Videofreex

Formed in 1969, Videofreex was a pioneering collective of artists and community activists who embraced portable video technology in its earliest days. In 1971 they built the country's smallest TV station in upstate New York, Lanesville TV, and broadcast hundreds of quirky, homemade programs until 1980. Excerpted here are Lanesville TV News Buggy (1976) and An Oriental Magic Show with a min in a box and a barbarian (1973) in a Lanesville TV "live" broadcast with guest host Russell Conner (1975).

"A segment produced for radical early video collective Videofreex’s unlicensed broadcast television station Lanesville TV, a weekly broadcast that was one of the first American pirate stations of its type. Using a DIY luma keyer by Videofreex member Chuck Kennedy to approximate a flying saucer, the group conscripted neighbors to participate in a mock news report about the “sighting”, capturing the feel of Catskills local color in the process. The segment was produced by Videofreex with collaborators including Ruth Rotko and John Keeler, who worked on a spate of subsequent UFO-related video pieces, before wandering off into their own, wildly divergent careers: Rotko as a producer of independent films like GRACE OF MY HEART, and Keeler as a prolific pornographic cinematographer pseudonymed “Jane Waters”." - Screen Slate

Cort merges video theater, early imaging technology and interactivity. In At Maple Tree Farm and Beyond, he employs the "Video Art Transposer" (an early electronic imaging device) to transform images during the recording process, manipulating staged events in a real-time, interactive electronic theater.

David Cort of the Videofreex travels to Jerusalem. This tape contains raw footage of him as he is taken on a tour through a poor neighborhood by a group of young men. There is talk of the Israeli Black Panther Party, and of drug dealers and poverty. Somebody says the tape is being made for the Jewish Museum in NYC. The Israeli guide talks about the movement, and says the bourgeois and the poor can meet through parties and drugs. They visit a woman and her children who are living in poverty, and interview her about the needs of her family. She says, “You coming to take pictures won’t help us.” During the next scene in a room full of people in suits, the conversation is about the Black Panther Party and the plight of the poor.

A wonderful and humorous example of early image processing, Parry Teasdale and Carol Vontobel perform to camera as their faces are morphed together, forming an image of one person. The exercise is repeated by Nancy Cain and Skip Blumberg as the music speeds up.

An interview with a group of people shot in October 1969, some of whom were involved in The Weathermen’s "Days of Rage" actions. As those present recount the significance of the actions, and the possible ramifications on the movement as a whole, some critics voice serious complaints. In addition to videotaping these discussions, the Videofreex also weigh in on matters.

Rare footage of a September 1970 rally honouring the late Fred Hampton, Deputy Chairman of the Illinois chapter of the Black Panther Party. One of the speakers leads the audience in a call and response.

Fred Hampton talks eloquently and passionately about the Free Breakfast for Children Program and Free Health Clinic set up by the Black Panthers to feed and tend to the poor and hungry. In response to a specific question about events in Chicago and the conspiracy trial, he talks about how those running the city are "crazy with power," about racism, fascism and imperialism, and the need to educate, organise and lead by example.

Videotaped at the 1972 Republican Convention, Videofreex's cameraperson tapes from inside the press area with protestors from the People’s Band outside at the fence. A group of protestors are shown calling for non-violent blockades of the delegates' entrance. Tear gas is feared, and there are interviews with victims and medics.

In conversation with Carol Vontobel (behind the camera) and Nancy Cain, Mary Curtis Ratcliff describes getting her first legal abortion soon after the state of New York legalised the procedure in 1970. Curtis supplies details of the cost of abortions at the Women’s Medical Center in NYC, versus clinics such as Planned Parenthood, as well as a play-by-play account of her experience.

On 26 Aug 1970, 10,000 women marched down New York's Fifth Avenue to mark the 50th anniversary of the passage of the 19th amendment granting women the right to vote. Shot before and during the march, Videofreex interview women sitting in cars alongside the route, protestors, counter protestors, and passersby.

The Videofreex had several experiences with the Black Panther Party, including interviewing Illinois Chapter Deputy Chairman Fred Hampton and New Haven Minister of Information Cappy Pinderhughes. In this tape, recorded on March 5th 1971, the Videofreex one-person camera crew Bart Friedman is walking the hallways of CBS, trying to find out where a video statement by Black Panther Eldridge Cleaver is located. The shots are mostly close up on people’s torsos and there is some image loss, but the sound is intact. The tape has an eerie espionage feel. There is a conflict between station personnel and Bart: they keep telling him, “You can’t tape in here.”