A. L. Rees: A History of Experimental Film and Video: From Canonical Avant-garde to Contemporary British Practice (1999)

“Avant-garde film is almost indefinable. It is in a constant state of change and redefinition. In this book A.L. Rees tracks the movement of the film avant-garde between, on the one hand, the cinema, and, on the other hand, modern art (with its post-modern coda). But he also reconstitutes the film avant-garde as an independent form of art practice with its own internal logic and aesthetic discourse.

This is the first major history of avant-garde film and video to be published in more than twenty years. Ranging from Cezanne and dada, via Cocteau, Brakhage and Le Grice, to the new wave of British video artists in the 90s, this remarkable study will introduce a generation of new readers to avant-garde film as well as provoking students and specialists to further reflection and debate.”

Publisher BFI Publishing, London, 1999
ISBN 0851706843, 9780851706849
viii+152+[32] pages

Interview with author: LUX (2011).

Reviews: Felicity Sparrow (Vertigo, 1999), Alexander Graf (MedienWissenschaft, 2000), Felicity J Colman (Viewfinder, c.2011).

Publisher (2nd ed.)
WorldCat

PDF (4 MB, updated on 2021-2-8 via esco_bar)

Deirdre Boyle: Subject to Change: Guerrilla Television Revisited (1997)

“Part of the larger alternative media tide which swept the country in the late sixties, guerilla television emerged when the arrival of lightweight, affordable consumer video equipment made it possible for ordinary people to make their own television. Fueled both by outrage at the day’s events and by the writings of people like Marshall McLuhan, Tom Wolfe, and Hunter S. Thompson, the movement gained a manifesto in 1971, when Michael Shamberg and the Raindance Corp. published Guerilla Television. As framed in this quixotic text, the goal of the video guerilla was nothing less than a reshaping of the structure of information in America.

In Subject to Change, Deidre Boyle tells the fascinating story of the first TV generation’s dream of remaking television and their frustrated attempts at democratizing the medium. Interweaving the narratives of three very different video collectives from the 1970s–TVTV, Broadside TV, and University Community Video–Boyle offers a thought-provoking account of an earlier electronic utopianism, one with significant implications for today’s debates over free speech, public discourse, and the information explosion.”

Keywords and phrases
Michael Shamberg, Megan Williams, guerrilla television, Freex, Paul Goldsmith, portapak, WNET, Abbie Hoffman, Allen Rucker, KTCA, TVTV Show, Greg Pratt, TVTV’s, Ira Schneider, Cajun, David Loxton, cable television, Bill Murray, Harold Ramis, Appalachia

Publisher Oxford University Press US, 1997
ISBN 0195110544, 9780195110548
286 pages

Publisher

PDF
Excerpt published in Art Journal, 1985.

From Absolute Cinema to Future Film: Materials from the History of Experiment in the Moving Picture Art (2009) [EN, PL]

“This book initiates a new series of publications entitled Widok. WRO Media Art Reader. Its subsequent topical issues will be devoted to the presentation of materials about theory, esthetics and history of new media art.

Widok (Polish for “the view”) means a particular perspective, but it is also the name of the street in Wrocław where WRO Art Center has opened in 2008. In accordance with its name, the series presents an insight into cultural and artistic phenomena from the realm of new media, as seen through the collection and archives of the International Media Art Biennale WRO. It is thus a view shaped by the works, topics and personalities throughout 20 years of WRO activities, presenting the nexus of art, technology and social phenomena emerging from the shifting domains of artistic creation and media.”

Edited by Violetta Kutlubasis-Krajewska and Piotr Krajewski
Publisher WRO Art Center, Wroclaw, 2009
84 pages

Publisher

PDF, PDF (English, updated on 2016-11-10)
PDF (Polish, added on 2016-11-10)