Arthur Ginsberg

Overview

A pioneer of alternative video in the early 1970s, Arthur Ginsberg was a co-founder, with Skip Sweeney, of the San Francisco media collective Video Free America. Prolific and timely, Video Free America produced regular screenings and exhibitions that incorporated a diversity of mediums, including live performance and moving image works that involved both abstract, synthesizer-produced images and reality-based, cinéma vérité scenes. Ginsberg also used his theater training and connections to collaborate with the Chelsea Theater Center on three plays—Kaspar (1974), AC/DC (1977), and Kaddish (1977)—that incorporated video into the staging.