Playback: Reactivating 1970’s Community Video Edward Webb-Ingall Royal Holloway, University of London PhD, Media Arts 1 Declaration of Authorship I, Edward Webb-Ingall, hereby declare that this thesis and the work presented in it is entirely my own. Where I have consulted the work of others, this is always clearly stated. 24th July 2018 2 Abstract: In the early 1970s, activists and community groups began to use newly available video recording technology to produce what came to be known as ‘community video’. The capacity to record and instantly playback video material enabled groups previously ignored or misrepresented by mainstream media to develop their own means of self-representation. Since its inception, community video has largely been considered as ephemeral and remained at the margins of moving image histories. This practice-based thesis challenges the marginalisation of 1970s community video through a combination of two approaches. First, the reappraisal of community video projects from the 1970s will describe the context out of which ‘community video’ first developed and align it with other similar approaches to non-fiction moving production. I then use an analysis of primary sources to draw out a methodological approach specific to 1970s community video. Second, I consider the contemporary relevance of 1970s community video practices through the ‘reactivation’ of both the production methods used to make community videos in the 1970s and the videos produced as a result of them. Referring to a practice of both restoration and of setting-in-motion, the term ‘reactivation’ provides a useful metaphor for the reflexive process that I use to draw comparisons between community videos produced in the 1970s and those videos produced during a contemporary community video project. This combination of reactivation with historical analysis will be used to develop an aesthetic language to describe the particular sensory and perceptual quality of videos produced by 3 community groups, as well as their uses, pleasures, and limitations. This language helps to understand and articulate what defines community videos and to evaluate how the processes that characterise this specific approach to non-fiction moving image production continue to provide translatable and adaptable methods of collaborative video making and representation. 4 Acknowledgments: I would like to thank my supervisors Mandy Merck, for taking a chance on my PhD proposal and who has since worked tirelessly to develop this thesis into what it is today, and Tony Dowmunt, for sharing his knowledge and experience as a community videomaker and for his ongoing support and enthusiasm throughout my PhD project. I am grateful for the financial support of a full scholarship from TECHNE and the administrative support from the staff in the Department of Media Arts at Royal Holloway, University of London, which made it possible for me to undertake this doctoral project and travel abroad to present at conferences and carry out research. Throughout this project I have been fortunate enough to call upon the memories and reflections of Thomas Waugh, Carry Gorney, Ron Orders, Caroline Goldie, Tony Wickert, Peter Bloch, Keith Griffiths, Andy Porter, Heinz Nigg, John ‘Hoppy’ Hopkins, Sue Hall and Su Braden, who were kind of enough to answer all of my questions and encourage me to ask more. I am also thankful to Ben Cook and Maria Palacios Cruz at LUX, Lucy Reynolds at MIRAJ and Laura Mulvey and Sue Clayton who invited me to develop my thoughts into written and published works and to Massimiliano Mollona, Nina Wakeford, Michael Birchall, Gail Pickering, Open School East and Margaret Salmon who invited me to share my research and try out my ideas with their students. I was lucky enough to have Dr Nicolas Helm Grovas and Dr Clarissa Jacob provide advice and moral support as my co-supervisees while at Royal Holloway. 5 The second half of this PhD would not have been possible were it not for the guidance of Louise Shelley and all of the staff at The Showroom as well as The People Make Videos gang; Birdman, Dirmuid, Ismail, Jessica, Kazi Noor Jahan and Robert. I was lucky enough to work with Rosie Eveleigh to produce all of the incredible graphic design and typography that were produced as part of the People Make Videos Project. It was my friends who always showed interest in my research and supported me to finish this project; Claire Louise Staunton, Laura Guy, Charlotte Prodger, Jamie Crewe, Mason Leaver Yap, Astrid Goldsmith, Markland Starkie, Stephen Robinson, Holly Wood, Holly White, Rehana Zaman, Olivia Plender, Elsa Richardson, Irene Revell, Conal McStravick, Naomi Pearce, and lastly, Robbie Ellen who has only known me for the duration of my PhD but whose support will last