Guerrilla Television Symposium panel 1: Video Activism
The Portapak allowed for a new approach to political image-making, in which videotape became central to activist efforts. The camera recorded protests and speeches; it was used by feminist collectives to share information about women’s health and abortion; it recorded landlord neglect and other abuses of power. The video camera inspired organization and action, and connected activists all over the country. This panel explores the range of video activism in the 1970s, and its legacy 50 years later.
Moderator: Tara Merenda Nelson, curator and director of public programs, Visual Studies Workshop. Panelists: DeeDee Halleck, media activist and co-founder of Paper Tiger Television and Deep Dish TV Network, author of Hand-Held Visions: The Uses of Community Media; Judy Hoffman, filmmaker and Professor Emeritus of practice in the Department of Cinema of Media Studies at the University of Chicago; Mona Jimenez, former Professor and Associate Director of the Moving Image Archiving Program at New York University and co-editor of The Emergence of Video Processing Tools: Television Becoming Unglued; Gordon Quinn, filmmaker and co-founder of Kartemquin Films; Mirko Popadic, media activist and member of Communications for Change.
