Here Come The Videofreex

In 1968, Sony introduced the first portable video camera, the PortaPak. A few took advantage of the new medium to tell their own stories and offer an alternative to broadcasters like CBS. They wanted to show the ‘real world’, not manipulated TV reality. They set up the collective Videofreex, because “we were different, we were freaks”. Between 1969 and 1974, they hit the streets every day to record the blossoming American counterculture: they were present at Woodstock, anti-Vietnam War demonstrations, women’s lib meetings and student sit-ins. The ‘radicals’ worked briefly for the influential CBS, but it backed out of a report about the Black Panthers. To earn some money, they pioneered video projects at concerts. They also started a local pirate broadcasting station with news for and by the inhabitants of the village where the collective was staying. These days their do-it-yourself ethic is ubiquitous: we are all videofreex.

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