EZTV is a production company and exhibition venue founded
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in 1979 by film scholar, writer and video producer John Dorr, along with several filmmakers, actors, writers, musicians and artists. EZTV is credited with creating one of the world's first video theaters,
computer artComputer art is any art in which computers played a role in production or display of the artwork. Such art can be an image, sound, animation, video, CD-ROM, DVD-ROM, videogame, web site, algorithm, performance or gallery installation...
gallery and independent
media centerThe term media center refers either to a dedicated computer appliance or to a specialized personal computer software, both of which are adapted for playing various kinds of media , and it usually has a Graphical user interface design to be used in living-room TV with a remote control...
. Dorr wrote, produced and directed some of the earliest feature-length narrative films on video, and through his advocacy and example, helped spawn the current independent media revolution, seen most typically today, online, through services such as
YouTubeYouTube is a video sharing website on which users can upload and share videos. Three former PayPal employees created YouTube in February 2005. In November 2006, YouTube, LLC was bought by Google Inc. for $1.65 billion, and is now operated as a subsidiary of Google...
.
Early history
After a series of public screenings of early EZTV videos at the West Hollywood Community Center, Dorr, with a group of EZTV co-founders that included Michael Masucci, Strawn Bovee,
Mark ShepardMark I Shepard Vermont State Senator and unsuccessful candidate for the 2006 Republican nomination for Vermont's at-large United States House of Representatives seat.-Biography:...
,
James WilliamsJames Williams can refer to:In American politics:*James Williams , U.S. Congressman from Delaware*James D. Williams , US Representative from Indiana and governor of Indiana...
, Pat Miller, created in 1982 "EZTV Video Gallery", a 40-seat video theater, art gallery and media lab. The gallery's first premiere video was Dorr's
Dorothy and Alan at Norma Place, making the gallery an instantaneous success, due in part to an article in the
American Film InstituteThe American Film Institute is an independent non-profit organization created by the National Endowment for the Arts, which was established in 1967 when President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the National Foundation on the Arts and the Humanities Act...
's American Film magazine, as well as in various local print and electronic press. Within two years, media attention had reached a national scale, and EZTV expanded to a 100-seat video theater, with two gallery spaces, a production studio, five video editing rooms, a music lab and a
photographyPhotography is the process, activity and art of creating still or moving pictures by recording radiation on a sensitive medium, such as a photographic film, or an electronic sensor...
darkroomA darkroom is a room that can be made completely dark to allow the processing of light sensitive photographic materials, including photographic film and photographic paper. Darkrooms have been created and used since the inception of photography in the early 1800s...
. EZTV continued to receive routine local press attention, through newspapers such as the LA Times, the
LA WeeklyLA Weekly is a free weekly tabloid-sized newspaper in Los Angeles, California. It was founded in 1978 by Editor/Publisher Jay Levin and a board of directors that included actor-producer Michael Douglas...
, and the LA Reader, as well as various magazine, TV and radio coverage.
Filmmakers who screened at EZTV included
Jean-Luc GodardJean-Luc Godard is a French and Swiss filmmaker and one of the founding members of the Nouvelle Vague, or "French New Wave"....
,
Robert AltmanRobert Bernard Altman was an American film director known for making films that are highly naturalistic, but with a stylized perspective...
, Chantal Ackerman, as well as artists ranging from
David HockneyDavid Hockney, CH, RA, is an English painter, draughtsman, printmaker, stage designer and photographer, who is based in Bridlington, Yorkshire, although he also maintains a base in London...
,
Keith HaringKeith Haring was an artist and social activist whose work responded to the New York City street culture of the 1980s.-Early life:...
,
Yoko Ono, , is a Japanese-American artist and musician. She is known for her marriage to John Lennon and for her work as an avant-garde artist and musician.-Early life:...
,
Bill BarminskiBill Barminski is an American artist and filmmaker born in Chicago, Illinois.- Life and Art :Barminski moved with his family to Fort Worth, Texas, while still very young and it was there that he spent most of his formative years....
, musicians ranging from the
Red Hot Chili PeppersRed Hot Chili Peppers is an American alternative rock band formed in Los Angeles, California, in 1983. For most of the band's existence, the members have been vocalist Anthony Kiedis, guitarist John Frusciante, bassist Michael "Flea" Balzary, and drummer Chad Smith...
,
Black FlagBlack Flag was an American punk rock band formed in 1976 in Hermosa Beach, California. The band was established largely as the brainchild of Greg Ginn: the guitarist, primary songwriter and sole continuous member through multiple personnel changes...
and many of the pioneering
digital artDigital art is an umbrella term for a range of artistic works and practices that exploit digital technology. Since the 1970s various names have been used to describe what is now called digital art including computer art and multimedia art but digital art is itself placed under the larger umbrella...
ists exhibited, collaborated, or lectured at EZTV.
