A forum for the attendees to reminisce on this golden era of activity, reflect on their (and others’) accomplishments, and remember those members of the guerrilla TV movement who are no longer with us. Recording on Sunday, April 21 at 9:30AM as part of the Guerrilla Television Symposium at the University of Chicago’s Film Studies Center.
The dawn of the Portapak era saw a flurry of activity in New York City, but almost immediately video spread to San Francisco and Chicago, but also to western Ohio, to upstate New York, to rural Kentucky, to New Orleans… all over the country, in cities and towns, at colleges and at local TV stations. This panel looks at the unexpected centers of production that arose in the 1970s, and the importance of these community-based organizations to the wider Guerrilla Television movement.
Moderator: Angela J. Aguayo, Associate Professor Media & Cinema Studies at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign and author of Documentary Resistance: Social Change and Participatory Media. Panelists: Deirdre Boyle, professor emerita of media studies at The New School and author of Subject to Change: Guerrilla Television Revisited; Ariel Dougherty, mediamaker, teacher, producer, advocate, co-founder of Women Make Movies; Gene Fredericks, archivist, New Orleans Video Access Center; Tom Weinberg, creator/producer of Image Union, Center for New Television, founder of Media Burn Archive; Denise Zaccardi, founder and executive director, Community TV Network.
Compared to film, video was cheap and easy to learn. And unlike the film and TV industries, there was no entrenched hierarchy that kept out women, queer people, and BIPOC. Video quickly became central to a growing network of feminist videomakers and collectives dedicated to encouraging, sharing, and celebrating the work of women. This panel focuses on women video producers and the culture of festivals, videoletters, and video exchanges that arose during the 1970s. Panelists: Eleanor Boyer, videomaker and director, Loop YWCA’s Women’s Video Project, Chicago; Deirdre Boyle, professor emerita of media studies at The New School and author of Subject to Change: Guerrilla Television Revisited; Tracy Fitz and Barbara Jabaily, videomakers, founding members of L.O.V.E. (Lesbians Organized for Video Experience), now known as LoveTapesCollective; Julie Gustafson, videomaker and co-director of Global Village; Susan Milano, videomaker and co-founder of the Women’s Video Festival.