50 years of moving Image

I rooted around in my memory for facts, gestures, precious moments enjoyed with a joyous group of people who were pioneers of video (in all its forms).

Very quickly, I remembered a crowd of people who were instrumental to the history of Vidéographe, large and small. People whose names we find in the credits of works in the collection and who, for the most part, played a significant role in the collective.

Over the years, many influential members of Vidéographe’s story have left us, leaving behind a precious legacy.

We must not forget the activism of filmmaker Yvan Patry, the ingenuity of producer Claude Forget, the leadership of Norman Thibault, the novel ideas of director Louise Surprenant, the all-consuming passion of programmer Sylvie Roy or the unclassifiable artist that is Marc Paradis. So many names and so many journeys make up the story of Vidéographe.

I rooted around in my memory for facts, gestures, precious moments enjoyed with a joyous group of people who were pioneers of video (in all its forms).

Very quickly, I remembered a crowd of people who were instrumental to the history of Vidéographe, large and small. People whose names we find in the credits of works in the collection and who, for the most part, played a significant role in the collective.

Over the years, many influential members of Vidéographe’s story have left us, leaving behind a precious legacy.

We must not forget the activism of filmmaker Yvan Patry, the ingenuity of producer Claude Forget, the leadership of Norman Thibault, the novel ideas of director Louise Surprenant, the all-consuming passion of programmer Sylvie Roy or the unclassifiable artist that is Marc Paradis. So many names and so many journeys make up the story of Vidéographe.

For a new generation that was discovering these new creative tools, the conditions were favourable to go off the beaten track of television and cinema and make new works.

Videos were often shot, produced and promoted without financing. The first works each had their own signature and were made thanks to the drive and determination of their authors.

From the early 1970s to today, experimentation in moving image and sound is still central to the work that forms, and will always form, part of the collection at Vidéographe.

Free, light, portable, instant, immediate, economical, accessible – these are key words that define the qualities of the communication tool that is video, a high-performance customizable medium that has ceaselessly expanded into all spheres of our society.

In researching the collection, I noted successive waves of new individuals who found in Vidéographe a welcoming centre to promote their works. Vidéographe remains a welcoming hub for emerging artists, a centre providing access to video that welcomes anyone who wants to experiment with the medium.

And where does professionalization come into all of this?

My first thought was that the professionalization of the milieu resided first and foremost in the administration of video production and distribution centres.

Everyone has their niche, their specialization, which allows them to define themselves and access state funding. That is where, in my opinion, professionalization comes into play.

In the era of specialization and an increasingly significant client-based approach, the professionalization of artist-run centres rests with their administrations.

At the beginning of the 1980s, the team at Vidéographe vacillated between periods of unemployment and various employment subsidy schemes. Because of this, the portion of the centre’s financing that was dedicated to the team at Vidéographe was often central to debates among the membership (notably at their annual general assemblies).

Vidéographe was a centre for production and dissemination with little money that has, over time, become an adequately financed distribution house, notably through provincial and federal organizations that recognized the importance of supporting a growing network of artist-run centres in Quebec and throughout Canada. A unique model that permitted a dissemination of art and that relied upon administrations that had to be structured, appropriate and efficient.

In the past, the idea of belonging to a collective slowly and truly ceased to be so important for most members. We no longer thought about its existence and, slowly but surely over the decades, we adopted the position of a client who wants services, output, performance and affordable prices.

The videomakers became fiscally identifiable, professional artists who possess much more significant funding levers today. Video art and its creative tools have evolved and have spread to theatres, galleries, public spaces, television, the web… everywhere, all the time.  

That said, many of us still survive on peanuts despite the possibilities offered by subsidies, forms, regulations, financing systems that, it must be said, work very well.  

The initial dream allowed us to believe that anyone could make films with video. This dream was realized. It was achieved and fostered by the digital revolution and the large corporations that have developed and sell us fabulous technological tools.

But what does it mean to be a professional videomaker today?

I don’t know how to answer this rich and complex question. I only know one thing: anything is possible when you have an idea because shooting and editing a video has become affordable for everyone. We just need to repeat the experience and make money from it. And there is no recipe for that. There are only human beings who vie to be the most ingenious to survive on their art. The list of success stories is long and interesting. The list of failures too.

I watch the video Entrée en scène shot in 1972 with one of Vidéographe’s Portapak kits. The illustrious Robert Forget presents his tribe of bearded and militant young men who found themselves in a place on Saint-Denis that evening. He reveals the motivations of this group that dreamed of giving people the power of images, of revolutionizing minds thanks to the accessibility of this new tool.

Next, I watched Musique d’intermission, made around the same period (1970), which represented a moment, a pause, an intermission… We see a single image, a photo, a still image of a utopia seen by a man who meditates by the side of a large expanse of water over which six Vidéo-Théâtre monitors from Vidéographe float. The still image serves as the backdrop to a jam session that took place at Vidéographe.

This music allows me to imagine the entangled microphone wires and the sound desk that smokes as much as the ashtrays… I try to recognize the style and faces and names that I surely know. I look at images of the neighbourhood that vibrates with the sound of jazz and blues clubs, bohemian cafés and the first terraces.

I also see dilapidated old hotels, houses with rooms to rent and taverns packed with men staring into their beers. UQAM was not yet situated on the corner, and the Bibliothèque Nationale’s collection lived in the old Saint-Sulpice building that welcomed, in a large room in the basement, Cinémathèque québécoise screenings.

18:30 – the tape comes to an end, the sound switches off and a 10-second glitche invades the screen… That’s how it was, fifty years ago.