Scratch Video
Encyclopedia
Scratch video was a British
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...

 video art
Video art
Video art is a type of art which relies on moving pictures and comprises video and/or audio data. . Video art came into existence during the 1960s and 1970s, is still widely practiced and has given rise to the widespread use of video installations...

 movement that emerged in the early-mid 1980s. It was characterised by the use of found footage
Found footage
Found footage is a filmmaking term which describes a method of compiling films partly or entirely of footage which has not been created by the filmmaker, and changing its meaning by placing it in a new context. It should not be mistaken for documentary or compilation films. It is also not to be...

, fast-cutting and multi-layered rhythms. It is significant in that, as a form of outsider art
Outsider Art
The term outsider art was coined by art critic Roger Cardinal in 1972 as an English synonym for art brut , a label created by French artist Jean Dubuffet to describe art created outside the boundaries of official culture; Dubuffet focused particularly on art by insane-asylum inmates.While...

, it challenged many of the establishment assumptions of broadcast TV - as well of those of gallery-bound video art.

Scratch video arose in opposition to broadcast TV, as (anti-)artists attempted to deal critically and directly with the impact of mass communications. The context these videos emerged in is important, as it tended to critique of the institutions making broadcast videos and the commercialism found on “youth” TV, especially MTV
MTV
MTV, formerly an initialism of Music Television, is an American network based in New York City that launched on August 1, 1981. The original purpose of the channel was to play music videos guided by on-air hosts known as VJs....

. This it did in form, content and in its mode of distribution.

Much of the work was politically radical, often containing images of a sexual or violent nature, and using images appropriated from mainstream media, including corporate advertising; using strategies inspired by the Situationist concept of detournement
Detournement
A détournement is a technique developed in the 1950s by the Letterist International, and consist in "turning expressions of the capitalist system against itself." Détournement was prominently used to set up subversive political pranks, an influential tactic called situationist prank that was...

 and William S. Burroughs
William S. Burroughs
William Seward Burroughs II was an American novelist, poet, essayist and spoken word performer. A primary figure of the Beat Generation and a major postmodernist author, he is considered to be "one of the most politically trenchant, culturally influential, and innovative artists of the 20th...

’ theories of Electronic Revolution
The Electronic Revolution
The Electronic Revolution is an essay collection by William S. Burroughs that was first published in 1970 by Expanded Media Editions in West Germany...

.

Context

The primary audience for scratch video in the early to mid 80s, was in nightclub performances by “industrial music” bands such as The Anti-Group Company, Cabaret Voltaire
Cabaret Voltaire (band)
Cabaret Voltaire were a British music group from Sheffield, England.Initially composed of Stephen Mallinder, Richard H. Kirk and Chris Watson, the group was named after the Cabaret Voltaire, a nightclub in Zürich, Switzerland that was a centre for the early Dada movement.Their earliest performances...

, Nocturnal Emissions
Nocturnal Emissions
Nocturnal Emissions is a sound art project that has released numerous records and CDs in music styles ranging from electro-acoustic, musique concrète, hybridised beats, sound collage, post-industrial music, ambient and noise music....

, Psychic TV
Psychic TV
Psychic TV or PTV, is a video art and music group that primarily performs psychedelic, punk, electronic and experimental music...

, SPK
SPK (band)
SPK, formed in 1978 in Sydney, Australia, was a 1980s and early 1990s industrial music and noise music group. One member, Graeme Revell, would later go on to become a successful Hollywood movie composer.-History:...

, Test Dept
Test Dept
Test Dept were an industrial music group from London, one of the most important and influential early industrial music acts. Their approach was marked by a strong commitment to radical socialist politics.-History:...

, Autopsia
Autopsia
Autopsia is an art project dealing with music and visual production. Autopsia gathers authors of different professions in realization of multimedia projects. Its art practice began in London in the late 1970s, continued during the 80s in the art centers of former Yugoslavia. Since 1990, Autopsia...

, etc. Some of those involved described their work as a form of “cultural terrorism” or as a form of “anti-art”.

In the mid 1980s typical London venues would be screenings at artist-run spaces such as the Ambulance Station, in independent cinemas such as the Brixton Ritzy Cinema
Ritzy Cinema
The Ritzy is a cinema in Brixton, South London, United Kingdom.The cinema opened on 11 March 1911 as 'the Electric Pavilion'. It was built by E. C. Homer and Lucas for Israel Davis, one of a noted family of cinema developers, and was one of England's earliest purpose built cinemas seating over 750...

, or the Fridge
The Fridge
The Fridge is a nightclub in the Brixton area of South London, founded by Andrew Czezowski, who had run the Roxy during punk music's heyday in 1977. It was originally started in 1981, in a small club at 390 Brixton Lane, and in 1982 above Iceland in Brixton Road with a radical decor that included...

 nightclub, which boasted an array of dozens of recycled colour TVs. There was also significant distribution on VHS
VHS
The Video Home System is a consumer-level analog recording videocassette standard developed by Victor Company of Japan ....

 tape, following similar networks to cassette culture
Cassette culture
Cassette culture, or the cassette underground , refers to the practices surrounding amateur production and distribution of recorded music that emerged in the late 1970s via home-made audio cassettes...

.

After Andy Lipman’s City Limits feature contextualised the “art” values of this practice, material began to be featured in small screenings in official art galleries such as the ICA
Institute of Contemporary Arts
The Institute of Contemporary Arts is an artistic and cultural centre on The Mall in London, just off Trafalgar Square. It is located within Nash House, part of Carlton House Terrace, near the Duke of York Steps and Admiralty Arch...

 and Tate
Tate
-Places:*Tate, Georgia, a town in the United States*Tate County, Mississippi, a county in the United States*Táté, the Hungarian name for Totoi village, Sântimbru Commune, Alba County, Romania*Tate, Filipino word for States...

