The Video Show

(1975). Exhibition
catalogue. London:
Serpentine Gallery.
Courtesy of the
Serpentine Gallery.

52 
Moving Image Review & Art Journal · Volume 6 · Numbers 1 & 2
© 2017 Intellect Ltd Article. English language. doi: 10.1386/miraj.6.1-2.52_1

The Video Show: A Festival of

Independent Video

Ed Webb-Ingall
Royal Holloway, University of London

abstract keywords
the Video Show: A Festival of Independent Video and the events that followed this video
exhibition, which took place at the Serpentine Gallery, London, 1975, will provide an community video
historical context to consider the ongoing and complex relationship between art and video art
activism, which surrounded the use of video since its arrival in the United Kingdom in Serpentine Gallery
the early 1970s. ‘Artist video’ on the one hand and ‘community video’ on the other, will be London Video Arts
framed by the actions of London Video Arts (LVA), who formed to support artists work- Association of Video
ing with video and the Association of Video Workers (AVW), who formed to support  Workers
people working with video on a not-for-profit basis. activism

Video – as a medium distinct from standard broadcast television – began

with the introduction of the first 1/2” portable camera/recorder in America
in 1967. Since then TV making has become more accessible to people outside
the industry, and an alternative media movement has emerged. Independent
organisations have produced programmes about people and events neglected
by the mass media. Video has proved itself as a relatively low cost direct means
of recording social and political issues. At the same time it has attracted many 1. The Video Show, Press
artists, excited by the possibilities of a new medium. Some have been chiefly Notice, Arts Council of Great
concerned with the potential of television as an art form in itself.1 Britain, 1975.

53
Ed Webb-Ingall
2. Britain’s first video-centred
event was most likely the 24
hour Drama in a Wide Media
Context, screened at London’s
Arts Lab in 1968. A year later
a one-off video event was
organized in 1969 as part of
the Camden Arts Festival. Like
The Video Show, it included the
screening of both European
and British videotapes and
the opportunity for visitors to
experiment with newly avail-
able portable video recording
technology.
3. Some paper ephemera
remains in the arts council
archives held at the V&A
archives, but many of the
performance and participa-
tory works have not been
reconstructed since and
no documentation of them
could be found at the point of
researching and writing this
article. However, as an outcome
of my research, there was an
event at the British Film Insti-
tute in June 2017 to revisit this
exhibition, with a screening
of a number of works shown
and a panel discussion with
a number of the artists who
were involved. Video Show: A
Journey into Old New Media,
22 June, co-organized with the
London Community Video
Archive and William Fowler,
curator of Artist Moving Image
at the BFI.
54   Moving Image Review & Art Journal
This quote is taken from the press release for The Video Show: A Festival of Independent
Video, which ran from the 1 to 26 May 1975 at the Serpentine Gallery, London. The
Video Show was the first exhibition to present videos made by national and interna-
tional artists, activists and community groups alongside one another by an arts insti-
tution in the United Kingdom.2 It represents a moment in the history of UK video
culture when diverse approaches to newly available portable video recording tech-
nology were shown together and showcases the variety of moving image works and
interdisciplinary projects made by individuals and groups experimenting with the
potential of this new medium in the mid-1970s.
This exhibition and the events that followed will provide an historical context
to consider the ongoing and complex relationship between art and activism, which
surrounded the use of video since its arrival in the United Kingdom in the early 1970s.
The complicated and shifting relationship between ‘artist video’ on the one hand and
‘community video’ on the other, will be framed by the actions of London Video Arts
(LVA), who formed to support artists working with video and the Association of
Video Workers (AVW), who formed to support people working with video on a not-
for-profit basis.
I have spoken with a number of artists who were involved in the exhibition and the
distinction between these two approaches was less explicit at the time and seemed of
little concern. However, reviews and articles subsequently written about the exhibition
produced a distinct and oppositional position between these two approaches. The way
in which the LVA and the AVW distinguished their use of video from one another in
order to receive recognition and support for their continued use of video reinforced
this division, and was counter to the utopian convergence evidenced by the range of
work on show at The Video Show. I will conclude by explaining how this began to
inform the reception of two distinct video practices by the arts and film institutions
that these groups were addressing.
What remains from The Video Show?
The exhibition at the Serpentine only ran for one month and since then it has largely
been forgotten, receiving little recognition. One of the handful of reviews written
about the show makes this clear in its opening paragraph, which describes the exhibi-
tion as having been ‘almost completely ignored’ and suggests the ‘show itself received
no coverage’ (Kidel 1975: 646–47). A survey of the work shown in the exhibition itself
has proved challenging as a large proportion of it is no longer in circulation. This is
due to a combination of factors: the newness of video meant that methods for pres-
ervation and conservation were undeveloped and half-inch tape stock, if not stored
correctly, is subject to rotting; the capacity to record over and delete footage meant
that some tapes included in the exhibition were subsequently used for other video
projects; the work in the exhibition that made use of live feeds and closed circuit set
ups focused on process, performance and audience participation in order for it to be
activated and, therefore, only existed for the duration of the exhibition.3
As a result of this, my analysis of the exhibition is based on a number of articles
written about the exhibition, including two by David Hall. Hall was also on the cura-
torial board for the exhibition, due to his early adoption and innovation with video.
He began working with video in 1972 and in that same year he established the video,
film and sound workshop at Maidstone Art College. In 1967, Hall’s practice shifted
from sculpture to the production of film and photographic works. Seven of Hall’s film
works were shown on Scottish Television as interruptions to regular broadcasting.
His engagement with television can be understood as a precursor to his work with
 The Video Show

