One of the fundamental differences [between] EZTV and the rest of the industry, in this city anyway, is that EZTV doesn’t take no for an answer, doesn’t recognize limitations, doesn’t recognize biases or standards that have, basically, caused more things not to happen than to happen. (Michael J. Masucci)
He chose not to finish because it was pretty clear that there were a lot of closed doors. He had some scripts optioned, a lot of: “we’re getting close,” [but] nothing ever happened. I don’t think that was specifically because he was gay. That’s just what happened. But it’s what happens to nearly everyone. Hollywood was and still is a very hard nut to crack.
I’ve come to believe that the name was a euphemism: a self-deprecating, tongue-in-cheek kind of thing. There is nothing easy about making a good video and back then it was insane.
Most spaces were far more specialized. There’s an art space downtown called The Hive which was goth and kind of cartoonish. In Los Angeles, there was that art world and then there was the Ed Ruscha art world, and never the twain met.
The first people to make money in any serious way with video, other than porn, were the B-movie people, [making movies that] went straight to video. Back then the term “straight-to-video” was a put down — films that never got into a theater but went straight to VHS. Hollywood is a bifurcation of high- and low-end.
I see a similarity between the analog VHS distribution model, which democratized the availability of ideas and works, and today’s articulated Web3 ethos. Both seek better ways to enfranchise, allow greater economic independence, and open new and innovative distribution channels.
It only occurred to me in the last year that one of the reasons the computer art history of EZTV never got documented until later on was that there were no art critics. It was mostly film critics interested in the videos that looked like films.
I believe that there were a lot of people in the art world who weren’t inclined to accept something made on a computer. I get that. On the other hand, I saw what happened when musicians started using computers — they started having hit records.
I don’t want to be known as a digital artist. I don’t want to be known as a video artist. I don’t want to be known as anything but an artist because I will use whatever tool solves my problem.
[…] But just because somebody received first access to esoteric equipment doesn’t mean they did anything profound with it. It should be remembered and go in the timeline, but it doesn’t necessarily have to go at the top of the canon.
I am proud that my work is being preserved in a queer archive because my art community was the queer community. That was my people and they allowed me a venue and a voice to expand to the slightly larger audience I have today.
A world that doesn’t know about these people is a lesser world and if there is any shot I have, it’s to get them remembered.
Michael J. Masucci is an award-winning artist and producer who has been curating digital art since 1984 and producing digital and multimedia since 1980. As a founding member of EZTV he has collaborated on projects that have been presented at the Museum of Modern Art and Lincoln Center, New York; Institute of Contemporary Arts, London; Centre Pompidou, Paris; SIGGRAPH; and on PBS, as well as at numerous festivals, and professional conferences. He has authored articles and spoken on topics ranging from information security to transhumanism and the role of art in the digital world. His work is included in the permanent collection of USC, and next year his early video will be included at an exhibition at The Getty Center, Los Angeles and will be screened at REDCAT Theater. He has been included in The Getty’s PST ART initiative and co-founded DNA Festival Santa Monica. He is also a Commissioner for the Santa Monica Arts Commission where he has served as Chair, and has been an artist-in-residence at 18th Street Arts Center since 2000. A cisgender man, he helped save an archive of seminal early Queer media art. According to the V&A, an early digital art gallery he co-created “literally put digital art on the map.”
Dina Chang is an American artist and curator. Her work is a fusion of traditional photography mixed with machine learning, video, misused software, and science. Recent projects have included the DNA Digital Art Festival, collaborations with Adobe and Intel, curation for “Glitch: Beyond Binary” at Sotheby’s, Refraction Festival, Objkt, and programming as co-director of NFTuesday Los Angeles. She is also co-founder of Setta, a creative studio based in Los Angeles.