Conversations at the Edge: Current Schedule

1972, TVTV, USA, DVD, ca. 75 minutes + discussion
Allen Rucker and Tom Weinberg from TVTV in person!
Presented in collaboration with the Video Data Bank.

Video collective TVTV defined the radical video documentary movement of the 1970s, producing the first independent videotape to broadcast on national TV. Four More Years (1972) is an iconoclastic view of the American electoral process, captured through TVTV's irreverent, candid coverage of Richard Nixon's 1972 presidential campaign and the Republican Convention in Miami. While network cameras focused on the orchestrated renomination of Richard Nixon, TVTV turned their lightweight, portable cameras on the cocktail parties, anti-war demonstrations, hype and hoopla that accompanied the show. TVTV co-founder Allen Rucker introduces this classic work of guerrilla television and is joined afterward by former TVTV member Tom Weinberg for an audience Q&A. 

TVTV (Top Value Television) formed in 1972 by Michael Shamberg, Megan Williams, Tom Weinberg, and Allen Rucker, and enlisted the support of media collectives including Raindance, Ant Farm, and the Videofreex to provide alternative coverage of the 1972 presidential nominating conventions. The Democratic tape, The World's Largest TV Studio (1972), and its Republican companion piece, Four More Years(1972) were among the first video documentaries to be broadcast on national TV. The convention tapes provided candid interviews with delegates and protestors alike, while exposing the foibles of the media, showing viewers "the underbelly of broadcast TV." TVTV subverted conventions of television news and documentary reportage with its alternative journalistic techniques, countercultural principles and pioneering use of portable, low-tech video equipment. TVTV disbanded in 1979.