video. Both evidence his interest in extending out of the space of the gallery to engage
members of the public in the activation of his work.
Alongside reviews, I will also use reports and funding applications written and
submitted following the exhibition for the continued support of video production.4
As is often the case, the archival materials that remain in circulation are limited to
those that originate from a largely art world, ‘establishment’, context and there is
very little documentation or reflection of the work on show made by community
groups and activists. In order to address this, I have carried out contemporary inter-
views with Peter Bloch, the exhibition’s outside consultant, and contacted exhibiting
artists who were primarily involved in the production of videos with, for and about
community groups. I invited them to reflect critically on their involvement in the
exhibition. However, their memories of the exhibition and subsequent events point
less to an oppositional split between video art and community video and, instead,
highlight the myriad ways video was being used. They explained how they were less
concerned with establishing distinctions and definitions of their practice; instead
the outcomes were contingent on the specific group with whom they were working.
Indeed, their lack of interest in such distinctions contributed to what I will argue was
their marginalization.
The only remaining documentation of all of the works on show in the exhibition is
the exhibition catalogue. The catalogue is made up of a document folder containing
over 170 loose-leaf photocopied sheets, each of which was individually designed by an
artist or group presenting their work in the show. This mode of presentation reflects
the experimental, ‘do-it-yourself ’ aesthetic of much early work using video and makes
manifest the diversity of approaches taken up by video practitioners at the time. I will
explain the development of the exhibition, and use the exhibition catalogue to attempt
to describe a variety of works on show to reflect on the position of this new medium
and consider its myriad uses and applications in the mid-1970s. This survey of works
presented in the exhibition will evidence a number of common factors as well as the
marked differences in the aims and attitudes of video practitioners in the UK.

The making of The Video Show

The introductory essay in the exhibition catalogue, written by the director of the
Serpentine Gallery, Sue Grayson, describes video as a medium that stands in oppo-
sition to ‘static art forms’ and that demands to be presented under specific circum-
stances which are incompatible with ‘quieter art forms’ (Grayson 1975: 1). For example,
the catalogue explains how ‘it needs to be seen and heard in reasonably controlled
conditions’ (Grayson 1975: 1). This suggests that until The Video Show there was the
expectation from art galleries and institutions that moving image work needed to be
seen in isolation, in darkened rooms and with comfortable seats. The specific technol-
ogy to playback videos was still relatively new, making it expensive, scarce and difficult
to access. The various and multiple uses of video included those works viewed on
monitors with a soundtrack and process driven or performance work that relied on
the artist’s or the audience’s participation in order to be activated. This meant that such
an exhibition was difficult for a gallery to conceptualize and present.
Grayson’s essay also suggests that the increased use of video among artists and in
the context of ‘community experiments’ (1975: 1) was the motivation for curating a
‘comprehensive survey of world video, as well as a first opportunity to see the variety of
work which had been undertaken in England over the last few years’ (1975: 1). This was 4. Submitted to the British
further confirmed in an interview with Peter Bloch in 2017. Bloch, an eminent London- Film Institute and The Arts
based distributor of experimental film in the 1970s, describes how the exhibition at Council of Great Britain.

www.intellectbooks.com   55
Ed Webb-Ingall
5. Top Value Television.
6. Before the advent of digital
video US video (NTSC/525)
was incompatible with UK
(PAL/625) playback equipment.
The Twenty-Four Frames
distribution catalogue listed
hire costs for the video and the
playback equipment (video
deck and monitor).
7. The exhibition was
originated by The Arts Council,
who provided the majority of
the funding, while The Serpen-
tine provided curatorial and
organizational support.
56   Moving Image Review & Art Journal
the Serpentine took place due to an increase in video production across the arts, and
specifically an early interest by the Arts Council in the future of video.
Bloch had spent much of the late 1960s and early 1970s collecting and distributing
American experimental film in Europe. In 1972, after giving a presentation on experi-
mental film at California Institute of the Arts, he was first introduced to video and was
made aware of its potential for small scale moving image manipulation.  On that same
visit to California, the early American video pioneer Michael Shamberg informed
Bloch about the work of radical news producers TVTV5 and their video project ‘The
World’s Largest TV Studio’. Bloch returned to the United Kingdom with distribution
rights for this work through his company Twenty-Four Frames and purchased the
equipment to enable playback in Europe.6 In September 1973, two years prior to the
Video Show, Bloch co-programmed ‘A Festival of Independent Avant Garde Film’ at
the National Film Theatre in London. Following the festival, Bloch met with the Arts
Council of Great Britain, and together they began work on a similar festival for experi-
mental and independent video. This became the show at The Serpentine.
The Arts Council decided that the Serpentine Gallery would be an ideal location
for the show and Sue Grayson, the Serpentine’s curator, assembled a steering commit-
tee to plan the event. Due to Bloch’s interest in experimental video and his knowledge
of artist video networks in Europe and the United States, he was employed as the
Outside Consultant. He was tasked with the job of collecting much of the material that
would be shown at the exhibition and for sourcing most of the video playback equip-
ment. In March of 1974, Grayson invited video artist David Hall to be on the steer-
ing committee, along with Stuart Hood, professor of film and television at the Royal
College of Art, who was tasked with organizing a series of parallel discussion events,
and finally Clive Scolley, of community arts group Interaction. It was their job to ‘agree
on a framework and structure for the exhibition […] and advise the Arts Council on
the best form for such an ambitious project’ (Grayson 1974).7
Bloch makes clear the influence Hall and he had on what was finally exhibited and
the tension between each of them on where to place the emphasis. As well as the video
work that was included as part of the open call, Bloch describes how Hall favoured
‘conceptual artist video’ (Bloch 2017), while he preferred American and European
independent and experimental video that ‘pushed the limits of what was possible with
this new technology’ (Bloch 2017). Bloch expressed his motivations for participating
in the exhibition as follows:
In 1975 most British audiences had not been exposed to independent video; it
was my intention to provide visitors with an opportunity to see a wide range
of things done by a variety of grass roots organisers and conceptual artists that
didn’t look like what they were used to seeing on TV. (2017)
The ‘wide range’ that Bloch refers to is indicative of the variety of video work being
produced at the time and was shown at The Video Show. Bloch, like other video prac-
titioners, was interested in the way that the visual quality and presentation of video on
monitors made it familiar in its look and feel to television. However, the work on show
was different in its visual style and content to what was being broadcast on television at
the time. There was the idea among artists and activists engaging with this newly avail-
able technology that this combination would, in turn, encourage audiences to reflect
critically on what they were used to seeing on their own televisions.
The exhibition’s steering committee sought to emphasize the unique processes
that this new portable video technology engendered by inviting ‘all independent tape
makers working in Britain’ (Grayson 1975: 1) to show up to an hour of their work. With
only a small proportion of this work having been screened in public previously, there
was an open submission process and the exhibition consisted of over ‘100 hours of
 The Video Show

