This week we celebrate our Echo Park Film Center’s Amazing Elders with an image of one of EPFC’s very first Seniors Filmmaking Workshops, facilitated by EPFC Co-Founder Ken Fountain (far right). Yes, that is a Dennis Kucinich For President T-shirt and yes, Ellen is still fighting for people’s politics and social justice!
Theme: Where’s Wayne’s World? A brief dive into the disappearing world of democratic and non-commercial television made possible by public access.
Well, one day late but still good. Please forgive my tardiness, I was detained by a mild fever and a severe panic. As we all lockdown in our homes, we are streaming more than ever. Netflix is curbing the quality it streams videos across Europe to ease the sudden burden on the internet providers. What better time to reflect on the nature of Television than when we are fully immersed and more embedded in TV reality than our own?
Enter Jaime Davidovich, an Argentinian-American performance artist and public access television pioneer. From Wikipedia: “The Live! Show, a weekly public-access television program with a variety show format that appropriated the formal norms of television along with avant-garde performances, artwork, political satire, and social commentary. The program featured interviews and performance work by visiting artists, including Laurie Anderson, Eric Bogosian, Tony Oursler, and Michael Smith, along with musical performances, ersatz commercials, and viewer participation via live call-in segments. Presiding over the show’s disparate collaborative elements was Davidovich’s own satirical character, ‘Dr. Videovich, specialist in curing television addiction,’ whom the New York Times’ television critic John J. O’Connor described as ‘a persona somewhere between Bela Lugosi and Andy Kaufman.'” An early deconstruction of television and its role in the culture industry through the medium itself, below you will find a link to a clip from an episode, and after that a little doc about the man, the myth and the legendary show that is now pretty hard to track down.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wDA7ZCZ2mEw
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9ZKURQ0sZ6o
It’s really feeling like spring these days at EPFC North… pretty little plants are poking their way through the soil in the garden, the birds are singing and building new houses in the trees, and the sun and the clouds are playing tag way up in the blue sky. Come on by the Fieldhouse this weekend–March 14 and 15– to make a little 16mm movie about the beauty of this fleeting time, explore the zen beauty of Direct Animation and welcome a dear friend for a first-time visit to Vancouver! All events are FREE and ALL-AGES!
Workshop: Intro to 16mm
Saturday, March 14
1 pm – 5 pm
Spend some time with a Bolex Camera and see the world in a whole new way. Free event! Everyone welcome!
Workshop: Let’s Animate, Part 1
Sunday, March 15
1 pm – 5 pm
Join us for Part 1 of a very special Direct Animation workshop with visiting artist, wonderful friend and fabulous filmmaker Miko Revereza. Free event! Everyone welcome!
Screening: Dinner and a Movie with visiting artist Miko Revereza
Sunday, March 15
5 – 7 pm
Tasty images. Tasty food. Tonight’s edition features the work of visiting artist Miko Revereza. Free event! Everyone welcome!
Theme: Where’s Wayne’s World? A brief dive into the disappearing world of democratic and non-commercial television made possible by public access.
It all started about 12 years ago when I happened to catch a screening of Winnipeg Babysitter while studying in Syracuse, NY. The program was a compilation of clips from Public Access Television in Winnipeg, CA curated by artist Daniel Barrow. A description of the program that I found online should tell you all you need to know: “In the late 70s and throughout the 80s, Winnipeg experienced a ‘golden age’ of public access television whereby almost anyone with a creative dream was granted airtime and professional production services”.
Since then I have had a minor obsession with the subject of Public Access Television, which has led to a masters thesis in the preservation of this material. Much of this work–which was produced all over cities and towns across North America–is at risk of being lost forever. Turns out there isn’t any money in archiving non-commercial media, just like there isn’t any money in making it (which explains why so many stations are now gone). Until the problem of preservation is solved, Youtube (which, I feel compelled to emphasize, is not public and heavily monetized) is often the best and only resource for seeing this work, though often in terrible quality and without context.
Should Winnipeg Babysitter ever go on tour again, please catch it! Barrow’s work as both programmer and archivist is really loving and inspiring, and you will catch glimpses of lost treasures of television, such as Survival!, which aired from 1985-1987 and is linked below.
For the month of March, I ask you to think about what democratic media means in light of these questions: how has the industrialization and monetization of art and culture impacted us as a society? What systems of power determine what is “good” and who gets to be an “artist”? Who should be able to access the resources necessary to create art and media?
This week, we celebrate the power of cinema to unite, inspire and comfort us, even in the darkest of times. Join as we welcome LA Filmforum’s Adam Hyman for Ism Ism Ism: Experimental Cinema In Latin America / Ismo Ismo Ismo: Cine Experimental en América Latina on Thursday (8 pm), honor the life and work of our beautiful friend Haruko Tanaka on Friday (7 – 11 pm), and spend a day in the garden on Sunday, tending the plants in the morning with Lori Snyder (10 – Noon), making phytograms in the afternoon (1 – 4 pm), and enjoying a special international women’s day favorite in the evening for Dinner and a Movie (5 – 7 pm). Events at Moberly Fieldhouse are always free and always all-ages. Hug someone you love today!