BY BEVERLY CRAMP

M

ore t h a n 30 years ago, artist
Michael Goldberg hitchhiked
from Montreal to Vancouver to
join a group of multidisciplinary
artists experimenting with a new technology. That technology, which seems old hat
now, was video, and the group, called Intermedia, later split into several important offshoots in Vancouver's alternative art scene.
With the help of Goldberg and others,
Video In Studios evolved from these early
beginnings and has become a major producer of media arts in the city. Not only did the
organization and its artists gain national
and international recognition along the
way, b u t Video In b e c a m e t h e t r a i n i n g
ground for m a n y of the city's top video
artists. And it has compiled one of the most
significant noncommercial video-art
libraries in Canada open to the public. The
library contains more than 3,000 titles.
This almost didn't happen. Goldberg initially steered away from video after someone described it to him in 1967 as being the
art form to embrace if one wanted to "get
into the future*'.
"That was enough to convince me to stay
away from video for almost two years. I didn't want anyone telling me what to do, and
had been turned off television in my late
teens. I didn't yet think of video as an alternative to TV," he writes in his essay for the
new anthology Making Video 'In': The Contested Ground of Alternative Video on the West
Coast (Video In, $29.95).
The first post-Intermedia incarnation of
Video In was the Satellite Video Exchange
Society. Goldberg sent out 1,000 postcards
around the world in 1971, inviting artists
and groups working with video to form a
network and get a list of their videos publ i s h e d . M o r e t h a n 170 r e s p o n s e s were
mailed back and Goldberg published his
first International Video Exchange Directory, a
f o r e r u n n e r to t h e i n f l u e n t i a l b u t n o w defunct magazine Video Guide.
He expanded on this concept two years
later with a video-exchange conference at
the Vancouver Art Gallery. It was here that
s o m e of t h e early "Video I n n e r s " met,
including video artist Paul Wong.
"The registration fee to the show was a
videotape," recalls Wong. "At the end of it
we had over 120 titles, and from this we
started our tape library."
The newly born collective found its first
h o m e at 261 Powell Street in the Downtown Eastside in 1973. It was the ground
floor of a rooming house. "That was a cockroach-infested place with thin walls, chicken wire on the ceiling, and one bare bulb,"
says W o n g . "But we h a d t h o u g h t h a r d
about where we wanted to be, and it wasn't
in touristy Gastown."
Its n a m e was derived from t h e i n p u t
jack at the rear of a VTR, usually labelled
"video in". Because members of the collect i v e s o m e t i m e s l i v e d in t h e r o o m i n g
house, t h e place was dubbed t h e Video

Since its beginnings three decades ago, Video In has helped put Vancouver on the map for video art. And as a new anthology called
Making Video In': The Contested Ground of Alternative Video on the West Coast makes clear, i f s also been a force for social change.

Video Activists
Embrace New Media
After censorship battles and growing pains, Video In welcomes the digital future

