Videofreex, one of the first video collectives, was founded in 1969 by David Cort, Mary Curtis Ratcliff and Parry Teasdale, after David and Parry met each other, video cameras in hand, at the Woodstock Music Festival. The group soon grew to ten full-time members--including Chuck Kennedy, Nancy Cain, Skip Blumberg, Davidson Gigliotti, Carol Vontobel, Bart Friedman and Ann Woodward--and produced tapes, installations and multimedia events. In 1971 the Freex moved to a 27-room, former boarding house called Maple Tree Farm in Lanesville, NY, operating one of the earliest media centers. Their innovative programming ranged from artists' tapes and performances to behind-the-scenes coverage of national politics and alternate culture. During the decade that the Freex were together, this pioneer video group amassed an archive of 1,500+ raw tapes and edits.

The Videofreex Archive, now housed at VDB, chronicles the counter-cultural movement of the 1960s and 1970s. The titles listed here are the early results of an ongoing project to preserve and digitize important examples of this early video art collective.

More About the Videofreex Archive Preservation

LISTING STYLE:

Videofreex

Buzzy Linhart

1970 | 00:20:00

Contains Videofreex tapes Buzzy and the Flute, Buzzy at the Gaslight, Buzzy at the Videofreex Loft, Buzzy Linhart

Videofreex

Ann's Bread

1970 | 00:07:23

Videofreex member, Ann Woodward, provides a bread-baking lesson.

Videofreex

Freex German TV

1971 | 00:20:00

German filmmaker Valeska and her crew—soundwoman Constanza and cameraman Albert—arrive at Maple Tree Farm during the Thanksgiving holiday of 1971 to film a piece for German TV on the Videofreex.…

Among the handful of video recordings of Lanesville TV that exist today, this tape is particularly special for its documentation of one of its very first programs to run on the air.

This tape includes footage of one of the first broadcasts of Lanesville TV, as it appears on the television set of Lanesville local, Todd Benjamin, and a television set installed in a…

As a testament to the Videofreex joyful investment in the medium of video, Skip Blumberg, Bart Friedman, and Nancy Cain take turns singing Christmas carols in the shower on Christmas Day.

In this short video, the Videofreex sit in on, and record part of, a lecture given by Jesse Ritter to undergraduate students at Princeton University in 1969.

On April 6th, 1974, this episode of the Videofreex’s production of Lanesville TV aired, including four segments: a choreographed piece by the Elaine Summers Dancers, a Vietnam tape titled…

Although this episode promises, at first, to be a typical program of Lanesville Television—presenting two videos of previously shot footage of a truck wreck and a recent opening of a…

This surprisingly candid tape between two men looking to avoid the draft and a draft counselor offers unique entry into conversations that often only took place behind closed doors during the…

Though difficult at times to understand what is happening due to audio damage, this tape provides rich historical documentation of a protest on Wall Street in May of 1971.

In this March 9th, 1974 episode of Lanesville TV, the Videofreex screen their recently shot ringside footage from a boxing match that took place over the weekend in Marion Square Gardens…