Through the efforts of EZTV's Michael Masucci, and ia Kamandalu
(aka Kim McKillip), often working in collaboration with digital artist Victor Acevedo, and art historian and Patric Prince, EZTV began to become a vital center for the exploration, exhibition and advocacy of the emerging new media arts. EZTV was often the meeting place for the LA chapter of
SIGGRAPHSIGGRAPH is the name of the annual conference on computer graphics convened by the ACM SIGGRAPH organization. The first SIGGRAPH conference was in 1974. The conference is attended by tens of thousands of computer professionals...
, and through the efforts of LA-SIGGRAPHS
Joan CollinsJoan Henrietta Collins OBE is an English actress, author, and columnist.-Early life:Collins was born in Paddington, London, the daughter of Elsa , a dance teacher and nightclub hostess, and Joseph William Collins, an agent whose clients would later include Shirley Bassey, The Beatles and Tom Jones...
and Coco Conn, was the first site for SIG-KIDZ, a pioneering experiment in digital art and education. Various other organizations, including the International Documentary Association, the
Long Beach Museum of ArtThe Long Beach Museum of Art is a museum located on Ocean Blvd. in the Bluff Park neighborhood of Long Beach, California. The museum occupies the historic 1912 Elizabeth Milbank Anderson house and carriage house and a new two-story pavilion, and includes oceanfront gardens. The museum is open...
Video Annex, the Visual Music Alliance, the
CaliforniaCalifornia is the most populous state in the United States, and the third largest by area. California is the second most populous sub-national entity in the Americas, behind only São Paulo, Brazil...
Outside Music Association and the Los Angeles Center for Photographic Studies guest-curated numerous exhibitions at EZTV.
EZTV founder John Dorr died on January 1, 1993, from the complications of
HIVHuman immunodeficiency virus is a lentivirus that causes acquired immunodeficiency syndrome , a condition in humans in which the immune system begins to fail, leading to life-threatening opportunistic infections. Infection with HIV occurs by the transfer of blood, semen, vaginal fluid,...
/
AIDSAcquired immune deficiency syndrome or acquired immunodeficiency syndrome is a disease of the human immune system caused by the human immunodeficiency virus ....
. The
American Film InstituteThe American Film Institute is an independent non-profit organization created by the National Endowment for the Arts, which was established in 1967 when President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the National Foundation on the Arts and the Humanities Act...
's International Film Festival was named that year in his memory, and he was eulogized in obituaries in the New York Times, the
Los Angeles TimesThe Los Angeles Times is a daily newspaper published in Los Angeles, California since 1881. It is distributed throughout the Western United States. It is the second-largest metropolitan newspaper in the United States and the fourth-most widely distributed newspaper in the United States...
, the LA Weekly, the Hollywood Reporter,
VarietyVariety is a weekly entertainment-trade magazine founded in New York City, New York, in 1905 by Sime Silverman. With the rise of the importance of the motion-picture industry, Daily Variety, a daily edition based in Los Angeles, California, was founded by Silverman in 1933. In 1998, the Daily...
and Documentary Magazine. Following Dorr's death, EZTV moved into a series of art organization-in-residency, including in
Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions (LACE), from 1996-2000, and Santa Monica's 18th Street Arts Center (2000-present).
Recent history
EZTV continued, under the direction of Michael Masucci and
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, and continued the curatorial as well as production methodologies, premiering various new EZTV projects at venues such as the
Museum of Modern ArtThe Museum of Modern Art is an art museum located in Midtown Manhattan in New York City, USA, on 53rd Street, between Fifth and Sixth Avenues. It has been singularly important in developing and collecting modernist art, and is often identified as the most influential museum of modern art in the...
(New York) the Institute of Contemporary Art (London) and various galleries, conferences and festivals.
"Hacking the Timeline" an on-going project concerned with the historical analysis of the new media revolution, was instituted in 2003 and has staged lectures, online screenings and gallery exhibitions of classic and emerging digital art.
EZTV continues today, producing original work which has screened at the Museum of Modern Art, the Institute of Contemporary Art, the American Film Institute, Bravo, the
BBCThe British Broadcasting Corporation, usually referred to by its abbreviation as the "BBC", is the longest established and largest broadcaster in the world...
, the History Channel and various galleries and festivals. EZTV is currently an artist organization-in-residency at the 18th Street Arts Center in Santa Monica.
External links