EZTV
Encyclopedia
- This article is not about the EZTV BitTorrent release group.
EZTV is a production company and exhibition venue founded Los Angeles
Los Ángeles
Los Ángeles is the capital of the province of Biobío, in the commune of the same name, in Region VIII , in the center-south of Chile. It is located between the Laja and Biobío rivers. The population is 123,445 inhabitants...
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 art
Computer art
Computer art is any art in which computers play 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 center. 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
Independent media
Independent media refers to any form of media, such as radio, television, newspapers or the Internet, that is free of influence by government or corporate interests. The term has varied applications...
revolution, seen most typically today, online, through services such as YouTube
YouTube
YouTube is a video-sharing website, created by three former PayPal employees in February 2005, on which users can upload, view and share videos....
.
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 Shepard
Mark I Shepard is a Vermont State Senator and unsuccessful candidate for the 2006 Republican nomination for Vermont's at-large United States House of Representatives seat.-Biography:...
, James Williams
James Williams
-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 Institute
American Film Institute
The 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 photography
Photography
Photography is the art, science and practice of creating durable images by recording light or other electromagnetic radiation, either electronically by means of an image sensor or chemically by means of a light-sensitive material such as photographic film...
darkroom
Darkroom
A 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 19th century...
. EZTV continued to receive routine local press attention, through newspapers such as the LA Times, the LA Weekly
LA Weekly
LA Weekly is a free weekly tabloid-sized "alternative weekly" 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 Godard
Jean-Luc Godard
Jean-Luc Godard is a French-Swiss film director, screenwriter and film critic. He is often identified with the 1960s French film movement, French Nouvelle Vague, or "New Wave"....
, Robert Altman
Robert Altman
Robert Bernard Altman was an American film director and screenwriter known for making films that are highly naturalistic, but with a stylized perspective. In 2006, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences recognized his body of work with an Academy Honorary Award.His films MASH , McCabe and...
, Chantal Ackerman, as well as artists ranging from David Hockney
David Hockney
David Hockney, CH, RA, is an English painter, draughtsman, printmaker, stage designer and photographer, who is based in Bridlington, Yorkshire and Kensington, London....
, Keith Haring
Keith Haring
Keith Haring was an artist and social activist whose work responded to the New York City street culture of the 1980s.-Early life:...
, Yoko Ono
Yoko Ono
is a Japanese artist, musician, author and peace activist, known for her work in avant-garde art, music and filmmaking as well as her marriage to John Lennon...
, Bill Barminski
Bill Barminski
Bill 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 Peppers
Red Hot Chili Peppers
Red Hot Chili Peppers is an American rock band, formed in Los Angeles in 1983. The group's musical style primarily consists of rock with an emphasis on funk, as well as elements from other genres such as punk, hip hop and psychedelic rock...
, Black Flag
Black Flag (band)
Black Flag was an American punk rock band formed in 1976 in Hermosa Beach, California. The band was established by Greg Ginn, the guitarist, primary songwriter and sole continuous member through multiple personnel changes in the band...
and many of the pioneering digital art
Digital art
Digital art is a general term for a range of artistic works and practices that use digital technology as an essential part of the creative and/or presentation process...
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 SIGGRAPH
SIGGRAPH
SIGGRAPH 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 Collins
Joan Collins
Joan Henrietta Collins, OBE , is an English actress, author, and columnist. Born in Paddington and raised in Maida Vale, Collins grew up during the Second World War. At the age of nine, she made her stage debut in A Doll's House and after attending school, she was classically trained as an actress...
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 Art
Long Beach Museum of Art
The Long Beach Museum of Art is a museum located on Ocean Boulevard 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 California
California
California is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...
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 HIV
HIV
Human immunodeficiency virus is a lentivirus that causes acquired immunodeficiency syndrome , a condition in humans in which progressive failure of the immune system allows life-threatening opportunistic infections and cancers to thrive...
/AIDS
AIDS
Acquired immune deficiency syndrome or acquired immunodeficiency syndrome is a disease of the human immune system caused by the human immunodeficiency virus...
. The American Film Institute
American Film Institute
The 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 Times
Los Angeles Times
The Los Angeles Times is a daily newspaper published in Los Angeles, California, since 1881. It was the second-largest metropolitan newspaper in circulation in the United States in 2008 and the fourth most widely distributed newspaper in the country....
, the LA Weekly, the Hollywood Reporter, Variety
Variety (magazine)
Variety is an American 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...
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 Kate JohnsonKate Johnson
Kate Johnson is an American rower who won a silver medal at the Athens 2004 Olympic Games in the women's eight. Johnson and her team won gold at the World Cup Championships in Munich and Lucerne in 2004 prior to competing at the Olympic games...
, and continued the curatorial as well as production methodologies, premiering various new EZTV projects at venues such as the Museum of Modern Art
Museum of Modern Art
The Museum of Modern Art is an art museum in Midtown Manhattan in New York City, on 53rd Street, between Fifth and Sixth Avenues. It has been important in developing and collecting modernist art, and is often identified as the most influential museum of modern art in the world...
(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 BBC
BBC
The British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...
, 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.