Media Equipment Pool

An Open Letter from the Media Equipment Pool Groups

Videofreex proposed the Mediabus to the New York State Council on the Arts to travel the state introducing people to video; the Council expanded the idea into regional equipment pools and in June 1971 awarded a grant, with the Rochester Museum and Science Center sponsoring the Mediabus and providing a house's first floor for a Rochester Media Equipment Pool. The Equipment Pool acquired hardware and people who could use and teach it (software), ran workshops and short-term loans for documentation, instruction, drama and abstract electronic feedback. The group articulated an ethic of television emphasizing producer control, consent and immediate playback, and assigned legal liability for cable programming to individual producers to guard against broadcast-style censorship.