This unusual category is made up mostly of work by artists and independent producers for cable TV. New York City has had public access channels since the start of the cable system here, and many bizarre and intriguing productions have been produced. This little-known demi-world provides a constant stream of material for mainstream media, for example skits for Saturday Night Live, like "Wayne's World", "Hans und Franz," "Sprockets," etc.

Some of these cable programs had conventional aspirations, like the All Color News (1978) show produced by the artists of Colab. But this ended up being definitely peculiar as they roamed Manhattan with Super-8 cameras producing feature news reports on darker aspects of urban life.

Other cable productions include live variety shows like Glenn O'Brien's TV Party (1980-82), produced by the Interview writer in emulation of Andy Warhol's TV series. O'Brien's show was far from pop-style cool, however, as he hosted Punk and No Wave music comers like Blondie and David Byrne in a noisy, messy, drug-crazed studio environment. These were pros without contracts having a good time in the public eye.

Then came the contract: the biggest money in this low-budget world went into the Manhattan Cable-produced Willoughby Sharp's Downtown New York (1986) a variety show produced at the height of the East Village gallery and nightclub explosion. Our passionately hip sampler reel now exudes the historical flavor of that vanished scene.

Much of our artists television was produced by Colab's television section, Potato Wolf, a group of video artists and painters who worked together for five years. Alan Moore's Raptures of the Deep (1981) is made up of live TV sketches, one spoofing Jacques Cousteau's undersea TV specials. This is live TV with all the seams showing, as the actors stumble over each other and scenery collides. Cave Girls (1982), a collective venture initiated by girlhood pals Kiki Smith and Ellen Cooper, is the most acclaimed Potato Wolf production. The show begins with an archeological fantasy of a past culture of women (portrayed in lush Super-8), then examines the attempts of their present-day sisters to understand them. Peter Fend, the visionary biocrat artist whose mapworks redraw the world's boundaries along the lines of riverine ecosystems, produced shows for Potato Wolf. His Italy Wins World War III: 1990 Summit (1983) contains most of the ideas he has subsequently worked out, including his notion of ``television government'' based on public access to satellite data from space.

These early efforts paved the way for today's myriad public access "art" cable shows, an idiosyncratic tradition exemplified by Rik Little's Church of Shooting Yourself , and Radio Thin Air productions Mitch Corber's long-lived, as well as numerous category-defying productions combining performance, documentary, video art, music and poetry.

123 Scribner Avenue, Staten Island, NY 10301