Media Ecology and Cultural Climate Change

In 1970 a group of young radicals moved out of their SoHo loft and to Maple Tree Farm, a rambling 27-room boarding house in Lanesville, a tiny town in Upstate New York. They called themselves the Videofreex, and they operated as a collective, collaborative media-production unit. A year before this exodus from New York City, in 1969, two future Freex, David Cort and Parry Teasdale, met at the Woodstock Music Festival. They immediately recognized each other as fellow travelers by virtue of the fact that they both had early video cameras. IMAGE 1. Screenshot of The Now Project CBS TV by Videofreex being screened in December 1969 at the Prince Street studio (1969/2019); courtesy Videofreex. While living in the loft, owned by Videofreex Mary Curtis Ratcliffe, the group had been hosting all night parties and video screenings where they would play back video to each other or an array of amazed audience members. They also managed to be hired by CBS to make a “youth culture” video documentary series titled Subject to Change (1969). The Freex spent several months in production, collecting prescient, electrifying footage of protests, arrests, Abbie Hoffman saying “fuck,” Black Panthers discussing police violence, and psychedelic performance art. CBS had wanted something more au courant to take the place of the S mothers Brothers Comedy Hour , which had recently been cancelled amid much controversy over antiwar content. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the even more controversial (and certainly far more weird) Subject to Change show was cancelled before it was even aired. However, the Freex were allowed to keep equipment and their initial payments from the show, which outfitted them nicely for their subsequent …