Radical Software

Radical Software

Radical Software, published from the early 70’s, connects a portal through into a time when video art was pure edge and the political economy of the medium was being explored exhaustively.

Davidson Gigliotti and Ira Schneider, of the Videofreex and Raindance video collectives respectively, Phyllis Gershuny Segura and Beryl Korot founded Radical Software in the early 70’s – its importance being the only periodical devoted to Video Art at the time. Later they have put online, in PDF form, the complete set.

Contributors include Nam June Paik, Buckmister Fuller and Gene Youngblood. Enough to say the least. Perusing through the issues I found an article of interest to algorithmic artisans by Manfred Mohr. In it Mohr correctly reasons that his own pre-computer work could be seen as algorithmic in the sense that he uses repeated gestures in making his drawings – a kind of programmatic language already there.