Alternative Media: Software and Video in 1970s Counterculture

Send Blank Tape: Radical Software magazine and early video distribution networks at Pioneer Works

Installation review

Hyperallergic

Installation view, “Send Blank Tape” at Pioneer Works

Installation view, “Send Blank Tape” at Pioneer Works

The magnetic tape of video degrades far faster than film, and these screens show a low-contrast image, a mesh of grey vibrating with artifacts and banding. The content is similarly imprecise, crossing from documentary to trippy video feedback experiment to free love sex tape to a camera being passed around at a loft party. One highlight is John Reilly’s “The Ballad of AJ Weberman,” a profile of the self-proclaimed Dylanologist rummaging through Bob Dylan’s trash cans outside his Bleecker Street apartment like a stoned archaeologist making important historical discoveries: “Dylan uses Clorox!”
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