Video Information Center - Part I
From VIC Video_Tape_File［VIC1211］, n.d., 15:33 min, video, b/w and color
From March-May 2024, as part of our Community of Images series and in collaboration with Hitoshi Kubo of the Keio University Art Center, we are thrilled to present a three-month feature on the early Japanese video collective, the Video Information Center (VIC). The extensive program is an introduction to the group’s tireless documentation of underground arts and culture in Japan’s 1970s and 1980s. Our March program (Part I) comprises 7 of VIC’s video records, including a Tokyo dance event featuring Trisha Brown and Yvonne Rainer, a performance from the underground theater troupe Jokyo Gekijo, and an episode of the group’s own cable television program, Cable Paravision Ten.
The screening is accompanied by a new translation of an interview with Ichiro Tezuka, director of the VIC, conducted by Hitoshi Kubo and Yu Honma (English / Japanese).
The program is facilitated by Keio University Art Center’s project, the Agency for Cultural Affairs in Japan Support Program to Promote Archives of Media Arts 2023: Digitizing and Cataloging of Performance and Exhibition Video Records from the post-1970s.
The Video Information Center (VIC), an art collective that worked with video as their main media, was started in 1972 by students of the International Christian University (ICU), Tokyo, as a sub-group of ICU shоgekijо (little-theater), a student-run theater community. VIC was founded by six members—Yusuke Itо, Yasuhiko Suga, Hisashi Noyama, Makoto Uchiki, Sоichi Ishii, and led by Ichirо Tezuka. The group’s activities may be sorted into the following five categories: “creating a collection of recorded events, regardless of high-brow or low-brow,” “experimentation in communication via video technology,” “organizing video-related events,” “communication with artistic groups in and out of Japan,” and “creating a broad platform for video.” Specifically the group’s activities began with their broadcasting in the ICU school cafeteria, and branched out into many fields. Their activities include a conceived proposal for a “soft museum (sofuto musiamu),” various video recording sessions of dance, theater, exhibitions, symposiums, concerts and other odd events such as activities of a mother's volleyball club. Also notably, based out of their residence, a small apartment complex, in Mitaka, Tokyo, the group experimented with cable television, calling the program Cable Paravision Ten. VIC worked closely and often in correspondence with other groups oriented toward video art such as Video Hiroba (hiroba refers to an open communal space such as a plaza or park) run by Fujiko Nakaya, Katsuhiro Yamaguchi, and others. VIC also had connections with overseas artistic groups and participated in the 1979 MoMA exhibition Video from Tokyo to Fukui and Kyoto (April 19–June 19) curated by Barbara London.
The present program will be presented over the next three months in three parts Part I, Part II, and Part III, focusing on the following three categories Category A - Collected records of events, Category B - Experimentation in cable television, and Category C - Video events organized by VIC. Each phase from I through III have been designed as to give a thorough taste of all three categories A, B, and C. The methodical ideals of VIC, that the videos “shall not be edited” have been honored, and in the program each video, now digitized, is shown from beginning to end without manipulation. Physical wear on the original tape footage will appear as occasional disruption. We thank our audience in advance for their graceful acceptance of the states in which these videos have been digitized and archived. Our hopes are to create an opportunity to catch a glimpse of the vast variety of activities encapsulated in VIC’s career.
Category A. Integrated records of events
A-0. Collected records of events from category A-1 to A-4 edited by VIC
A-1. Exhibitions/Performances: Art, Dance, Theater, Music concerts
A-2. Symposiums
A-3. Interviews
A-4. Non-art
Category B. Experimentation in cable television: Cable Paravision Ten
Category C. Video events organized by VIC
C-1. Video Workshop
C-2. Video Competition
We would like to gratefully acknowledge the major support received in presenting this program from the following: the Keio University Art Center, and the Agency for Cultural Affairs in Japan Support Program to Promote Archives of Media Arts 2023: Digitizing and Cataloging of Performance and Exhibition Video Records from the post-1970s.