a lifetime. Elements of this PhD have been presented and developed at Debout! Feminism and Video Making in France and Beyond, London, Queen Mary, University of London, 2014; The Annual Conference for the Society of Cinema and Media Studies, Montreal, 2015; LUX Blog: writer in residence, London, 2015; European Network for Cinema and Media Studies Alternative Film/Video Research Forum: Documentary Intersections, Belgrade, 2016; Starting to Happen: A screening and discussion, celebrating 40 years of radical British cinema, Arnolfini, Bristol, 2016; Crisis Of Overproduction: Art On The Margins, TATE, Liverpool, 2016; People Make Videos: A Manual for Making Community Videos. London, Showroom, 2016; Drawing Lines across History: Reactivation and Annotation. Liverpool Biennial, 2016; The Video Show: A festival of independent video, Moving Image Research Journal, 2017; The Technologies and Practices of Community Video, in, Other Cinemas: Politics, 6 Culture and British Experimental Film in the 1970s. Ed. Laura Mulvey and Sue Clayton. IB Tauris, 2017. 7 Contents: Declaration of Authorship …………………………………………………………. 2 Abstract ……………………………………………………………………………... 3 Acknowledgements …………………………………………………………………. 5 Illustrations and Supporting Materials …………………...……………………... 12 Introduction ……………………………………………………………………….. 14 An Incomplete History …………………………………………...………… 15 Rewind, Stop, Play, and Reactivate ………………………………….…….. 17 Community Video, Just Another Kind of Documentary …………………… 21 Section One: A History of Community Video …………………………………... 24 1. Early Experiments with Video ………………………………………………… 28 How Video Became Portable ……………………………………………..... 28 The Arts Labs ………………………………………………………………. 36 The Camera Enters the Community ………………………………………... 39 The Institute for Research in Art and Technology (IRAT) ………………… 43 Cybernetics …………………………………………………………………. 46 Television, from Invaders to Invited ……………………………………..… 48 Conservatives, Cable and Community ………..……………………………. 57 2. Insiders and Outsiders …………………………………………………………. 61 Community Action Centre and West London Media Workshop …………... 62 The influence of North America: Liberation Films, Challenge for Change and The Newsreel Collective …………………………………………………… 70 8 3. The Arts Council, Community Art and Community Video (1969-1980) …… 84 Recognition and Rifts: Community Video and Video Art …………………. 97 A Changing Landscape (1975-1980) ……………………………………... 108 The (Resistible) Rise of Video ……………………………………………. 111 Conclusion: The end of the 1970s ………………………………………………. 118 Methodology: Drawing out a methodology from 1970s community video ....... 130 The ‘Insider’ Approach …………………………………………… 132 The ‘Hybrid’ Approach …………………………………………… 138 The ‘Outsider’ Approach ………………………………………..... 141 Invited into a Community ……………………………………….... 143 The Structure of a Community Video Project ……………………. 146 Playback and Discussion Screenings ……………………………... 150 The Introduction of Portable Video Recording Technology ……… 154 The Context of the Project ………………………………………... 157 Section Two: Reactivation of Techniques and Practices of 1970s Community Video in a Contemporary Context ……………………………………………… 163 1. People Make Videos …………………………………………………………... 163 Background for Case Study…………………………………....................... 163 Outline of Project ………………………………………...……………….. 164 Outcomes ……………...…………………………………………………... 164 9 Specific Approach ……………...…………………………………………. 165 Duration of a Project ……………...………………………………………. 166 Entering a Community …………...…………………………………...…... 172 Forming a Group ………………………………………………………….. 176 Trigger Video and Discussion Screening …………………………………..180 Introducing a Video Camera ……………………………………………… 184 The end of phase one ……………………………………………………… 191 2. Playback ……………...………………………………………………………... 193 3. Community Video and Aesthetics ……………...…………………………….. 206 Articulating Community Video Aesthetics ……………………………….. 207 The Aesthetics of Outsider Video Projects ………….……………………. 212 Outsider to Insider ………………………………………………………… 216 Mise en Scène and Liminality in Community Video ……….………….…. 227 4. What remains of 1970s Community Video? ………………………………… 234 Making Room for ‘Cynicism’ in Utopia ………………………………….. 236 Processes of Being Seen …………………………………………………... 243 Absorption, Appropriation and Hybrid Images …………………………… 251 Dissonance and Polyphony ……………………………………………….. 255 The Personal and the Political …………………………………………...... 258 Hybridity and the Production of Hybrid Images ………………………….. 263 10 Outcomes and Intentions: Evaluating the Continued Efficacy of 1970s Community Video Practices …………………………………………………..… 267 Conclusion ………………….………………………………………………….…. 284 Appendix …………………………..……………………………………………... 287 Bibliography ……………………………………………………………………... 291 Filmography ……………………………………………………………………… 305 11 Illustrations and Supporting Materials: