Video Hiroba

Video Hiroba (Japanese: ビデオひろば, lit. Video Plaza or Public Square) was a Japanese video art collective founded as a result of the first Japanese Video Art symposium and exhibition, Video Communication/Do it Yourself Kit (February 1972), organised by Michael Goldberg, Nakaya Fujiko and Yamaguchi Katsuhiro. Members of Video Hiroba were interested in exploring the possibilities and production of video[1] as a form of mutual communication technology in the public sphere.[2]

History

Video Hiroba was formed in March 1972 by Japanese contemporary artists and experimental filmmakers, following the 11-day symposium Video Communication/Do it Yourself Kit at the Tokyo SONY Building. The symposium was helmed by on the collective’s founding members, Nakaya Fujiko and Michael Goldberg. They presented on the self-reflexive and documentary capacity of video respectively, which resulted in formal experimentations by participations that were exhibited in the later days of the symposium.[3] Given their diverse practices and artistic backgrounds, the symposium was the first occasion that most Video Hiroba members had access to video equipment.

One of the notable works created at the symposium was Yamaguchi and Kobayashi's video performance Eat. Two performers sit at a table. One records the other eating; then they switch roles. The work experimented with the "live-ness" of video technology, Yamaguchi and Kobayashi pairing the live video feed of the performance alongside the act itself.[4]

Upon their founding, the collective could not come to a consensus on what structure they should be organised around, and instead opted to leave it open and undefined for future evolution.[5] However, they agreed that their aim was to “[expand] the possibilities of the video-tape and video communication”, Yamaguchi designation the name Video Hiroba. The word "Hiroba" can be translated as public square, and was chosen to imply public communication or thoroughfare.[6]

Collaborative practice

Members of the collective purchased a Portapak camera, which they rented out to members for $3.50 a day.[7] They also rented a Tokyo office space to explore collaborations and troubleshoot the technological and communication aspects of video. Video Hiroba also served as a network that provided its members opportunities to exhibit their work alongside other developments in artist video.[8] The collective also hosted Nam June Paik in Tokyo in June 1973, holding extensive dialogues on video practices.[9]

Later years

Within two years, the size of the collective had whittled down to five main members that continued to work together; Yamaguchi, Kawanaka, Kobayashi, Matsushita and Nakaya. Their self declared functions subsequently involved being an equipment access center, to (continue to) rent out Portapaks to registered members, and to be a project team to support community activities and social integration.[10]

Vdeo Hiroba’s ethos and focus on cultivating video practices led to Nakaya’s founding of Video Gallery SCAN in 1980,[11] a few years after the dissolution of the collective. Other video art collectives and organisations operating within the same time period include Nakajima Ko’s Video Earth Tokyo and Tezuka Ichiro’s Video Information Center.

Productions

In 1974, Nakaya Fujiko and Kawanaka Nobuhiro published their translation of Michael Shamberg’s Guerilla Television (1971) in Bijutsu Shuppan-sha,[12] a text which informed the collective’s video-making practice as an alternative to broadcast television.

Works of Video Hiroba members chosen for exhibition are often individual productions, but the collective actually produced both independent and collaborative works. They collaborated on events and performance projects, also filming documentary videos as part of socially-engaged projects.[13]

Notable examples include Community Video (1973), a longitudinal study on the effects of video communication on community participation commissioned by Yokohama’s Economic Planning Agency.[14] The project was led by Yamaguchi, and involved Video Hiroba members Nakaya, Kawanaka and Kobayashi. The project was centred around video interviews, in which interviewees went through multiple rounds of being interviewed on their opinions regarding local urban planning, subsequently reviewing their own interviews.[15] Through this process, participants reflected that their expressed wants during these interviews were not conclusive, confusing even.[16] Community Video was predicated by earlier (non-government funded) explorations by Yamaguchi, Nakaya, Kobayashi and Kawanaka in Niigata and Mito in April 1972.[17] A similar year-long project commissioned by the City of Kunitachi was produced by Kobayashi in 1978.[18]

Members of Video Hiroba also published the magazine Video Express (first issue in 1974), and produced the “Video Game Festival” (August 1974) in Karuizawa.[19]