Hitoshi Kubo
Translated by Miyuki Hinton
VIC（ビデオ・インフォメーション・センター）は、1972年、ICU（国際基督教大学）の演劇サークルであるICU小劇場を母胎として開始した。設立時のメンバーは6名で、伊藤裕介・菅靖彦・野山尚志・内木誠・石井宗一、そして手塚一郎が代表をつとめた。その活動は、「ハイ&ローを問わない網羅的なイベントの記録」「ビデオ・テクノロジーを用いたコミュニケーションの実験」「ビデオ関連イベントの企画」「国内外の芸術グループとのコミュニケーション」「ビデオの普及活動」の大きく5つに分類することができる。具体的には、ICUの学生食堂における放送から始まり、「ソフトミュージアム」構想、ダンス・演劇・展覧会・シンポジウム・ママさんバレー・コンサートなど多様なイベントの網羅的なビデオ記録、三鷹のアパートでのCATV実験である《Cable Paravision Ten》などを行った。VICは、中谷芙二子・山口勝弘をメンバーとする「ビデオひろば」など、同時代のビデオを巡る動向と連動しながら活動を行っていた。海外のグループとの交流もあり、1979年にはニューヨーク近代美術館（MoMA）で開催された展覧会「Video From Tokyo To Fukui and Kyoto（ヴィデオ東京から福井と京都まで）」（1979年4月19日-6月19日）にも出品した。
本プログラムでは、以下3つのカテゴリー、A.網羅的なイベント記録、B.ケーブルテレビの実験、C.VIC企画のビデオ関連イベントに基づいて第I期から第III期の3ヶ月間にわたりVICの映像を紹介する。各期にわたり各カテゴリーの映像をおよそまんべんなく見られるように組んでいる。
VICが記録における方法の一つとして捉えていた「未編集」であることを尊重し、残されたテープの最初から最後までをデジタル化したデータをそのまま上映する。テープの経年劣化によって映像の中で見にくい箇所があるがご了承いただきたい。VICの多様な活動の一端が垣間見えれば幸いである。
A. 網羅的なイベント記録：
A-1. パフォーマンス（美術およびダンス・演劇・音楽コンサートなどのパフォーミング・アーツ）
A-2. シンポジウム
A-3. インタヴュー
A-4. 非芸術関連
B. ケーブルテレビの実験：「Cable Paravision Ten」
C. VIC企画のビデオ関連イベント：
C-1. ビデオ・ワークショップ
C-2. ビデオ・コンペディション
本プログラムを実現するにあたり、慶應義塾大学アート・センターおよび令和5年度 メディア芸術アーカイブ推進支援事業 メディアアート分野「1970年代以降のパフォーマンスおよび展覧会のビデオ記録のデジタル化・レコード化」（Support Program to Promote Archives of Media Arts 2023: Digitizing and Cataloging of Performance and Exhibition Video Records from the post-1970s.）の協力を得た。
久保仁志
PROGRAM - Part I
Part I-1. VIC Video_Tape_File, n.d., 15:33 min, video, b/w and color
Part I-2. Akira Kasai, Denju no mon (Gate of Initiation) 10/5, October 4－5, 1974, 121:49 min, video, b/w
Part I-3. Kishio Suga Exhibition Event (1), August 1974, 32:55 min, video, b/w
Part I-4. Trisha Brown (1) December 12 Seibu Theater, December 12, 1975, 64:06 min, video, b/w
Part I-5. Jо̄kyо̄ (Jо̄kyо̄ gekijо̄, or Situation Theater), Jagā no me (Eye of Jaguar) Act one. copy no R1-1［Complete package. Entrance of audience. Shinjuku area.］［Act 1］, June 15, 1985, 36:29 min, video, color・Jо̄kyо̄ , Jagā no me (Eye of Jaguar) Act two no R3-2［Act 2］, June 15, 1985, 39:18 min, video, color・Jо̄kyо̄ , Jagā no me (Eye of Jaguar) no R#3-3［Act 3］, June 15, 1985, 45:50 min, video, color
Part I-6. 5.27 Para Vision Ten 5.27, May 27, 1977, 12:10 min, video, b/w
Part I-7. 1982/2/28 Video wa omocha da dan bо̄ru (Video is a Toy, Cardboard box)［Act 1］, February 28, 1982, 42:03 min, video, color・1982/2/28 Video wa omocha da dan bо̄ru (Video is a Toy, Cardboard box)［Act 2］, February 28, 1982, 17:27 min, video, color
CCJ’s Community of Images programming is generously supported by Pew Center for Arts and Heritage, the Andy Warhol Foundation, the Toshiba International Foundation and the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts’ Preserving Diverse Cultures grant.
