• Overview Sherry Miller Hocking, 1998
• Ma Bell Log: telephone talks with video people - April Video Cooperative Tube, 1973
• Dumping Place description, 1972

Overview Sherry Miller Hocking, 1998
Dean and Dudley Evenson.
Publication: Dumping Place, with distribution of at least 1,000. People Vision is Vol. 2 of Dumping Place. (Undated, but after February 73) The New York State Council on the Arts supported New York distribution. Dumping Place was a resource guide using the following categories: news, hardware, survival, political and cultural, goofs and feedback, calendar, contacts, other media networks, software and information needed. People Vision contains information on video groups throughout US. "People Vision (Dumping Place)" was an occasional print-out of the April Video Cooperative. Subscriptions were available from April Video, Downsville. Copy was directed to Amazing Grace Media, Bearsville. There were directions for submitting copy so it could be easily reproduced. Requests were made for donations to offset production costs.

Contents for People Vision (Vol 2) included:
Groups: Public Access Celebration (1972), Selectovision (Montreal), Amazing Grace Media (Bearsville), LA Public Access Project, Video Access Center (via the Alternate Media Center at NYU), Synapse Library at Syracuse University, Atomic Video Network (NYC), Philadelphia Museum of Art, ZBS Media (Fort Edward, NY), Changing Channels/Radical Foftware (Ruby, NY), KVST-TV (Los Angeles), Portable Channel, CTL Electronics and the Egg Store, Video Coop at Hampshire College (Amherst, MA), Harlem Prepatory School, Peoples Video (Madison, WI), Project We - Bridgeport Community Video Project (CN), VideoFreex/Media Bus (Lanesville), Brooklyn College Video Village, Model Valley Video (TN), Roesbud Café, Johnny Videotape.

Articles: Cable Technology and Access Possibilities (Elon Soltes, April Video Coop); Back-Timing Scale for Easy Electronic Editing (Daniel Drasin, 1972), Common Problems with Porta-Paks (NYC Video Access Center), Techno Goodies from the Electro Kitchen of the Video Freaks (discussion of tape, modifications by Sandy Rockowitz), An Open Letter to FCC Commissioners (Phil Jacklin and Allan Frederiksen (aka Johnny Videotape)), An Invitation to the Video Circle (CA), The World at Your Finger Tips! Alternate Phone Co (Ric Sternberg), Cape Island Video/Are You There (Doris Giddis), Video in the Chicago Area (Anda Korsts), Northeast Expo (Barry Orton), True View Trenton (Mark and Gail Sherman, NJ), An Evaluation of the Panasonic NV-3130 Recorder (Sandy Rockowitz), Equipment Modifications (Videographe, Technisphere).

Distributed tapes from April Video Cooperative included
Community Tapes:
Downsville TV, Cape May Composite, The Rosebud Cafe
Survival Tapes:
In Search of Rural Craftsmen, Basic Ceramics, What is an Indian, Pretty Much as Jails, Bob and Ceil - two truckers passing through)
Jack and Joanna Milton were listed as distribution contacts.
 

Ma Bell Log: telephone talks with video people - April Video Cooperative Tube, 1973
Address: Box AK Downsville, NY 13755 Date: March 16 and April 3 (1973)
Talked with: Dudley Evenson Elon Soltes

We just opened the Rosebud Cafe, a community information and access center in Delhi, the county seat. We're having three video workshops a week, plus a yoga class on Sundays; Dean's been doing organic gardening and a food co-op and a newsletter, and we're going to start having some movie festivals. Some of us are there almost every day and people in the town are already taking initiative. It's getting to be a nice bridge between a lot of different groups in the community: townspeople and a lot of high school kids and some freaks who are living there. The minister is coming out for it. The college kids are starting to come down, which we've been sort of bracing ourselves for. We haven't done any publicity at the college, but the word is getting around that it's a place to go. So it's growing, and we're just being pretty cool about the whole thing because in Downsville we tried to go a little too fast. We're making sure that every step of the way we keep in touch with the town and the people. And they're wonderful people, we're just so lucky.

