its countercultural techniques and verité Farm often worked on TVTV productions— June’s Democratic National Convention documentary style also collapsed the some were also founding members. Over 30 and was followed by Four More Years, distance between journalism and subversive different video makers would work on TVTV which documented the Republican Party’s entertainment, foreshadowing reality TV and productions before the core group disbanded renomination of . TVTV was a the citizen journalism and activist tactical in 1979. While TVTV became incorporated as departure from the newsmen of “Big Three” media movements of the 1990s, all while a freelance production company in 1973, it networks—ABC, NBC, and CBS—that dictated being integral to the shift in consciousness attempted to preserve the non-hierarchical the status quo for how reporting transpired on that demanded the democratization of the organizing principals of its collectivist and the convention floor. No member of the group American mediascape at that time. Curator’s Acknowledgments Staff Visiting the Art Museum

This exhibition could not have been Barbara Fischer, Executive Director/ Justina M. Barnicke Gallery Tuesday Noon–5pm realized without Barbara Fischer’s guidance, Chief Curator 7 Hart House Circle Wednesday Noon–8pm curiosity, and unwavering support. My Sarah Robayo Sheridan, Curator Toronto, Ontario M5S 3H3 Thursday Noon–5pm deepest gratitude goes to her as well as the Mik Migwans, Curator, Indigenous Art 416.978.8398 Friday Noon–5pm Art Museum team: Esther McAdam, Rebecca John G. Hampton, Adjunct Curator Saturday Noon–5pm Gimmi, Marianne Rellin, Maureen Smith, and Seika Boye, Adjunct Curator University of Toronto Art Centre Sunday Closed Alyssa Matheson. Many thanks to the Visual Daniella Sanader, Digital Content Curator 15 King’s College Circle Monday Closed Studies faculty, Luis Jacob, Mitchell Akiyama, Maureen Smith, Business Coordinator Toronto, Ontario M5S 3H7 and Charles Stankievech, and my enduring Heather Darling Pigat, Collections Manager 416.978.1838 Closed on statutory holidays. peers Ameen, Talia, Simon, Sophia, Matt, and Esther Simmonds-MacAdam, Exhibition Admission is FREE. Oscar. Coordinator [email protected] Marianne Rellin, Communications Assistant artmuseum.utoronto.ca For information about class tours and Thank you to Allen Rucker and Megan Melody Lu, Front of House Coordinator @artmuseumuoft group bookings, visit our website. Williams of TVTV and Skip Blumberg Hana Nikcevic, Public Programs and Outreach of Videofreex for your inspiring Assistant work, encoura