Radical Software

Radical Software was a trailblazing magazine devoted to the medium of video created in 1970 by two New York based artists, Beryl Korot and Phyllis Gershuny, with assistance from Ira Schneider. Its history is closely connected to that of the Raindance collective [1] (founded by Frank Gillette, Michael Shamberg, Louis Jaffe, and Marco Vassi), which published the magazine. Members of this collective were among the regular contributors. [2]

Initially titled The Video Newsletter, Radical Software set out, as stated in its first editorial, to serve as “an information source which would bring together people who were already creating their own television .” [3] While the magazine’s content sporadically touched on computer-related developments, the term "software" was not used in the modern sense of a computer program, but rather in contrast to hardware, as the material generated and accessed via technological devices—in this context, it mainly took the form of videotape recordings. [4]

Radical Software focused on the role of different media and their societal effects, as well as the production of content and alternative ways of disseminating it. In connection with these concerns, the magazine often ventured into the realms of environmentalism, biology, psychology, and education. Although the main purpose was not to address video art in the strict sense of the term, this discipline featured prominently thanks to contributions from original Raindance members as well as articles by or about many of video art’s leading figures, including Nam June Paik, Shirley Clarke, Juan Downey, Eric Siegel, Gene Youngblood, and members of the Ant Farm collective. With its wealth of shared experiences, a “Feedback” section open to reader submissions, and a large directory of artists and collectives, Radical Software was decidedly a vital resource and forum for those practicing this nascent discipline. Despite its title, the magazine also published many articles on hardware-related issues: tips, market overviews, and descriptions of new developments in recording and broadcasting technology.

As it developed, certain issues were delegated to other video collectives, in particular in Canada and on the West Coast—this lightened the editorial team’s workload and helped expand the publication’s reach. Experimentation in the area of distribution took place alongside the magazine’s usual activities: Raindance sold tapes through the magazine and set up an exchange network through which readers could obtain copies of the collective’s creations by sending in their own materials.

The eleventh and final issue of Radical Software was published in the spring of 1974. [5] Although Phyllis Gershuny had left the magazine after its third issue, Radical Software would not be the last collaboration between Beryl Korot and Ira Schneider—two years later, the pair co-authored a book titled Video Art: An Anthology. In 2003, together with Davidson Gigliotti and Ira Schneider, the Daniel Langlois Foundation launched a website devoted to Radical Software. It offers all the issues—originally published under a copyleft license—as well as a search tool, a history of the magazine, and an overview of each issue. [6] Another historiographical milestone was reached in 2017 with an exhibition, organized by the ZKM in Karlsruhe, Germany, paying tribute to the Raindance Foundation artists and Radical Software. [7]


Philippe Bettinelli

Translated by Elisabeth Lyman



[1] Starting with its fifth issue, it received production and distribution support from the publisher Gordon and Breach.

 

[2] Michael Shamberg would be listed as the first issue’s publisher. Paul Ryan, Dean Evenson, and Dudley Evenson also deserve a mention. To learn more, see Davidson Gigliotti, A Brief History of Raindance, available at: https://www.radicalsoftware.org/e/history.html

 

[3] Radical Software, no. 1, 1970, unsigned editorial, unpaginated, available at:

https://www.radicalsoftware.org/volume1nr1/pdf/VOLUME1NR1_0002.pdf

 

[4] The term was relatively common at the time: the same year that the first issue was released, the Jewish Museum held an exhibition titled “Software.”

 

[5] Or the twelfth issue, counting the book Guerilla Television (which the editors considered as the unofficial issue no. 6).

 

[6] https://www.radicalsoftware.org/

 

[7] “Radical Software: The Raindance Foundation, Media Ecology and Video Art,” July 1, 2017 to January 28, 2018, ZKM, Karlsruhe.


 






Repetitive Music
Repetitive music largely developed in the United States during the 1960s, a period when the influence of different oral musical traditions (jazz, traditional Oriental and African music) came to the fore. The composers of repetitive music are close to the minimalism of La Monte Young, whose origins lie in the serial music of Anton von Webern. Repetitive music uses resonance, varied repetitions of cyclical formulas that become increasingly unsynchronized, and a rhythm with a regular beat. The music is conceived as a gradual mechanism of change over an extended period of time. The main representatives of this musical current are Steve Reich, Philip Glass, Terry Riley, Jon Gibson, and Laurie Spiegel. Riley's works are based on simple harmonic and rhythmic models; the repetition, seemingly unchanging, nonetheless reveals a perpetual movement. Reich uses the principle of repetition generate an evolving sequential process. Glass adds rhythms to the melodic line in pursuit of continuity, unity, and broader musical texture. For these three composers, repetition becomes a system of composition, as it was for Andy Warhol during the same period of time, but in the context of the visual arts.