Children's Video Collective

In the early seventies I was a founding member of the Children's Video Collective. Although it only lasted six or seven months — after we came back from summer vacation we found we'd been put in different classes — the CVC has proved an institution of seminal importance in Canadian media arts. Though no work of any note was produced, we proved that children can organize into a radical political force and, as individuals, we mastered the technical apparatus of reel-to-reel portapak video.

Looking back over our old tapes I'm struck by our clumsy cynicism and shallow oppositional politics. I had assumed that we'd show a more child-like innocence and naiveté. And looking specifically at the work I authored within the collective, I'm struck by how little my concerns and strategies have changed.

In the future, children will cease to exist. As a social category, we will simply become irrelevant. My generation is likely the last generation of children. Or rather, the last generation to experience childhood. That doesn't necessarily mean that now is the time to put away childish things. Instead it may mean that the use of childish things may be extended indefinitely, until death.