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THE PROGRAM WILL BE AVAILABLE FOR VIEWING ON CCJ’S VIEWING PLATFORM.
This Members Viewing program is supported, in part, by a grant from the Toshiba International Foundation.
Program
*【Formatting Notes】
Information is provided in the following order:
Videotape title: This line consists of a faithful transcription of the video’s handwritten label (may include abbreviations and potential errors). The English program provides a translation of the original Japanese. See Japanese program for rendition of original title provided in《》.
Reference code provided in brackets.
Black and white/ color
Length
Individuals and groups of relevance
Date
Format：OS (1/2 Open-reel Short); OL (1/2 Open-reel Long); U (U-matic); B (Betamax)
Name of event (Place of event)
Description
Act numbers are provided in brackets
*【Translation Notes】
Proper names are those from the time of the events. Certain names/places currently may be in disuse/no longer exist.
(1), (2), (3), refers to a videotape label number when events are recorded on multiple tapes.
Translations and supplementary information are provided in () after the first appearance of Japanese proper names.
Work titles appear in the following order: Japanese transcription (English translation).
Part I-1. VIC Video_Tape_File［VIC1211］｜black and white／color｜Run time 15 min 33 sec｜various｜n.d.｜various｜various (Category A-0 - Collected records of events)
This video was compiled and edited by VIC members as an introduction of VIC. 111 events were selected out of all of VIC’s records, and multiple copies of the video were made; however not all copies have survived. The present digitization was based on a digital copy owned by Sо̄ichi Ishii, member of VIC. The original tape is lost.
Part I-2. Akira Kasai, Denju no mon (Gate of Initiation) 1974/10/4 BⅡ 10/5 BⅢ［VIC0034］｜black and white｜121 min 49 sec｜Akira Kasai｜October 4－5, 1974｜B｜Denju no mon─Gate of Initiation: What Is a Secret Ceremony in the Present Day（Hosei University, Gakuseikaikan dai hо̄ru (Main hall of student-run center) ）(Category A-1 - Performance)
Akira Kasai is a dancer with roots in both classical ballet and butoh. This was VIC’s first recording of a performing arts event. Video by Ichiro Tezuka. “There was no pre-script and the filming was filled with intensity,” recalled Tezuka, in a 2017 interview.
Part I-3. Kishio Suga Exhibition Event (1)［VIC0056］｜black and white｜32 min 55 sec｜Kishio Suga｜August 2, 1974｜OL｜Kishio Suga Exhibition Show and Event Tamura garо̄ (Tamura gallery) (Category A-1 - Performance)
This solo exhibition featured Kishio Suga’s work Izon’i (Units of dependance) in which patches of grass grew along the cracks of a wall-like assembly of blocks. Here, an interview of Suga and an “Event” (in Suga's own words) set in the gallery during the exhibition are recorded. The Event featured Suga drawing a line with a piece of charcoal or chalk on leaves of calligraphy paper laid out in a line on the gallery floor. (On March 6, 2004, Suga renamed all of his previous Events “Activations.”) Video by Yasuhiko Suga (younger brother of Kishio Suga). The sound of the camera’s on/off switch can be heard in the background.
