Susan Milano’s document of Back Seat (1978)
In conjunction with the publication of our extended conversation with Susan Milano, EAI is pleased to feature a tape documenting the installation of a part of her 1978 show “Back Seat,” a series of video environments inspired by American automobile culture. Produced at the Women’s Interart Center with Videofreex members Nancy Cain and Bart Friedman, Taxicab (later known simply as Taxi) was a “nostalgic nod to the last generation of the Brooklyn cabbie.” The piece converted a Checker cab—the most ubiquitous build of taxi that was gradually fading from city streets—into a unique viewing environment where “passengers” could sit and watch a series of vignettes as told by real-life cab drivers, seen on a small monitor placed where the driver’s head would normally be. The tape also shows glimpses of Drive-In, a second video installation from the same exhibition.
The video is presented alongside an artist statement by Milano illustrating her relationship to television as an art form.
Susan Milano, tape documenting the installation of “Back Seat”.
4:56 min, 1978, b&w, sound
Susan Milano produced the above tape as a supplement for a 1980 application to the National Endowment for the Arts. As part of the application, Milano contextualized her videomaking—which spanned involvement in numerous film and video organizations and a keen interest in the creation of “video environments”—as follows:
My background in video started in 1952 when my Uncle Philip bought our family’s first TV and covered it in snakeskin. On my weekends home from Catholic boarding school I would Learn to Draw with Jon Nagy [sic], mimic Howdy Doody with my own Howdy, and ride the piano bench dressed as Dale Evans when she and Roy Rogers went after the bad guys. I looked forward to summertime when every day started with The Modern Farmer and ended with The Late Show. But Saturdays were the best, from Winky Dink and You, Mighty Mouse, and The Lone Ranger straight through to Your Show of Shows with Sid Caesar and Imogene Coca, and The Jackie Gleason Show.
In high school it was a tough choice between 77 Sunset Strip or the weekly Friday night canteens. Every day I’d catch the early bus home so I wouldn’t miss seeing Justine on American Bandstand. With a regular diet of Ernie Kovacs and Steve Allen, it was no wonder I thought it strange when I got to college and found it was unfashionable to watch television.
I could go on about my subsequent attempts to cut down, and about what later came to be known as “the dark years” (the ingenuity of NYC burglars being what it is). However, suffice it to say that the first time I walked into a video theatre in 1970, it was like taking a graduate of SmokeEnders on a tour of a Marlboro plant.
Since that time, I’ve wandered from documentaries to therapeutic training, to performances, to sculpture and environments, all using video. I’ve produced, directed, edited, shot, recorded, taught, lectured and performed. Onwards from its inception in 1972 I was the director of the Women’s Video Festival. Some of the organizations I have worked with have included the Women’s Interart Center, the TP Videospace Troupe (Shirley Clarke and Andy Gurian), Young Filmmakers, Henry Street Settlement, One to One, National Congress of Neighborhood Women and more. My work has been shown in many places in the U.S. as well as abroad in Europe and Japan.
In recent years, my interest has centered on the creation of video environments that often utilize elements of my documentary video experience and my heretofore un-mentioned narrative film study. These pieces (such as Taxicab and Drive-In, see supporting material) are usually costly to produce and difficult to travel. I want to continue my work in this area and I want more people to see it.
Susan Milano at the Women’s Interart Center, circa 1973. Photo by Ann Volkes.
Susan Milano, application for the National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship, 1980.
2021-2022 marks the 50th anniversary of Electronic Arts Intermix (EAI), one of the world’s leading resources for video and media art. As we celebrate this milestone, EAI will present a rotating series of video features from across our collection and publish a series of oral histories with key figures. To keep up to date on our anniversary activities, please sign up for our e-mail mailing list.