. TV stations like Channel 4
Channel 4
Channel 4 is a British public-service television broadcaster which began working on 2 November 1982. Although largely commercially self-funded, it is ultimately publicly owned; originally a subsidiary of the Independent Broadcasting Authority , the station is now owned and operated by the Channel...

 began late night screenings of art videos, including “scratch video”. However, because much of the material was constructed using domestic VHS equipment, it was deemed both technically and legally unsuitable for broadcast (TV stations are particularly wary of copyright violations). Being highly politicised, some of the material also broke with the broadcaster’s criteria of “balance”.

Artists

  • George Barber
    George Barber (artist)
    George Barber, born 1958 in Guyana, is a video artist based in London. He is represented by Waterside Contemporary. - Career :George Barber received his BA from the St Martins School of Art in 1980 and his MA from The Slade in 1984...

  • Nick Cope
  • Cabaret Voltaire
    Cabaret Voltaire (band)
    Cabaret Voltaire were a British music group from Sheffield, England.Initially composed of Stephen Mallinder, Richard H. Kirk and Chris Watson, the group was named after the Cabaret Voltaire, a nightclub in Zürich, Switzerland that was a centre for the early Dada movement.Their earliest performances...

  • Nocturnal Emissions
    Nocturnal Emissions
    Nocturnal Emissions is a sound art project that has released numerous records and CDs in music styles ranging from electro-acoustic, musique concrète, hybridised beats, sound collage, post-industrial music, ambient and noise music....

  • Gorilla Tapes
    Gorilla Tapes
    Gorilla Tapes was the collective name of British Scratch Video artists Jon Dovey , Gavin Hodge and Tim Morrison . 'Scratch' is the art of 'sampling' and repeating found images and sounds, thereby making a new work...

  • Sandra Goldbacher
    Sandra Goldbacher
    Sandra Goldbacher is a British film director and producer.Among her films are The Governess, starring Minnie Driver and nominated for a BAFTA award in 1999, and Me Without You , starring Anna Friel and Michelle Williams.- References :...

  • Richard Heslop
    Richard Heslop
    Richard Heslop is a British director of music videos and films. He has produced videos for artists including Queen, The Cure, and New Order, as well as programs on Channel 4 and the BBC...

  • Psychic TV
    Psychic TV
    Psychic TV or PTV, is a video art and music group that primarily performs psychedelic, punk, electronic and experimental music...


History

'Scratch Video' is a rather catch-all category of work which derive from popular dance and music fashions and the cutting of found trash images with it. Its long history begins with the cubist collages of Picasso and Braque, the 'ready-mades' of Duchamp, and passes through Joseph Cornell
Joseph Cornell
Joseph Cornell was an American artist and sculptor, one of the pioneers and most celebrated exponents of assemblage...

, Bruce Conner
Bruce Conner
Bruce Conner was an American artist renowned for his work in assemblage, film, drawing, sculpture, painting, collage, and photography, among other disciplines.-Early life:...

, Andy Warhol
Andy Warhol
Andrew Warhola , known as Andy Warhol, was an American painter, printmaker, and filmmaker who was a leading figure in the visual art movement known as pop art...

 and William S. Burroughs and Anthony Balch 'cut-ups'. The movement was influenced by the American video artist Dara Birnbaum
Dara Birnbaum
Dara Birnbaum, born in 1946 in New York ,USA, where she continues to live and work, uses video to reconstruct television imagery using as material such archetypal formats as quizzes, soap operas, and sports programmes. Her techniques involve the repetition of images and interruption of flow with...

.

Speaking of the movements emergence and how it got its name, Rik Lander (one half of The Duvet Brothers) has stated:

"I can’t remember when we found out what we were doing was scratch or that we were part of a movement. Certainly when we saw the work of Kim Flitcroft and Sandra Goldbacher, George Barber and Gorilla Tapes it was uncanny that so many people had been experimenting in the same area without knowing that the others existed. In my mind a journalist called Pat Sweeney came up with the name scratch, but scratch video may have already existed as a named form in the US. Andy Lipman ran a City Limits cover story on Scratch Video in October 1984 where he tried to create the myth that scratch was made by disaffected youth taping the TV and reediting it on VCR’s at home. If anyone knew this was not the case it was Andy. He was one of the few people who had actually met all the people involved. Dessa Fox in the NME
NME
The New Musical Express is a popular music publication in the United Kingdom, published weekly since March 1952. It started as a music newspaper, and gradually moved toward a magazine format during the 1980s, changing from newsprint in 1998. It was the first British paper to include a singles...

 tried a similar hype when she suggested that scratch video was a televisual punk rock".

Today Scratch Video continues to be popular historical form, maintaining a cult following in niche contemporary art video circles. Original Scratch Video works continue to be shown in major exhibitions around the world. Notable events, amongst others, being Gorilla Tapes' participation in the ICA
Institute of Contemporary Arts
The Institute of Contemporary Arts is an artistic and cultural centre on The Mall in London, just off Trafalgar Square. It is located within Nash House, part of Carlton House Terrace, near the Duke of York Steps and Admiralty Arch...

's 2007 exhibition Last Days of The British Underground and SCRATCH! a recent retrospective exhibition curated by Paul Pieroni at SEVENTEEN
SEVENTEEN
SEVENTEEN is a British contemporary art gallery started in 2005, on east London's Kingsland Road and shows emerging and established contemporary artists. This gallery's artists are:*Susan Collis*Richard Cuerden*Paul B. Davis*Graham Dolphin*Bill Drummond...

, London.

Further reading

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