| Chapter Introduction: | Introduction |
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manifest its organisation at Robert Street. The filmmakers at the LFMC would interrelate with those experimenting with video. Similar initiatives would occur in Europe in the late 1960s. In France, by the early 1970s, several groups with similar initiatives would also be established. These had included Video OO, Slon Video, Immedia, Video Out, and Les Fleurs. Moreover, in Australia, Bush Video, MAVAM Co-op in Melbourne, and Sydney Film Makers Co-op would be formed during this period.81
Video art collectives were often intensely “spontaneous”. As Sturken points out, “Collectivism was a life-style of the times; the prevalent ideology was one of sharing-living environments, work, information”.82 Much of the result would exist in the form of street tapes. In the United States, Videofreex's focus was “…on documenting the counterculture, and providing an alternative history through the television medium”.83 This had been established to provide an alternative to television reports covering political events during the age. The conception behind this had been to employ video's real time/real life properties and qualities to document current events in a direct and unbiased way. Much of the initiative behind this had stemmed from the artists’ reaction to the political upheavals taking place during the time. These artists would be involved on a grass-roots level of documentation and reportage, forming commentaries on the state of society. The artworks produced by collectives would often result in a sharp contrast to the museum-based works. This would lead to a form of reconsideration by both parties.
For museums, although historical group exhibitions of established past masters such as the Impressionists, would be held, the practice of celebrating the works produced by contemporary “collectives” would be sanctioned in favour of the championing of individual artists over others. For museums such as MoMA, the question of individual ownership of the tapes would be raised. This would be due to their belief that the concept of the “masterpiece” in Western society should be linked to the uniqueness of the individual's creative output and oeuvre (hence the idolisation of individuality present within the High Modernist period). As a result, the central ideal of group solidarity for the collective would later be eradicated once the art object became an institutional asset owned