Andy Warhol, The Middle Class, MTV and You
What is my take in the art of making live video? What do I want to do different then the tons of advertisment agencies producing music videos. What is it that drives me forward even so there is no money involved and I am slowly starving (well not yet but I am getting there). Its my way to make clear a message, even subtle in clubs at parties. Its moving images that might change peoples thinking. Its clips that might sprinkle hope. Its things that might wake up brainwashed chemojunkies. Peter Rubin, one of the still performing video artists that has been in this territory from the beginning throughout the 60s,70s and 1980s has put his energy into a project to get some of this activism back that ones was present in this scene and was the hallmark of the peace revolution that took place in the 70s. Back then this all was new and adventurous back then and the haluzinogen szene was active, but the message was clear, put a counterweight to masscommunication, find artistic was to challenge tv consumption. Here we are in the year 2004 and the scene is ones again flourishing. We are not in the need anymore to build our own hardware, most is cheap and easily available, the revival goes far beyond anything that was here in the last 400 years (when Loius Bertrant Castel build his first ColorCembalo). We are numerours and we have electronics that are geared toward us - as seen in our own Pioneer videoturntable. Well all is fine but there is something missing that was there all throughout. The message and the search for it. In the early times the audiovisual artists tried to search for the perfect connection of color and sound then form and sound. When they found out that there might be a deep psychological connection but no scientific one they experimented and tried to find a message, with there hardware (first portable video synthesizer 1969), with their pictures (halizunogen to free the mind late 60s). Then came commercialisation and this is where I leave it to Peter Rubin with his and our videomix project to explain what goes wrong and where we – the Visual Artist Rebells – will need to go instead.
In short, it’s time for the people to take back their vision! What are needed now are not clever new formulas designed to divide the mass into more efficient units of predictable behavior, but initiatives which can replace the present commercial manipulation of global identities; What is needed now is a new awareness, a new courage and belief, a new breed of truly independent young visionaries who will forsake the slave-like dependence on commercial financing and compromised production; What are needed now are initiatives that will not only satisfy a small, radical club of underground egoists, but will develop a self-financing work structure supported by and serving the global community; What is needed now is a visual renaissance born from the heart of the underground spirit, which is global and technological, and independent and free, in order to freshly inspire music and culture and bring the vision of the people back to the global family.
PeteR Rubin Amsterdam, June 1995
