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New York: Raindance Corporation, 1971. Folio (folded: 36 × 30 cm, unfolded: 58 × 36 cm). Original pictorial self-wrappers; [1], 26, [1] pp. with numerous illustrations. Signs of wear; small edge tears and creases; wrappers somewhat toned; few pages with handwritten annotations; else good or better. Third issue of the ?most important video journal? (Wulf Herzogenrath). Iconically, the cover of the first issue shows a computer-generated image and thus evokes the dawn of a new age in which media are no longer structured by the hierarchical relationship between sender and receiver, but by a plastic, dynamically changing network. The subtitle of the first issue already makes it clear what the New York group ?Raindance Corporation? of artists, writers and video artists was all about: The establishment of an ?Alternate Television Movement? And the editorial of the first issue states that the aim would be to ?design and implement alternate information structures which transcend and reconfigure the existing ones.? The lead article in the third number was Paul Ryan's essay ?Cybernetic guerrilla warfare? Contrary to what the title might initially suggest, Ryan is not interested in a cybernetic guerrilla war. ?Nobody with any wisdom is looking for a straight out fight. We have come to understand that in fighting you too easily become what you behold.? Instead, Ryan thinks about how social consciousness could change as a result of the findings of cybernetics. The concept of feedback is crucial for Ryan. Networking and free exchange, in which there is no longer a distinction between active sender and passive receiver, is intended to set deadlocked structures in motion. Ryan sees the portable video camera as the ?weapon? in this ?guerrilla war?, which is supposed to be fundamentally different from violent, bloody acts of revolution. However, it is not just the video that is supposed to bring about change, but ?What is critical is to develop an infrastructure to cable in situations where feedback and relevant access routes can he set up as part of the process.? Other contributions include: Willard Van de Bogart (?Laser Light in Video Space?), Van Ftergiotis (?Dial Access Information Retrieval Systems?), Frank Gillette (?Aspects of Data?), Louis Jaffe (?Videotape versus Film?), Stuart Umpleby (?Citizen Sampling Simulations: A Method for Involving the Public in Social Planning?), Gene Youngblood (?Cathode-Ray Tube Videotronics?). The idea of the network was primarily based on a ?techno-anarchist? critique of the structures of the mass media. In contrast, video was interpreted as an ?egalitarian? medium that provided the individual with an affordable means of production. Thus, in addition to theoretical discussions on the ideas of thinkers such as Gregory Bateson, Buckminster Fuller and Marshall McLuhan, numerous practical contributions on video production with inexpensive camera equipment are also printed. (Cf. Alan N. Shapiro, Decoding Digital Culture with Science Fiction: Hyper-Modernism, Hyperreality, and Posthumanism, Bielefeld: 2024, p. 330f.) As of September 2025, KVK, OCLC list only two copies in North America.
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