The power of portable video can not be understated. At the time that the first Portapack, a small, handheld battery-powered video camera, was released in 1967, most people had only three major commercial networks, and early cable was confined to major cities. Getting on TV was only for actors and newsmen, companies decided what the public would view, and nobody said “fuck.” So for early video collectives like the Videofreex, the consumer camera was a tool for complete social upheaval—reflected in names like Raindance’s publication “Radical Software” and the “video revolution.”