tape from different sources’ (Grayson 1975: 1). It was the first time many video practi-
tioners working with video in the United Kingdom could meet and watch each other’s
work. One exhibiting artist, David Critchley, described it as a ‘revelation’ (Knight and
Thomas 2011: 104). The exhibition catalogue distinguishes the work on show as ‘both
artists and political/community video work’ (Knight and Thomas 2011: 104). I will
expand on distinctions such as this, which were made frequently in discussions prior
to the exhibition and subsequently in various reviews and reports.

Process and playback

The exhibition provided a platform to showcase the specific and largely unfamiliar
potential of video, with an emphasis on instant playback and live feedback. A second
essay in the exhibition catalogue by John Howkins, a media and broadcasting poli-
cy specialist, highlights the specific recognition the exhibition gave to the medium
specificity of video and the way it was unique and distinct from film and television
production. Howkins goes on to draw attention to the significant impact of the capac-
ity to record and playback footage immediately. He describes the way many video
practitioners did not focus on the production of complete and finished videos, of the
kind one might expect from broadcast television. Instead he explains that: ‘Video
people concentrate on personal moments of feedback. They don’t use process as a
secret preliminary to the performance, but as the show itself ’ (Howkins 1975: 1). These
include the ‘live qualities’ of video, including the capacity for live feedback and instant
playback. The focus on process over the completion of finished videos would also have
been due to limited access to what would have been rudimentary editing facilities.
Most editing was carried out in camera or else through storyboarding. There was also
a focus on audience participation with the commissioning of a ‘series of closed circuit
installations and live performances’, (Howkins 1975: 1) where visitors to the gallery
could interact with over twenty different video works on display over the course of
the exhibition.
One example of video’s capacity for live playback and audience participation is
demonstrated by community media group Interaction, who used their ‘community
media van’ to facilitate ‘participatory video games’. These involved the audience taking
part in physical exercises that invited them to engage with the portable video tech-
nology in order to see footage of themselves played back on monitors attached to a
converted van. The involvement of the audience in the production of a video was a
common feature in the early use of video. It took advantage of the capacity for live
feedback and presented video as a two-way method of communication in opposition
to broadcast television.
While Interaction demonstrated the social and collective potential of video, involv-
ing participants in an act of collaborative self- representation, video artist Brian Hoey,
who presented ‘VIDEVENT’, focused on the individual by constructing a reflexive
relationship between the audience and the video technology. His work took advantage
of the possibility to create a closed circuit participatory video system in the gallery,
this positioned video in his words, as a ‘medium which links the behaviour of the
artefact to that of its audience, so producing an interactive system in which the behav-
iour of each of the constituent elements is largely dependent upon the others actions’
(Hoey 1975). This work focuses the attention of the audience/participant on their rela-
tionship to video as a technology that can instantly record and playback an image
of themselves, the appearance and presentation of the subject can then be electroni-
cally modified in real time. The installation positions the audience/participant as an
observed subject, whose image can be subsumed and manipulated, as opposed to an

