GTK (ABC television)

This interview with Bush Video was broadcast on ABC television in Australia on 17th September, 1973.

Bush Video was a prominent group using video as an experimental art form in the early 1970s in Australia. Bush Video was set up by the experimental filmmaker, Mick Glasheen, who had been using video since 1968. He was approached by the organisers of the Nimbin Aquarius Festival held in May 1973 to provide video access to festival participants. Bush Video applied for funding to build a cable network throughout the town of Nimbin. This was the very first experiment in cable television in Australia.

Bush Video was a loose, collective organisation built on the spirit of collaboration and explored most of the areas in which video has been used since.

This stream is a copy of an episode of GTK which was a popular, youth-orientated TV series produced and broadcast by ABC Television which premiered on 4 August 1969. The series title was an abbreviation of the phrase "Get To Know". The show ran until 1974 when it was superseded by Countdown.

The interview is with Jack Jacobson, Johnny Lewis and Annie Kelly from Bush Video. This interview was probably recorded in the Bush Video studios located in Ultimo in central Sydney. Other Bush Video members include Mick Glasheen, Doug Richardson, Jack Meyer, Joseph El Khouri, John Kirk, Mark Evans (aka Ariel), Melinda Brown, Phillipa Cullen, Martin Fabinyi, with others notables such as Stephen Jones, Brian Williams and Tom Zubrycki dropping by.

I shot a 16mm sync-sound film interview with Jack from Bush Video during the Nimbin Aquarius Festival in 1973. Jack is the guy sitting on the stool on the left of the screen in the GTK video. If I remember correctly, his nickname was "Fat Jack". He is quite a character as you can see ... and he provided us with a very interesting interview about how video portapacks were going to have a revolutionary influence in society. His predictions basically came to pass in the years that followed.

Courtesy of Dr. Rob Garbutt from the Southern Cross University in Lismore.