Members

The thirteen original members included:

Group exhibitions and screenings

References
  1. Glusberg, Japan Video Art Festival: 33 Artists.
  2. Hiro, Rika Iezumi. (2010). "Between Absence and Presence: Exploring Video Earth’s What is Photography?". Invisible Culture 10.
  3. Adachi, Ann A. (2014). Infrastructure, Production, and Archive: American and Japanese Video Art Production of 1960s and 1970s. City University of New York, p. 15.
  4. "Electronic Arts Intermix: Eat, Katsuhiro Yamaguchi". www.eai.org. Retrieved 2021-01-30.
  5. Nakaya, "Japan - VIDEO HIROBA", 52.
  6. London, Video from Tokyo to Fukui and Kyoto, 9.
  7. London, Video from Tokyo to Fukui and Kyoto, 10.
  8. London, Video from Tokyo to Fukui and Kyoto, 5.
  9. Glusberg, Japan Video Art Festival: 33 Artists.
  10. Nakaya, "Japan - VIDEO HIROBA", 53.
  11. Adachi, Infrastructure, Production, and Archive, 28.
  12. Nakaya, "Japan - VIDEO HIROBA", 52-3.
  13. Nishikawa, Film Independents and Japanese Underground Cinema, 33.
  14. Nakaya, "Japan - VIDEO HIROBA", 52-3.
  15. Nishikawa, Film Independents and Japanese Underground Cinema, 34.
  16. Nakaya, "Japan - VIDEO HIROBA", 52-3.
  17. Glusberg, Japan Video Art Festival: 33 Artists.
  18. Glusberg, Japan Video Art Festival: 33 Artists.
  19. London, Video from Tokyo to Fukui and Kyoto, 25.
  20. London, Video from Tokyo to Fukui and Kyoto, 4.
  21. Nygren, Paper Screen, 30.
  22. London, Video from Tokyo to Fukui and Kyoto, 29.
  23. London, Video from Tokyo to Fukui and Kyoto, 29.
  24. "Video Art - ICA Philadelphia". Institute of Contemporary Art - Philadelphia, PA. 2013-08-30. Retrieved 2021-01-30.
  25. Glusberg, Japan Video Art Festival: 33 Artists.
  26. Video from Tokyo to Fukui and Kyoto: MoMA. (1979). Retrieved January 30, 2021, from https://www.moma.org/calendar/+exhibitions/2300
  27. "Japanese Video from the Lydia Modi Vitale Collection: Selected Tapes from Video Hiroba | BAMPFA". bampfa.org. Retrieved 2021-01-30.
  28. Nygren, Paper Screen, 30.
  29. E-flux. (2009). Retrieved January 30, 2020, from https://www.e-flux.com/announcements/37644/fall-2009/
  30. About "MAM Research". (2016). Retrieved January 30, 2021, from https://www.mori.art.museum/english/contents/mamproject/+mamresearch/004.htm
  31. Video Communicatio. Retrieved January 30, 2021, from http://www.vivomediaarts.com/archive/video-communication/

Bibliography
  • London, Barbara. (1992). "Electronic Explorations". Art in America May, 120.
  • London, Barbara. (Ed.). (1979). Video from Tokyo to Fukui and Kyoto. Museum of Modern Art.
  • Glusberg, Jorge. (1978). Japan Video Art Festival: 33 Artists. Center of Art and Communication, Buenos Aires, April 1978. CAYC.
  • Nakaya, Fujiko. (1973). "Japan - VIDEO HIROBA". Artscanada, 30(4), 52-53.
  • Nishikawa, Tomonari. (2015). "Film Independents and Japanese Underground Cinema: An Interview with Tomohiro Nishimura". Millennium Film Journal, (61), 30-37.
  • Nygren, Scott. "Paper Screen: Video Art in a Japanese Context." Journal of Film and Video 39, no. 1 (1987): 27-35. http://www.jstor.org/stable/20687754.

Forthcoming
  • Horisaki-Christens, Nina. (2021). “VIDEO HIROBA: Contingent Publics and Video Communication, 1966-1985” (Columbia University, J. Reynolds).
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