Vašulka Mediascape

Early videomakers formed “tribes” to share equipment

Steina on New York in late 1960s, early 1970s: “People grouped together, formed tribes so to speak, in order to afford the video equipment. They had to pool equipment; it was a tremendous expense. I don’t know what the Portapak cost, but $1000 was worth a lot more than it is now, so it was substantial. Everybody got into this endless thing – they brought the Portapak and then they needed a VTR (Video Tape Recorder) and then they needed to edit. Editing, for the first year or so, was mostly done with razor blades.”

Chris Hill, “Interview with Steina,” in Buffalo Heads, Woody Vašulka & Peter Weibel, eds, ZKM, Karlsruhe (2008); link: https://vasulka.org/archive/4-25/Squealer(5097).pdf.