www.intellectbooks.com   57
Ed Webb-Ingall
8. The Labour government’s
drive to rebuild London during
the late 1960s meant the area
where Hopkins lived, Prince
of Wales Crescent in Camden,
North London, was home
to 280 squatters and became
known as ‘Squat-city’ (Roberts
2008).
58   Moving Image Review & Art Journal
active participant, with agency, in the work on show by Interaction. Hoey’s text from
the catalogue proposes that such technological interventions, made possible by video,
function to ‘integrate the audience into the information’ (1975).
The different uses of video
These two works illustrate the distinction that would later be articulated by individual
artists producing videos and video installations and community video practitioners
working with community groups to encourage activism through self-representation.
The former tended to focus on the medium of video itself, making use of live play-
back on monitors to produce either introspection and intimacy in the form of self-
reflective, diaristic modes, or else to make use of the audience to activate their video
experiments. Community video practitioners also made use of the capacity to record
and instantly playback moving images. Instead, they used it to initiate collaborative
projects that encouraged participants to develop new modes of self-representation,
specific to the subjects located in front of and behind the camera.
For activist and video pioneer John ‘Hoppy’ Hopkins, whose work featured in
the exhibition, video was a medium that offered a new range of cultural and politi-
cal expression. One of the few reviews of the exhibition that describes works in the
show made by community groups makes specific reference to the work of Hopkins.
The article describes Hopkins as ‘the medium’s foremost champion in Britain’. It goes
on to describe his work on show as ‘social/counter-cultural reportage’ (Rayns 1975: 8).
Hopkins used video to make visible and give voice to the precarious position of squat-
ters and temporarily housed residents, with whom him lived.8 In a document written in
1975 by Hopkins with his collaborator Sue Hall, they describe their work with video as
‘communications research, an action research agency applying communication theory
to social change’ (Hall and Hopkins 1975: 18). Their long-term strategy was based on the
conviction that user control in all fields is a fundamental prerequisite for democracy.
Their aim was to serve the local community through action and research. In a letter
written in December 1969 to the Arts Council, England, Hopkins outlines his research
using video at the Institute for Research in Art and Technology (IRAT) as a means to
communicate with those parts of society he describes as ‘disparate and decentralised’
(Hopkins 1969). Hopkins was chiefly interested in video as what he describes as a ‘gener-
alised tool, which could be used by various people for various means’ (Hopkins 2005).
In 1975 portable video recording technology was still relatively heavy and cumber-
some to use. In order to take advantage of its portability, at least two people were often
required to operate it smoothly. This made the cameras difficult to use for long periods
of time, however, it made them particularly suitable for collaborative and shared forms
of representation. In the context of a community video project, a single unit was often
used by large groups of five to ten people, each wanting to ‘have a go’. In 1970, commu-
nity arts group Interaction, who went on to install their ‘media van’ at the Serpentine
exhibition, began using video under the name In films (Interaction Films). Members
took some basic portable video equipment along to a group they were working with
from the mental health charity, Mind. In an interview, Interaction founder Ed Berman
describes their use of video with this group and explains why video was such a potent
tool for reaching audiences:
When they got behind the camera, or in front of the camera, they were freed
up from the various afflictions that they had, and I postulated that one of them
could hold a microphone […] and one of them could talk fairly clearly, and one
of them could press buttons, and see through a camera, and one of them could
 The Video Show

walk. So they had four different afflictions, but together they made up a team
that could make videos. (2014)

It is clear that the collective handling of the equipment decentred the possibility for a
single tone or viewpoint to be communicated and engendered new forms of collective
authorship.

The variety of work on show in the exhibition

One review of the exhibition, published by the Tribune, provides an impression of

what a visitor would have experienced on entering the exhibition space:

You can check what’s showing and loll on a sofa watching continuous playback,
or pick an artist’s name from a list and ask the staff to slot in a cassette for
viewing in a side room. Or you can make your own image along with other
people, on three screens simultaneously showing live line-ups, full face, side-
ways, back-view. (Richards 1975: 16)

In another article, published in Art and Artists magazine, Hall provides a description
of the layout of the exhibition. This description is useful not only as it provides a first-
hand account of the way the exhibition was laid out and curated, but also it explains
the way the curators addressed the different and diverse ways that video could be
engaged with, emphasizing how important process was to understanding the ways
video was a distinct and new medium:

There are three potential viewing situations, a major viewing area in which the
entire programme of tapes is running continuously; an area in which ‘compila-
tion’ tapes composed of a selection of the full programme are shown (these
consist either of short complete works, or excerpts by agreement with the tape
maker); and a tape library section where a visitor can personally select and view
tapes at any time. Installations and performances are being staged concurrent
with the tape showings in two separate rooms. (Hall 1975: 23)

The following examples of video work on display at The Video Show provide a sense of
the nature, and diversity, of videos being made in the mid-1970s, not just in London
but also across the United Kingdom. It is important to reiterate that this survey is reli-
ant on the artist’s explanations of their work in the exhibition catalogue and a hand-
ful of reviews written about the exhibition at the time. Most focus on the works in
the show made by individual artists rather than groups. This article seeks to redress
this lack of recognition and draw attention to the production and exhibition of video
works made by community groups.
The video works made by individual artists largely make use of the capabilities
of the technology and materiality of video and were mainly made by artists already
working with film, performance and/or sculpture who were engaged with critical
debates at the time that challenged the formal and structural ideas of moving image
work. David Hall writes:

Video artists, by inference, are aware of the potential of the Popular Medi-
um. Such work takes on two forms, though the two often overlap. One is the
production of video tapes, the other live performances and close circuit instal-
lations. (1975: 21)

www.intellectbooks.com   59
Ed Webb-Ingall

In the same article Hall makes clear the convergence of uses of video that the exhibi-
tion sought to present and the ‘contention’ that this aroused. He makes clear that he
would focus the article on the use of video ‘popularly titled Video Art’. Before his five-
page consideration of video art, Hall does briefly describe and distinguish these works
from videos in the exhibition produced by

people outside the broadcast industry, independent political and community

oriented organisations [who] began to produce programmes about people and
events either not covered, or unfairly treated by the mass media. (1975: 21)

