"The Emergence of Video Processing Tools presents stories of the development of early video tools and systems designed and built by artists and technologists during the late 1960s and 1970s. Split over two volumes, the contributors examine the intersection of art and science and look at collaborations among inventors, designers, and artists trying to create new video tools to capture and manipulate images in fascinating and revolutionary ways. Volume One includes the sections 'Histories' and 'People and Networks' that look at the historic, aesthetic, and cultural context of custom-made video devices. The contributors include 'video pioneers' who have been active since the emergence of the aesthetic, and technologists who continue to design, build, and hack media tools. This book also looks at contemporary tool makers and the relationship between these new tools and the past. Video and media production is a growing area of interest in art, and this collection will be an indispensable guide to its origins and its future." (Taken from back cover.)

Contents: Acknowledgments, by Kathy High, Sherry Miller Hocking, and Mona Jimenez; Preface, by Kathy High, Sherry Miller Hocking, and Mona Jimenez; Introduction, by Kathy High; Beginnings (With Artist Manifestos), by Kathy High; Mapping Video Art as Category, or an Archaeology of the Conceptualizations of Video, by Jeremy Culler; Impulses - Tools, by Christiane Paul and Jack Toolin; The Art-Style Computer-Processing System, 1974, by Tom Sherman; Machine Aesthetics are Always Modern, by Tom Sherman; Electronic Video Instruments and Public Sector Funding, by Mona Jimenez; TV Lab: Image-Making Tools, by Howard Weinberg; The New Television Workshop at WGBH, Boston, by John Minkowsky; The National Center for Experiments in Television at KQED-TV, San Francisco, by John Minkowsky; The Experimental Television Center: Advancing Alternative Production Resources, Artist Collectives and Electronic Video-Imaging Systems, by Jeremy Culler; Interstitial Images: Histories; Introduction, by Sherry Miller Hocking; From Component Level: Interview with LoVid, by Michael Connor; Memory Series - Phosphography in CRT 5", Mexico, 2005, by Carolina Esparragoza; The Rhetoric of Soft Tools, by Marisa Olson; Jeremy Bailey and His 'Total Symbiotic Art System', Carolyn Tennant; De-commodification of Artworks: Networked Fantasy of the Open, by Timothy Murray; Virtuosity as Creative Freedom, by Michael Century; Distribution Religion, by Dan Sandin and Phil Morton; A Toy for a Toy, by Ralph Hocking; Woody Vasulka: Dialogue with the (Demons in the) Tool, by Lenka Dolanova with Woody Vasulka; A Demo Tape on How to Play Video on a Violin, by Jean Gagnon; Application to the Guggenheim Foundation, 1980, by Ralph Hocking; Thoughts on Collaboration: Art and Technology, by Sherry Miller Hocking; Interstitial Images: People and Networks; Index; Colour Plates.