"We built a loft where out-of-towners
"One of our contacts, Peter Berg, was t h e v i d e o t a p e l i b r a r y h e r e / ' says Diacould sleep," says Wong. "In the early days inside Wounded Knee and he was able to mond. "It is maybe the best video library
we got together every week on Wednesday get a videotape out which presented a dif- in the world. Video In was a major video
for dinner and to hold meetings. Everyone ferent message than the one being broad- production centre at a time when no one
took a turn cooking/'
cast on mass media/' says Wong. "We were else was focusing on it as an art form. It
Years later, the second "n" in Video Inn selected to receive the tape because the peo- took some time before the colleges and
was dropped when the collective moved ple caught in the siege wanted to ensure the art schools got involved, and then Video
to a new space without sleeping quarters; alternative voice was heard/'
In became an i m p o r t a n t c o n s u l t a n t to
the facility is currently located at 1965
Another battle associated with Video In the colleges."
Main Street.
was t h e fight a g a i n s t c e n s o r s h i p . "We
Video In's role as a force for social change
From the beginning, Video Inners were aimed to educate a n d debate, n o t sup- is still apparent in the organization's supinterested in more than exhibiting experi- press/' says video artist Sara Diamond, a port for disadvantaged groups. Building on
m e n t a l art. "We were b o t h artists a n d long-time Video In member who became work done with First Nations and women's
activists," Wong asserts. "That's what sepa- artistic director of the media and visual-arts groups, Video In currently has a program
rates Video In from the rest. We saw video d e p a r t m e n t and executive producer for called Deaf at the Video In to assist deaf
as a social tool and political weapon as well television and new media at the Banff Cen- people in their efforts to find avenues of
as an arts medium."
tre for the Arts in 1996. "We responded to expression through video production.
The collective's reputation spread inter- censorship by exhibiting—if someone tried
Video In remains a training ground for
nationally. "We were, at that stage, in con- to say 'Don't show i t / we would show it. video artists. "I produced my best work out
t a c t w i t h t h e s h a k e r s a n d m o v e r s of We did really brave stuff."
of h e r e , " says Diamond. "And I got m y
- M — ^ ^ ^ —
Inn.
experimental art, and guerrilla-TV types
In 1984 Wong—who will launch Re-Act, a chops here as a curator."
w h o were d o i n g p o l i t i c a l w o r k , " says CD-ROM catalogue of his media-based artNow the challenge is for Video In to inteWong, who points to the Wound- works, at Video In on Saturday (November grate new technologies, according to Wong:
ed Knee siege by the FBI in 11)—took the Vancouver Art Gallery to "We have to deal with the emerging digital
the U.S. as a signifi- court for breach of contract when the insti- t e c h n o l o g y a n d t h e f r e e d o m it allows
cant episode in tution cancelled the installation and screen- artists to create works in their homes withTwo of the dty^s independent theatre companies are breathing a collective
Video Inn's ing of his multichannel examination of out having to resort to expensive crews and
sigh of relief now that their venue is picket-free during evenings. Pi Theatre and
history. nonmainstream sexuality, Confused: Sexual production facilities.*'
Views. The VAG justified the controversial
Do video artists no longer need the serRumble i^cKlui^ofls had feared the cancellation of their shm Three in the Back, Two in
cancellation by claiming the video installa- vices of a collective like Video In now that
the Head at the Roundhouse Community Centre would
tion was not art. Wong eventually lost the t e c h n o l o g y is m o v i n g toward a process
leave them financially destitute. But Del Surjik, artistic director
court battle, but won artistic vindica- t h a t d e p e n d s m o r e o n t h e i n d i v i d u a l
of Pi Theatre, told the Straight striking city wortes m CUPS local
t i o n w h e n t h e VAG a c q u i r e d a rather than large groups of people? To this,
15 assured him before the show opened November 2 that they
copy of Confused for its collec- Video In technical and production coordiwould picket the community centre only between 8 a»m. and 4 p.m*
n a t o r Lindsay Brown r e s p o n d s w i t h a
That allows audiences to enter the front doors of the facility for the
Radul
tion earlier this year.
8 p,rru shows without crossing a picket line. In addition, the union is not picketing the stage door,
contributed to
" T h e r e is s u c h a resounding "No."
*We opened to M l houses on the weekend and we hope that people will continue to attend," Surjik the book, which
"No matter how accessible it seems, it is
B^^
great historical
said For now, Three in the Back is the only event going on at the expansive centre, and it runs until traces the art form as far
r e c o r d i n not as simple as people think," she says.
November 18. "No CUPE work is being displaced by us/r said Surjik. "Its eerily guiet in here/
"There will always be a need for a media
back as 1965. Its $22 at the
access centre. People need to see work in
Meanwhile, picketing seemed to have little effect on the biggest-grossing show ever produced
grunt, Charles H. Scott Gallery,
order to produce their own work." •
by Ballet ILC The company's critically lauded The faerie Queen pmmkred to almost-full houses in Vancouver Art Gallery gift shop, and Artspeak.
its three-night run November 2 to 4, executive director Kevin Myers told the Straight Striking city
workers did not picket the stage door of the Queen Elizabeth Theatre, but they did take action at
OPEN FOR BUSINESS Thanks in large part to a sucthe front doors. The Saturday show drew the biggest audience, filling 92 percent or more of the
cessful art auction, the Vancouver Art Gallery has announced it will not face budge'
venue's seats, Myers said: *We might have been fuller sooner [without the strike), and that would shortfalls and temporary closures at the end of this year. The VAG's auction on October 28 generated
have been nice, but we'll never know for sure."
$35Q,0CK}/inora^
from several artists that they
The Faerie Queen is slated to tour from Ottawa to St John's, Newfoundland, in February. Thankswould not be donating works to the auction due to controversy over former director Alf Bogusk/s
to crirJcaland audience enthusiasm lor the work, "we're very eager to take what we've got to inter- departure and the appointment of former board member 3oe McHugh as acting director, more than 70
people gave work to the event. The gallery also attributed the rosier financial picture to higher-thannational stages,*'Myers said.
projected attendance at the Impressionist Masterworks exhibition.
last August, the gallery notified its union that it was considering temporary closures due to a proH I D D E N HISTORY From Mr. Peanut to Paul Wong and from Sniffy the Rat to
jected budget deficit of $401,00 by the end of the year. At the time, union members expressed conI Brai neater, an exhaustive new book traces the lively history of Vancouver's performance-art
about bearing the brunt of financial problems at the VA6; several have since been laid off.
scene. Live at the End of the Century: Aspects oj: Performance Art in Vancouver qrew out ofcern
a festiMembers of an artists' group calling for the resignation of McHugh and the VAG board executive have
val last year of the same name, and was published with millennium funding from the Canada
speculated that severance paid to Bogusky and the cost of a search for his replacement could have
Council and B.C. 2000. "It puts down a very hidden history of Vancouver," said Glen Aiteen,
director of the grant gallery, which published the book. "Its a long history, and we just wanted contributed to the budget crisis. McHugh has pointed to a failed 1999 lottery and lower-than-expecied attendance at exfribitionsin the past year.
.
_
to get It down while people were still around.* Thirteen writers, including Wong and artist Judy

Shows go

on, despite strike

Arts
Notes

•

JMNET

SMITH

THE GEORGIA STRAIGHT* NOVEMBER 9 - 1 6 , 2 0 0 0 • 6 3