Part I-4. Trisha Brown (1) December 12, Seibu Gekijо̄ (Theater)［VIC0110］｜black and white｜64 min 6 sec｜Trisha Brown｜December 12, 1975｜OL｜Kiseki and etc./Gendai butō sirīzu posuto modan dansu Dance Today ’75 (Passage &c./Dance Today ’75: Contemporary Dance Series Post Modern Dance)（Seibu Gekijо̄）(Category A-1 - Performance)
Trisha Brown, Yvonne Rainer, Simone Forti, David Gordon, Suzushi Hanayagi and Bonjin Atsugi came together at this dance event. The leaflet text, written by Miyabi Ichikawa, presents a corresponding thematic between dance and conceptual art. It reads: “Postmodern dance is not expression, it is an enactment of plan, rules, concepts. This process tests the body as a living mass.”
Part I-5. Jо̄kyо̄, Jagā no me (Eye of Jaguar) Act one copy no R1-1［Complete package. Entrance of audience. Shinjuku area.］［VIC0946］｜color｜36 min 29 sec｜Jо̄kyо̄ gekijо̄ (Stuation Theater)｜June 15, 1985｜U｜Jagā no me (Eye of Jaguar)（Aka tento｜Hanazono jinja (Hanazono shrine)）［Act 1］
Jо̄kyо̄, Jagā no me (Eye of Jaguar) no R3-2［VIC0944］｜color｜39 min 18 sec｜Jо̄kyо̄ gekijо̄ (Situation Theater)｜June 15, 1985｜U｜Jagā no me (Eye of Jaguar)（Aka tento｜Hanazono jinja (Hanazono shrine)）［Act 2］
Jо̄kyо̄, Jagā no me (Eye of Jaguar) no R#3-3［VIC0945］｜color｜45 min 50 sec｜Jо̄kyо̄ gekijо̄ (Situation Theater)｜June 15, 1985｜U｜Jagā no me (Eye of Jaguar)（Aka tento｜Hanazono jinja (Hanazono shrine)）［Act 3］
(Category A-1 - Performance)
Jūrō Kara led the theater troupe Jо̄kyо̄ gekijо̄ (Situation Theater), also known as Aka tento (red tent) after the way they set up, before each performance of a play, a circus-like red tent in which to perform instead of a conventional hall. The performance of Jagā no me (Eye of Jaguar) begins with a detective and his song about the lonesomeness of living and dying and loving, and the forbidden act of looking straight into that lonesome void. A man’s transplanted eyes and the love of a few characters are the center of this play, unfolding stories of multiple lives archived within a single life, and passed on beyond an individual, thereby presenting a circumstance of the human condition.
Part I-6. 5.27 Para Vision Ten 5.27［VIC1033］｜black and white｜12 min 10 sec｜Ichirо̄ Tezuka and others｜May 27, 1977｜OS｜Cable Paravision Ten（Sawanosō）(Category B. Experimentation in cable television: Cable Paravision Ten)
The world’s smallest scale cable television. That was the concept of this experiment by VIC. Based out of their residence, a ten-unit apartment complex called Sawano-sō (Sawano apartment), in Mitaka, Tokyo, the group experimented with cable television, calling the program Cable Paravision Ten. One of the ten rooms was used as a studio while the other nine were connected with cables to receive the television programs. The program, Cable Paravision Ten, ran between 1977 and 1978. Most days it was aired from 11:30 PM for thirty minutes, but some days, depending on the program, it could run for over an hour. Each episode opens with introductory words by Tezuka, the show’s host. This episode includes rapid channel zapping in which clips from 1956 American drama film, Somebody Up There Likes Me, directed by Robert Wise appears, followed by a live phone call from resident Hara. Also on air, an article from the magazine More is introduced, results of a darby race are bet on, and the resemblance between On Kawara’s Date Paintings and cable television are debated.
