Video Hiroba

Video Hiroba was formed in March 1972 by Japanese contemporary artists and experimental filmmakers, following the 11-day symposium Video Communication/Do it Yourself Kit at the Tokyo SONY Building. The symposium was helmed by on the collective’s founding members, Nakaya Fujiko and Michael Goldberg. They presented on the self-reflexive and documentary capacity of video respectively, which resulted in formal experimentations by participations that were exhibited in the later days of the symposium.[3] Given their diverse practices and artistic backgrounds, the symposium was the first occasion that most Video Hiroba members had access to video equipment.

One of the notable works created at the symposium was Yamaguchi and Kobayashi's video performance Eat. Two performers sit at a table. One records the other eating; then they switch roles. The work experimented with the "live-ness" of video technology, Yamaguchi and Kobayashi pairing the live video feed of the performance alongside the act itself.[4]

Upon their founding, the collective could not come to a consensus on what structure they should be organised around, and instead opted to leave it open and undefined for future evolution.[5] However, they agreed that their aim was to “[expand] the possibilities of the video-tape and video communication”, Yamaguchi designation the name Video Hiroba. The word "Hiroba" can be translated as public square, and was chosen to imply public communication or thoroughfare.[6]

In 1974, Nakaya Fujiko and Kawanaka Nobuhiro published their translation of Michael Shamberg’s Guerilla Television (1971) in Bijutsu Shuppan-sha,[12] a text which informed the collective’s video-making practice as an alternative to broadcast television.

Works of Video Hiroba members chosen for exhibition are often individual productions, but the collective actually produced both independent and collaborative works. They collaborated on events and performance projects, also filming documentary videos as part of socially-engaged projects.[13]

Notable examples include Community Video (1973), a longitudinal study on the effects of video communication on community participation commissioned by Yokohama’s Economic Planning Agency.[14] The project was led by Yamaguchi, and involved Video Hiroba members Nakaya, Kawanaka and Kobayashi. The project was centred around video interviews, in which interviewees went through multiple rounds of being interviewed on their opinions regarding local urban planning, subsequently reviewing their own interviews.[15] Through this process, participants reflected that their expressed wants during these interviews were not conclusive, confusing even.[16] Community Video was predicated by earlier (non-government funded) explorations by Yamaguchi, Nakaya, Kobayashi and Kawanaka in Niigata and Mito in April 1972.[17] A similar year-long project commissioned by the City of Kunitachi was produced by Kobayashi in 1978.[18]

Members of Video Hiroba also published the magazine Video Express (first issue in 1974), and produced the “Video Game Festival” (August 1974) in Karuizawa.[19]

The thirteen original members included:

• Hagiwara Sakumi (Japanese: 萩原朔美; b.1946, Tokyo)
• Kawanaka Nobuhiro (Japanese: かわなかのぶひろ; b. 1941, Tokyo)
• Kobayashi Hakudo (Japanese: ?; b. 1944, Miyagi)
• Komura Masao (Japanese: 幸村真佐男; b. 1943, Tokyo)
• Matsumoto Toshio (Japanese: 松本俊夫; b. 1932, Aichi; d. 2017)
• Miyai Rikuro (Japanese: 宮井陸郎; b. 1940, Shimane)
• Nakahara Michitaka (Japanese: ?; b. ?)
• Nakaya Fujiko (Japanese: 中谷芙二子; b. 1933, Sapporo)
• Shoko Matsushita (Japanese: ?; b. ?)
• Tono Yoshiaki (Japanese: 東野芳明; b. 1930, Tokyo; d. 2005)
• Yamaguchi Katsuhiro (Japanese: 山口勝弘; b. 1928, Tokyo; d. 2018)
• Yamamoto Keigo (Japanese: 山本圭吾; b. 1936, Fukui)

• Video Communication/Do-lt-Yourself Kit, 1972, Sony Building, Tokyo, JP.[20]
• Untitled Exhibition at Matrix International Video Conference (curated by Nakaya Fujiko), 1973, Vancouver, CA.[21]
• Tokyo-New York Video Express (produced by Kubota Shigeko, Video Hiroba and the Underground Center of the Tenjosajiki Hall), January 1974, Tokyo, JP.[22]
• Video Kyoto 1974, 1974, Signum Gallery, Kyoto, JP.[23]
• Video Art, 1975, Institute of Contemporary Art, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, USA.[24]
• Japan Video Art Festival. 33 artists at CAyC (Curated by Jorge Glusberg), 1978, Centro de Arte y Comunicación, Buenos Aires, AR.[25]
• Video from Tokyo to Fukui and Kyoto (Curated by Barbara London), 1979, Museum of Modern Art, New York City, USA.[26]
• "Japanese Video from the Lydia Modi Vitale Collection: Selected Tapes from Video Hiroba:, May 4 1980, Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive, Berkeley, USA.[27]
• Japanese Television and Video: An Historical Survey (curated by Nakaya Fujiko), 1984, American Film Institute, Los Angeles, USA.[28]
• "Vital Signals: Japanese and American Video Art from the 1960s and 70s", October 2009, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles, USA.[29]
• "MAM Research 004: Video Hiroba - Reexamining the 1970s Experimental Video Art Group", 2016-2017, Mori Art Museum, Tokyo, JP.[30]
• Video Communication Art and Technology between Canada and Japan, 1967 -1985 (curated by Jesse Cummings), 2020, VIVO Media Arts Centre, Vancouver, CA.[31]

• London, Barbara. (1992). "Electronic Explorations". Art in America May, 120.
• London, Barbara. (Ed.). (1979). Video from Tokyo to Fukui and Kyoto. Museum of Modern Art.
• Glusberg, Jorge. (1978). Japan Video Art Festival: 33 Artists. Center of Art and Communication, Buenos Aires, April 1978. CAYC.
• Nakaya, Fujiko. (1973). "Japan - VIDEO HIROBA". Artscanada, 30(4), 52-53.
• Nishikawa, Tomonari. (2015). "Film Independents and Japanese Underground Cinema: An Interview with Tomohiro Nishimura". Millennium Film Journal, (61), 30-37.
• Nygren, Scott. "Paper Screen: Video Art in a Japanese Context." Journal of Film and Video 39, no. 1 (1987): 27-35. http://www.jstor.org/stable/20687754.

• Vital Signals: Early Japanese Video Art, a DVD Anthology and Catalogue published by Electronic Arts Intermix.