This summer we'll be starting local origination programming for the Rural Supplementary Educational Network. The whole purpose of the network as it exists now is to bring educational programming to the communities and schools in a four-county area. They have 19 microwave towers and they're transmitting WNET from New York City to an audience of about 50,000 people. People whose TV sets aren't strong enough to pick up the station, and who don't get it over a cable system. But the educational content is oriented toward cities, and the special programming is oriented toward people growing up in a ghetto. And it's just irrelevant to superimpose that across a rural region, it just doesn't work. Our experience with Downsville TV taught us that the elements of rural culture are still strong, because there are inherent differences in people's relationships with their environment, with their work, toward the land, survival, toward other people. There are a lot of things that people growing up here need to know, and there are a lot of people leaving the city who are just coming up here for the first time.
So we've thought a lot about the programming we'll be doing: ecological programs, health programs, information and entertainment as well - "edutainment". And we'll see how far we can go. We've got to get it funded, that's all. But there shouldn't be too much of a problem. The people here are behind the idea. Our total budget is broken down into a per-program budget, and for now we're applying to the State Council of the Arts. But if we only get 50% of what we ask for then we'll only do half the programs rather than trying to do the whole thing on a half-budget. And once we do five programs and have some indication that we're going in the right direction, then I think we can find different sources for funding.
 

Dumping Place  Profiled in Magnetoscope, 1972
The first mailing of information from The Dumping Place consisted of a mass of video materials that can only be of great assistance to those wishing to establish lines of communication among all the video factions-from video people to hardware manufacturers. Especially interesting was Ann Arlen's page on the Sony powerpak. We'd certainly like to see more of this do it yourself type of information in future mailings. The following is a statement from The Dumping Place, we urge you to participate as they deserve all of our support in their efforts-Richard Robinson.

The following is a statement from the Dumping Place Collective: New York City-"The Dumping Place is a printed, all media information service for you and everyone else. It evolved at The April Video Conference. People there felt a need to be ablt to relate directly to others working in their own medium as well as to integrate and keep up with the other medias. The Conference itself was excellent for accomplishing this, but constant conferences would lead little time for personal development. Something was needed to further the process of interaction and information flow. Something intimate, frothy with first hand knowledge or ignorance. Something filled with the flash of energy and the strength of synergy. Something to include us all. Coupled to these feelings were the ideas of decentralization and simplicity of operation. Responsibility should rest with the mass rather than a central group.

Thus, The Dumping Place, an arbitrarily situated location for dumping information, which is ofhen collated and sent out to subscribers. It's basic design principals were: no editorial body, enabling anyone to say what they felt with no middle-man interpreting, and an absolute minimum of drudge work, paste-up, etc. Both of these factors allow the location of the dumping place to be extremely flexible, requiring only a mailing address and reliable printer, as you will see.

The above yearnings were fulfilled by the use of five by seven and three by five cards for information modules. You, or anyone else, send in information, written, printed, or drawn on the size card or cards necessary to accommodate it (using the five by sevens horizontally and the three by lives vertically) to The Dumping Place, Lafayette Street, New York, New York, with one of the following categories written big on the back side; you chose from, news, media networks, political-cultural, survival, technical, software, cable, information needed, feedback-goofs, contacts, calendar (these categories are subject to evolution). The cards are then pasted down, as they come in, in their proper section. This layout system is quite simple since, two five by seven cards horizontally or four three by fives vertically fit perfectly on an eight and one half by eleven sheet with the proper margins. This means that the card you send in is what gets sent to the printer. Also you can fill the card to the edge, it will all be printed. It will all be printed on single-sided eight and one half by eleven sheets which will be sent out unbound to each subscriber. Upon receiving the information, you may then punch holes in the sheets and place them in a loose-leaf in the designated categories or your preference, or cut them up into the original cards and file them that way.

As you see, everything happens when you, or someone like you, sends information in. It is not someone else's dumping place, but ours - everyones. Since there is no way of determining how much material will be printed and mailed, and almost arbitrary amount of five dollars has been set far a year's subscription. Because each edition will have valuable reference material, and there is no provision in the system for reprinting (no editors), each subscription will begin with the first issue. Information will then be added and updated to your growing file. One potentially invaluable source of information will be the contact section. Even non-subscribers can avail themselves of it by sending in a card with: contact: name, address, telephone number; project: ?, access: what equipment you own or can get to, energy: ? This listing will then allow others of like interest to get in touch, opportunity may come calling. Every information card or the last in a series should end with the sender's name, address, and telephone number to allow people to contact you.

Everything sent in should be written printed drawn in black. Please note, those empty places on the cards could hold drawings or photos."