These organizations included small, self-organized groups such as schools, local cable
television networks and activist collectives. They made use of the collaborative poten-
tial of video to produce videos by, for and about themselves, to be presented in social
spaces, outside of and in opposition to galleries and fine art contexts. These were
groups such as those made up of women or the squatting community, who presented
videos that drew attention to their own personal and political struggles.
Some examples of this kind of work mentioned in the catalogue are Bolton Women’s
Liberation Group, who presented a video made by four women with no previous
experience of video. They describe the tape as ‘intended to raise, both dramatical-
ly and through the use of interviews, what we regard as the primary issues of the
women’s movement’ (Bolton Women’s Liberation Group 1975). A video group made
up of squatters called Graft-On! chose to screen excerpts from a video entitled ‘The
Politics of Squatting’ and used the page from the catalogue to republish a number of
newspaper articles referencing the use of video in relation to housing issues and legal
matters. Larger public organizations such as local councils, cable television networks
and schools showed video projects that focused on the application of video technology
for disparate or unrelated groups to come together to reflect on their shared expe-
riences. The Borough Town Plan group, from Hammersmith in London, presented
excerpts of video material made when using video as a means for local residents to
‘enable them to say what changes they wanted to see, and which priorities they wanted
to give in providing homes, jobs, community facilities, parks and open spaces’ (1975).
Cablevision Wellinborough presented a selection of short video clips made by local
volunteers with cameramen and studio assistants as ‘a community experiment under
home office licence with a small professional staff and a very limited budget’ (1975).
Delves Junior School from Walsall in the West Midlands screened three video proj-
ects, two of which were produced by students and one of which a teacher produced.
For their contribution to the catalogue, they describe their work as follows:

Since 1972, Delves Junior School has pioneered the use of CCTV as a means
of expression and communication […] the editorial contents and opinions
are determined by the pupils aged 8–11 years old […] all CCTV equipment
is manned by the pupils themselves, girls as well as boys. (Delves Junior
School 1975)

The work of Su Braden could be less clearly defined, prior to the exhibition she was
working as a fine artist, and had in fact been taught by David Hall. Braden had previ-
ously shown her work alongside other artists in the show, including Susan Hillier, with
whom she shared a studio space. Braden showed an installation called Three Views
from the Park. In an interview in 2017, she recalls ‘my installation there led from an
exhibition at the Royal College of Art Gallery in 1974, where I had set up another more
complex installation involving exclusion and inclusion in action and image’ (Braden
2017). The Video Show marked somewhat of a turning point for Braden, following
the exhibition she became more involved in using video in community development

60   Moving Image Review & Art Journal

 The Video Show

projects, working with the Walworth and Aylesbury Community Arts Trust in South
London. From 1977 Braden spent two years doing anthropological fieldwork, which
led her to work with video to enable representation by those who otherwise found it
difficult to address their own government, and in 1980 she co-founded a training and
production organization called Barefoot Video.
In contrast to the work on show by collectives and community groups, the indi-
vidual artists in the exhibition such as David Critchley, Stuart Marshall and Mike
Leggett ‘explore the “same-time” occurrence in their works’ (Hall 1975: 23). Through
their production and presentation of video installations, these works make visible the
various, and as yet unexplored capacities of, newly available video recording technol-
ogy. Hall suggests the way these artists work with video is in contrast to film, which
requires processing, as ‘in video, present and immediate past-time sequences can be
interrelated’ (1975: 23). These interdisciplinary artists used the exhibition as an oppor-
tunity to explore the relationship between their existing practice and the capacity
for video to encourage participation through instant playback provided by a closed
circuit feedback loops, connecting a live camera with a monitor. For example, Critch-
ley presented an event titled ‘Yet Another Triangle’, which made use of video’s capacity
to allow participants to relate to an immediate, moving image of themselves. This was
made possible when the participant was able to see a version of themselves played
back on monitors, while they engaged with the technology that was recording them.
The artist Mike Leggett, presented an installation entitled Outside the Grounds of
Obscenity and Inside the Grounds of Hyde Park. In a review of Leggett’s work Hall
expands on how the installation positions the spectator in such a way so that they
negotiate and reflect on the space inside and outside of the gallery. Artists working
with video feedback in this way were interested in exploring the individual’s experi-
ence of themselves, subsuming the audience into the artwork and framing the camera
technology as a mirror and ‘agent for self-confrontation’.
These examples make clear both the variety of work on show at the exhibition
and, encouraged by Hall’s comments and analysis, begin to frame a distinction
between those works made by artists and those by community organizations. While
video artists often focused on the intrinsic, material qualities of video, community
video practitioners tended to focus on the politicization of production processes in
order to produce videos that emphasized and sought to engage in social, political
action and participation. Work produced and presented by artists tended to focus
on the individual experience of the audience, manipulating or instrumentalizing
their presence in order to draw attention to their own passive subjectivity. Leggett
is quoted in a review of the exhibition as saying ‘the show still treats its visitors too
much like passive consumers rather than creating the conditions for people to make
their own recordings’ (Cork 1975: 22). In contrast to this position John Hopkins
makes this active and engaging statement in his contribution to the Video Show
catalogue ‘YOU CAN MAKE IT IF YOU TRY… YOU MAKE IT, WE ASSIST, ITS
FREE’ and community arts group, Interaction, describe themselves as ‘enablers
promoting access to resources’.

