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Video Initiative Graz
Video Local Television, 1975-1983
What was developed in 1975 by the "Projektgruppe Lokales Fernsehen" (Rainer Verbizh and others) and in 1976 together with the "Video Initiative Graz" (Peter Hueber and Herbert Prepeluh and others) as an alternative media experiment in Styria was, from today's perspective, highly visionary. Many formulations within contemporary art between social commitment and political activism, as well as the rapid development within telecommunications and the field of "social media", reveal an important pioneering role here. The loose grouping, which continued to work under the name "Video Initiative Graz" from 1977, did not have art as its primary goal. Instead, it pursued the avant-garde idea of the power of art to change society. "Our aim is to make television with the population that responds to the needs, interests and problems of local and regional life." Working people, in principle far removed from artistic practices, were suddenly to document their social environment with a camera. Media are used as a socially transformative force, without an exclusively economic calculation and with a social dimension.