Part I-7. 1982/2/28 Video wa omocha da dan bо̄ru (Video is a Toy, Cardboard box)［VIC0843］color｜42 min 3 sec｜VIC｜February 28, 1982｜B｜「Video wa omocha da dan bо̄ru (Video is a Toy, Cardboard box)」（Seibu Sports｜Kichijōji, Tokyo）［Act 1］
《1982/2/28 Video wa omocha da dan bо̄ru (Video is a Toy, Cardboard box)》［VIC0844］color｜17 min 27 sec｜VIC｜February 28, 1982｜B｜「Video wa omocha da dan bо̄ru (Video is a Toy, Cardboard box)」（Seibu Sports｜Kichijōji, Tokyo）［Act 2］
(Category C-1. Video Workshop)
In this VIC-run workshop held in a video shop in the basement level of Seibu Sports, Kichijōji, VIC invited public guests to create portable video-recording equipment using cardboard boxes. Video recording equipment enlarged by 10-times is created with workshop attendees using cardboard. Then the videos are destroyed. The whole time, including the clean-up, was made into the present record.
Translated by Miyuki Hinton
Community of Images: Japanese Moving Image Artists in the US, 1960s - 1970s
Community of Images: Japanese Moving Image Artists in the US, 1960s-1970s will be an exhibition of experimental moving images created by Japanese artists in the U.S. during the 1960s and 70s, an area that has fallen in the fissure between American and Japanese archival priorities. Following JASGP's Re:imagining Recovery Project and its mission to support and engage diverse audiences through Japanese arts and culture in collaboration with local organizations, this project aims to discover, preserve, and present film and video works and performance footage by Japanese filmmakers and artists to the wider public.
We have partnered with the University of the Arts, and will present this exhibition at the Philadelphia Arts Alliance in June - August 2024.
The project and its online programming is generously supported by the Pew Center for Arts and Heritage & the Andy Warhol Foundation, the Toshiba International Foundation and the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts’ Preserving Diverse Cultures grant.
Hitoshi Kubo 久保仁志
A man who was born in Tokyo, 1977 and now lives in Kanagawa. An archivist at Keio University Art Center, among other activities. Departing from certain archives or specific referential materials and montaging various spatiotemporal perspectives that they encompass, many of his projects shed light on not only events that occurred but also those that could have occurred, fundamentally as a way for him to explore possibilities to redesign conditions of human experiences as variable circuits by means of observation, analysis, and construction of montages employed in films and other artistic works, driven by his trust to the world, which in his eyes essentially stands as a process of self-generation and flickering. Recent writings include Montaging Penumbra: on a Motif of Archive (report for JSPS Grants-in-Aid for Scientific Research 26580029 | 2017) and “A Case of a Studio: Shuzo Takiguchi and a Laboratory,” NACT Review, no. 5 (2018 | National Art Center Tokyo). At Keio University Art Center, he has directed a project to reconsider archives, called Pleating Machine (2018–).
1977年に東京で生まれ現在神奈川で暮らす。慶應義塾大学アート・センター・アーキヴィスト他。プロジェクトの多くはあるアーカイヴおよび具体的諸資料から出発し、それらが包含する様々な時空間的パースペクティヴを編集（モンタージュ）することで起こった出来事だけでなく起こりえた出来事を照射してみせるのだが、その根底にあるのは映画をはじめとした芸術作品における編集の観察・分析・構築を通して人間の経験の諸条件を可変的回路として設計し直す可能性の探求であり生成明滅しつつも過程としてあるこの世界への信にほ
かならない。近著に『〈半影〉のモンタージュ：アーカイヴの一つのモチーフについて』（「JSPS 科研費 26580029」レポート｜2017年）、「ある書斎の事件記録——瀧口修造と実験室について」『NACT Review 国立新美術館研究紀要』5号（2018｜国立新美術館）慶應義塾大学アート・センターにてアーカイヴを考えるための企画『プリーツ・マシーン』（2018-）を行っている。