Drawing lines and making distinctions

Following the exhibition, several reviews were published, each of which sought to clas-
sify the variety of work on show in order to understand it in relation to pre-existing
notions of moving image, performance and installation work, as well as in opposition
to broadcast television. In doing so they reflect a wider process of articulation that
was subsequently developed and proposed by the video practitioners involved in the

www.intellectbooks.com   61
Ed Webb-Ingall
9. Following the Serpentine
show, in 1976 the Tate Gallery
in London presented its first
video show. The increased
attention given to video by
arts institutions suggests that
support for this new medium
was beginning to grow.
However, a counter argument
raised by writer and historian
Richard Cork challenges this
assumption. He describes
how the exhibition at the Tate
Gallery was particularly small
and hard to find and explains
that rather than representing
a commitment to video art by
the gallery’s curatorial team,
instead it was programmed by
the Education Department and
granted the status of a ‘slide-
show’. Cork goes on to empha-
size the irony of an exhibition
that required the participation
of the general public located
down some stairs and in a
lecture theatre at the back of
the building (2003: 149).
62   Moving Image Review & Art Journal
exhibition. The Evening Standard suggests that the exhibition itself was responsible
for establishing ‘a number of clearly defined working methods’ (Cork 1975: 22). One
review published in Time Out describes the categories used by the curators to define
and distinguish the work on show in relation to its mode of presentation, as ‘tapes,
installations and live-action events’. The same article instead decides to distinguish
the work on show in relation to the processes and characteristics of the producer,
as ‘artists exploring the nature and processes of the medium to community groups
using video to establish perspectives on local issues’ (Rayns 1975: 8). This is a common
feature found in the majority of the reviews. Another article alludes to the difficulty of
understanding the range of work on show without a clearer understanding of why it
was chosen and then offers their own, similar distinction: ‘“video as process”, as used
in the community, is fundamentally different from some of the video-art tapes, which
exist as “consumable” objects’ (Kidel 1975: 646–47).
In the year following the exhibition, the actions of two groups further formalized
the distinction between the two uses of video set out in these reviews. The first of
these two organizations was the AVW, which was set up in 1974 by community groups
using video, in the words of A. L. Rees, for ‘the cause of community art, on the [John]
Hopkins model, in the name of content rather than form’ (1998: 89) The second was
LVA, formed by artists in 1976, who Rees describes as ‘those making “artists’ video”,
as David Hall dubbed it […] using video as a rejection of traditional media’ (1998: 89)
and producing artworks that reflected on the material and medium specificity and
capacity of video. These two groups formalized their use of video in opposition to one
another and subsequently many video practitioners began to choose sides, articulat-
ing and thus fixing their working methods and intentions, forming groups that, in
turn, would compete for resources and recognition from funding bodies and film and
arts institutions.
In 1976, the AVW sent a telegram to the minister for the arts expressing their
concerns about funding. The telegram criticizes the BFI Production Board and the
Arts Council’s Community Arts Committee for the lack of funding provided to
support their work. The telegram warns them that without renewed support from
such funding bodies much independent video work will cease production and many
projects will struggle to maintain their obligations to the public.9 Originally known
as the Association of London Independent Video groups (ALIV), they reformed as
the AVW. It saw early video pioneers and activists John Hopkins and Sue Hall join
community video practitioners Maggie Pinhorn and Bruce Birchall in order to
‘provide a forum and organisation for people engaged in non-profit video work in
Greater London’ (Association of Video Workers 1975: 15). Issue two of the journal
Film Video Extra included a column signed by these four members in June 1974. The
article describes the relationship between the Association and other larger institutions
as follows:
Whilst the majority of video work is community video, other experimental
work goes on too. All the work is not yet properly funded as regards hardware,
software, wages and administration overheads. The aim of the Association is
twofold – as a negotiating body with the DES, Arts Council, BFI etc – we have
already met the Arts Council Working Party on Community Arts – and for
contact and coherence between groups working in the Field. […] In effect, we
are trying to make the list of video groups come off the page and become a
living force for improving our wages and conditions, and furthering the work.
(Association of Video Workers 1975: 15)
The examples described above indicate the position of video following the exhibi-
tion at the Serpentine Gallery and provide a context for the subsequent formation
 The Video Show

of LVA.10 LVA was established in 1976, with different intentions to the AVW. It saw
a number of the video artists who presented their work at The Video Show, includ-
ing David Critchley, Stuart Marshall, Stephen Partridge, David Hall, Roger Barnard
and Tamara Krikorian, come together in order to gain recognition and support
for a particular strand of video production. LVA duplicated the model taken up by
the London Filmmakers’ Co-op, with a focus on video instead of film, sharing an
emphasis on a combination of distribution, independent workshop facilities and
screenings and exhibitions.11 The first application for funding made by LVA to the
Arts Council’s Artist Film Committee focused on the provision of a distribution
service, specifically a catalogue and equipment to support exhibition. Film histo-
rian Julia Knight makes clear the space that video was beginning to occupy for the
Arts Council: ‘not only had the diversity of activity become more apparent, but the
funders were beginning to receive applications for resources to support it’ (Knight
and Thomas 2011: 104).
The LVA worked on the development of a coherent conceptual language and
a framework for the production, exhibition and distribution of artist video that
mirrored the existing model set up by the London Filmmakers’ Co-op in 1966,
which was already supported by both The Arts Council of Great Britain and the
British Film Institute. In contrast, the social, political and local nature and inten-
tions of the groups initiating community video projects and their focus on process
over the production of completed video works made it difficult for organizations
such as The Arts Council of Great Britain and the British Film Institute to recognize
and support their work.

