iMACBA – Museu d'Art Contemporani de BarcelonaRaval
Collection display tracing Video-Nou and the Servei de Vídeo Comunitari, a collective that used video as a tool of political counter-information in Catalonia from 1977 to 1983.
In a 1977 photograph, a crowd presses up to the windows of a bus fitted with TV monitors. That was Video-Nou's screen: young sociologists, architects and teachers who filmed strikes, marches and neighbourhood meetings, then played the tapes back to the people in them.
There are 30 videos, 17 newly digitised and unseen since the late 1970s, and nearly 300 photographs and documents, in four sections: counter-media, video in schools, dissidence, and neglected neighbourhoods. You can watch a CNT petrol-station strike, Canet Rock 1977, Barcelona's first Carnival since 1937, and Ocaña lip-syncing Lili Marlene on the day of a 1977 gay and lesbian march. Film the street, show it back to the street, argue about it: your building's WhatsApp group runs on the same method.
It's an archive show, so come to read and watch. It's on Floor 1 of the Meier Building, on the general MACBA ticket (valid for a month), with a free curator-narrated Digital Guide and free tours on Sundays at 11am until 8 November.
The video-bus
Look for the 1977 photograph of people crowding a bus whose windows hold TV monitors, Video-Nou's mobile screen for the Lliga de Catalunya campaign.
Ocaña and Camilo's performance (1977)
The two play every role, lip-sync a copla, sing French songs and Dietrich's Lili Marlene, until the room fills with people.
El carrer també és nostre (1981)
Made in a school video workshop: children interview each other and step into their own streets with the camera.
The Jornades Llibertàries, Park Güell (1977)
Photographs and tape from the international libertarian gathering, including a CNT stall heaped with books and pamphlets.
You don't want to watch old video: it's 30 archive tapes and around 300 documents and photos.