"Studio of the Streets" (1990-93)

The project initially called "The First Amendment Network" and later "Studio of the Streets" included Tony Conrad, Cathleen Steffan, and Ann Szyjka, among other members of the Buffalo media community, filming on the steps of Buffalo City Hall: TV on the spot. This location for the production was a lucky choice----City Hall is one of the only public spaces in the city, where you could do that without a permit.

At first passers-by were engaged in conversations by a big banner and bullhorns; it was a mixture of TV production with a demonstration in support of City funding for a public access TV production studio. However, the project soon evolved away from being a demonstration to become a regular weekly TV show, as the team realized that "Studio of the Streets" had become a vehicle for animating the voices of the community.

Rather than thinking of collaboration in the context of this project, Tony Conrad uses the term animation : the practice of enabling the productivity of others. Do you collaborate to enhance your own ability, or that of others? The "animator" doesn't produce the cultural work her/himself but instead animates the work of others. The average people of Buffalo did not believe in their ability to produce television shows, or even to be on TV, until they saw how good they and others actually looked! "Studio of the Streets" launched people into participatory television by having them do the thing that they already know best and have practiced for years: talking to other people about what they feel is important to them.

"Studio of the Streets" was about free access----giving people a voice, giving them access to the media. All kinds of people go to City Hall----to tell their problems, to buy permits, to get married, or the like. Each Friday at noon the three producers would go to City Hall and shoot for seventy minutes, often using two cameras. They would talk with anyone who came along. Edited down to sixty minutes, practically everything went on air. About a thousand people were interviewed and the vast majority was seen on television. The program became very popular. Out of the people who were approached on the street to appear on TV, the people who tended to speak to the camera were often unemployed, people who had not sold their voice. People with jobs are often leery of speaking freely; they fear for their positions if they should misspeak or appear too outspoken.

"Studio of the Streets" aimed for simplification of the production process----the Do It Yourself aspect: "You too can do this is." This understanding of the program was encouraged by the use of two cameras, with one or the other camera usually visible in the picture. That's how you could make a show too! In this sense "Studio of the Streets" became a program about the process of video production.

Conrad, Steffan, and Szyjka stopped doing "Studio of the Streets" after three years when not enough people had in the end become producers, which was their primary objective.