The institutions take charge

It was at this stage that the actions of these two groups became self-fulfilling and the
inclusive spirit reflected at The Video Show began to be threatened. The priorities of
video artists and community video practitioners began to be seen in opposition to one
another by the arts and film institutions they sought funding and support from. The
Arts Council of Great Britain attempted to draw clear boundaries between what was
deemed as art and what was social practice. The Artist Film Committee, based at the
Arts Council, continued to consult with LVA and at the same time, in collaboration
with the Community Arts Committee, commissioned community video practitioners
Sue Hall and John Hopkins to investigate the future of videotape distribution in the
United Kingdom. Hopkins’ and Hall’s report, delivered in May 1977, prioritized the
provision of a single centralized resource very much in the spirit of community video,
‘in order to offer open access to all non-commercial users’, with the recommendation
of ‘a single national mail order hire service and a national dubbing centre to provide
non-commercial producers with distribution copies of their work’ (Knight and
Thomas 2011: 105).
Writing on the rise of interest in video, and counter to Hopkins’ and Hall’s sugges-
tion, David Hall proposed that community videos were only made for small and local 10. LVA was a precursor to
audiences and thus dismissed their need for a distribution network of their own: what we now know as LUX,
London.
One of the crucial differences between community work and experimental
tapemaking seems to be that the former is essentially self-sufficient from the 11. Julia Knight and Peter
need for separate viewing and distribution […] tapes rarely have any signifi- Thomas (2011), Reaching Audi-
cance outside their ‘domestic’ context. For the rest, it is becoming apparent that ences: Distribution and Promo-
an independent distribution organization should be established in this country. tion of Alternative Moving
(Hall 1976: 62) Image, Bristol: Intellect, p. 104.

www.intellectbooks.com   63
Ed Webb-Ingall
12. They also sought funding
from the Gulbenkian Founda-
tion and the British Film
Institute production board. J
Hopkins (1975), ‘Minutes of the
Community Arts Commit-
tee Meeting, Arts Council of
Great Britain’, 23 May, London:
Victoria and Albert Archives.
64   Moving Image Review & Art Journal
This was while the LVA continued to reassure the Artist Film Committee that they
would mirror the framework set up by the London Filmmakers’ Co-op and approved
by the Arts Council of Great Britain. This approach sought to ‘benefit the maximum
number of people’ and ‘accept any tapes offered to them for distribution, with no
discrimination’ (Knight and Thomas 2011: 105).
However, as film historian Chris Meigh-Andrews makes clear, David Hall’s influence
and the development of LVA would have a strong impact over the direction of video:
Through a combination of polemical writing, teaching, the promotion of video
art and his own work, Hall established a tradition of video that was pure, formal
and rigorous […] producing a body of work of consistent purity – a rarity in the
diversity of contemporary video culture, but it also produced work that could
be extremely restrictive and predictable. (2006: 75)
This was not a straightforward split between art and activism. In fact, Hall was not
against ideas of social engagement, and much of his work with instant feedback and
audience participation could be considered as counter to the way Meigh-Andrews
frames his position. In a recent appraisal of Hall’s work, the writer Steven Ball cites
Hall’s use of video to engage with the public as emblematic of Hall’s ‘intention to wrest
the art away from an “elite” audience towards broader conceptual and physical acces-
sibility’ (Ball 2014). This counter position is also evidenced in Hall’s previous engage-
ment with television, which he considered as a social space that could be mined for its
relation to a wider public, than that which inhabits and enters the gallery. In working
in this way, Hall’s use of participation and his extension outside of the art world allows
a retrospective alignment of his work to other participatory and socially engaged prac-
tices, similar to community video.
While LVA were gathering support and lobbying the Arts Council Film Committee,
John Hopkins and Sue Hall were pursuing other routes as part of their newly established
video post-production and training centre Fantasy Factory. This signals their awareness
that such distinctions were affecting where and how community video practitioners
might seek funding and support. They submitted an application to the Community Arts
Committee, based at the Arts Council of Great Britain, to fund and expand Fantasy
Factory’s video editing and production resource.12 This application draws attention to
the need to provide low cost and open access video services that they saw as central
to the continued development of social and political video projects. Fantasy Factory
provided a resource for the growing needs of video practitioners, with a focus on those
video projects that utilized the social and political potential of video production. The
position of Hall and Hopkins is made clear by the comments of video practitioner Terry
Flaxton, who sets them in contrast to David Hall as previously described by Meigh-
Andrews: ‘Most video was following an Academy tradition, and its forms and concerns
echoed those that were important in the British tradition from 1600 on. One of the most
notable exceptions to this was John and Sue of Fantasy Factory’ (Knight 1996: 349–76).
It is clear that the AVW and LVA were looking for support and recognition for
their continued and distinct work with video. This is made apparent by the way this
new and unfamiliar technology, and the practices it allowed and enabled, struggled to
fit into pre-existing structures for the production of moving image work. In a report
published by the British Film Institute in 1976, which focuses on the Production
Board, there is a section that describes their support of video as ‘a limited investment
of finance and manpower made in a spirit of research and enquiry’ (Sainsbury 1976:
58–59). The report also draws attention to the relationship of video to other media,
again making the distinction between video art and community video and fine art on
the one hand and politics on the other.
 The Video Show

Video practitioners are concerned with the medium as a component part of

other activities; uses are as diverse as those that relate to the fine arts on the
one hand and those which relate to social work and community politics on the
other. (Sainsbury 1976: 58–59)

In the conclusion to the report13 the BFI continues to define its position on video14 in
relation to its pre-existing understanding of moving image, as that which falls under
their existing remit of ‘art and entertainment’ and not with reference to the current
uses of video as proposed by those practitioners actually using it.15

