In mid-1978 the Paddington Video Access Centre had been operating at the Paddington Town Hall for about two years. The original video centre (known as City Video) had moved from its offices and workshop upstairs at 445 Oxford St, Paddington after the Town Hall renovations were completed and a two camera, and Cox colour vision mixer system with an IVC 1” videotape editing suite and a well lit studio with chroma-key cyclorama had been installed. Production and post-production began in earnest in mid-19771 and a year later a number of interesting new colour video works had been completed.
Above the video studio was the Ozone Cinema (now the Chauvel) and it provided the opportunity to present a one day showing of the latest works from the video centre.
A GE Talaria video projector, which was capable of projecting the video image to a size large enough to fill the cinema screen, was hired from Link Television (a subsidiary of Channel 9) with the support of Air Programs International's equipment importing division for the cost of the transport and set up.
This is thought to have been the first time in Australia that video had been shown in the cinema at the same scale as regular film projections. The videos shown were curated by Stephen Jones.
The programme for the day follows:
Videozone Sunday July 9, 1978 Ozone Cinema, Paddington Town Hall Centre, Sydney 31-9025 ALL 3 SESSIONS - $5. 20
On Sunday July 9th, Videozone at the Paddington Town Hall Centre presents the next generation of television. Three programs of video features exploring people, politics and power pop, displayed on the G.E.C. Large screen projector by arrangement with Link TV. Made through the facilities of the National Video Resources Centre, Paddington, and the Melbourne Media Resource Centre.
Videozone was produced by Martin Fabinyi, Stephen Jones and Andy Trenouth.
Videozone, NVRC and MMRC are supported by the Australian Film Commission.
2PM
Stephen Jones: Tai Chi
From the real to the processed image... video image transformations...Tai Chi is energy processing within the body... a dance/meditation. “An attempt to represent energy levels around and within the body, over time, generated by this dance".
Jeune Pritchard, Luce Pelissier: Queensland Dossier
Current political issues in Queensland; unions, education, women's rights, aboriginal rights - their repression under National Party rule. (60mins). "The tapes attempt to analyse the failure of the opposition to effectively combat the National Party's rise to power".
From Melbourne
A program of recent tapes from Melbourne. (45mins)
4PM
Jeune Pritchard, Stephen Jones: Colombian Gold
Made for the Australian Art Exhibitions Corporation. Part of a travelling exhibition of pre-Columbian Indian gold work. Colombian Gold looks at the role of the Spanish Conquistadores in South America, the lure of gold and the legend of El Dorado.
Kimble Rendall, Carole Sklan: Grandma Rose, Elsie Mae and Lotte.
A documentary of the personal memories of three older women, their lives spanning the history of the 20th Century. (60mins) “We are using anti-illusionistic devices - fragmentation of screen, montage, dramatisation, historical material, media images and graphics as a means of placing the individual in the wider cultural context which has formed her.”
8PM
Michael Glasheen: Uluru
A record of the Australian Aboriginal mythological vision of creation as can be witnessed in the topography of Ayers Rock. While following an Aboriginal guide a series of myths are recreated by dramatic film and color video effects. (24mins) "Australian Aboriginal myths are precise recipes for perception...Uluru is a dreamtime filmtime vision seen through the screen of Nature".
Stephen Jones: Systems Interfacing Reports System: SOL Planet: TERRA Re: Synergy Transceiver Installation A: Stonehenge (14mins) B: TV Buddha (12mins) "What is, was, always will be: only the dreaming remains to remind recent generations. No attempt is made to suggest how or why, the present images fire our imagination to questions not answers. The myth endures"
Joseph El Khouri: Ascension of the Rainbow Serpent / Dread verses Babylon - genre mythology / video dreaming / a sci fi musical. Dread verses Babylon - a song cycle which constitutes the last scene of the Ascension. "The songs, a fusion of black musical styles, tribal blues, rock and Dread Rasta prophecy, all woven together into an extravagant Electronic Corroboree". (70mins)
An announcement was made for a proposed international video festival that arose out of communications by Jorge Glusberg of the Centro de Arte y Communcacion in Argentina. The festival didn't eventuate through lack of funding but the collection that had begun to accrete around the proposal became Videotapes from Australia.
TV International: A World Video Show
Australia's first international video festival will be formally launched before the 8pm session. The festival, scheduled to run in April, 1979 at the National Video Resources Centre, will embrace all visions of video and television from videoart to exhibitions of the latest hardware in a total media environment. Detailed plans for the festival will be available during Videozone, or write P.O. Box 124, Paddington, N.S.W. 2021, phone 31 9874 / 31 9025. The screening was reviewed by Gabriel Dalton for Camera & Cine, August 1978.
- 1. With Stephen Jones as the main technical producer for the studio.