Whatever the Production Board does in the television field, it will be taking
money from elsewhere, and one television project funded would effectively
prevent the funding of others […] criteria cannot emerge from the ad hoc,
multifarious and random demands of outside bodies and individuals, but
must emerge from the board’s own definition of what it is […] For the sake
of cogency and efficacy, the Board should ally itself with the aims of its parent
body and define its purpose and methods of funding video activity accordingly.
(Sainsbury 1976: 58–59)

This stance by the BFI would benefit video artists, like Hall and other members of
LVA, who were able to take advantage of their positions as artists and it precludes
the work of community video practitioners. Their work was instead understood as
being collectively produced to enable social and political change, and not motivated 13. The report was the result
by recognizable artistic intentions or to entertain. In an article in Studio International, of a period of consultation
published in 1976, David Hall explains that although the head of the BFI Production to understand the needs of
Board, Peter Sainsbury, expressed an interest in video work, he had shown reserva- the growing constituency
tions as to whether the production board should commit its funds to certain aspects using video technology. They
such as ‘community groups’ as they could seek funding from the Department of the consulted a number of artists
Environment and Local Councils. In order to defend his and other video artists’ access exhibiting work at the Serpen-
to funding and support, Hall once again suggests a division between those videos tine exhibition, a number of
made by community groups, which he considers only of local relevance, and those students graduating with film
made by experimental video makers, which should be considered as ‘equal to film- and television degrees, having
makers’ (Hall 1976: 62). trained and studied under the
In the mid-1970s, video was a medium that allowed artists and activists to develop influence of this new technol-
new, multiple and varied approaches to the production of moving image work. For a ogy and members of the
short period of time, video’s capacity for instant playback fulfilled utopian desires for Association of Video Workers.
a mode of autonomous self-representation and the creation of art works that enabled
self-reflective feedback. The Video Show at the Serpentine gallery made a space for 14. Highlighting the lack of
these different approaches to converge and, consequently, the diversity of available understanding of this new
outcomes led to a distinction between artist videos and community videos, the former medium, in this same report
often focusing on the material qualities of video and the latter emphasizing process the BFI propose continuing
and social engagement. to proceed with caution when
This distinction, combined with its relative newness, meant that video began to considering the support and
occupy a precarious position, where support and recognition of video production development of video produc-
were campaigned for on behalf of art or community development. By the end of the tion, which they also refer to as
1970s the division between these approaches was clear and what began as a conver- both television and video.
gence became a competition. Proponents of artist video campaigned for recogni-
tion on the basis of its relationship to artist film, which was already recognized 15. Anon. (1975), ‘The minutes
and funded by both arts and film institutions. The remits of these organizations of the second Community Arts
continued to support that which was clearly identifiable as artistic or entertaining. Committee meeting at the
Community video work, with its focus on process and social change remained at Arts Council’, Spring, London:
the margins. Victoria and Albert Archives.

www.intellectbooks.com   65
Ed Webb-Ingall
references
Arts Council of Great Britain (1974), ‘Film and
Video Extra 2’, The Arts Council of Great
Britain, London.
Association of Video Workers (1975a), ‘Film and
Video Extra 4’, The Arts Council of Great
Britain, London.
—— (1975b), ‘The Video Show’, press notice, Arts
Council of Great Britain.
Ball, Steven (2014), ‘David Hall 1937-2014, end
of television’. Available online: http://
directobjective.blogspot.co.uk/2014/10/
david-hall-1937-2014-end-of-television.html.
Accessed 1 May 2017.
Bloch, Peter (2017), interviewed by Ed Webb-Ingall.
Bolton Women’s Liberation Group (1975) ‘The
Video Show’, The Video Show, exhibition
catalogue, Serpentine Gallery, n.pag.
Borough Town Plan (1975) ‘The Video Show’, The
Video Show, exhibition catalogue, Serpentine
Gallery, unpaginated catalogue.
Braden, Su (2017), interviewed by Ed Webb-Ingall.
Cablevision Wellinborough (1975) ‘The Video
Show’, The Video Show, exhibition catalogue,
Serpentine Gallery, unpaginated catalogue.
Cork, Richard (1975), ‘Every man his own TV star’,
The Evening Standard, 3 May, p. 22.
—— (2003), Everything Seemed Possible: Art in the
1970s, New Haven: Yale University Press.
Grayson, Sue (1974), ‘Invitation from Sue Grayson
to David Hall’, Rewind Archive. Available
online: http://www.rewind.ac.uk/documents/
The%20Video%20Show%201975/VS002.pdf.
Accessed 29 November 2016.
Hall, David (1975), ‘The Video Show, Serpentine,
review’, Art and Artists, May, p. 23.
—— (1976), ‘Video report’, Studio International,
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Hall, Sue and Hopkins, John (1975), Socio-Cultural
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the UK, London: Council for Cultural
Co-operation.
Hoey, Brian (1975), ‘The Video Show’, The Video
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Hopkins, John, (1969), ‘Letter to the Arts Council
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—— (1974), ‘Memorandum Re: Visual Record
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Sue Hall (TVX / CATS / Fantasy Factory),
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contributor details
Ed Webb-Ingall is a writer and film-maker; he is a
Ph.D. candidate at Royal Holloway University, where
his research focuses on the history and practice
of community video in the United Kingdom.
He currently runs the public programme for the
London Community Video Archive, at Goldsmiths
University. Between 2014 and 2016 he carried out
a community video project at The Showroom,
London and in 2016 he was commissioned by Studio
Voltaire, London to develop a video that looked at
the legacy of Section 28.
E-mail: edwebbingall@gmail.com