ABSTRACT
This chapter expands the concept of ‘film practice’ into a more generic ‘media practice’. It analyses the relationship between the development of television in India and the widespread phenomenon of video technology that facilitated the emergence and circulation of new media practices. While paying attention to some of the media collectives that became central actors of documentary filmmaking in this period, the chapter suggests that video technology built upon existing practices while nevertheless transforming documentary films into a variety of forms of media activism. Specifically, the chapter looks at the early 1960s and mid-1970s educational experimentations, such as SITE, at national politics concerning development and education, as well as the emergence of non-governmental organisations working with video, and the formation of media collectives. In order to understand the relationship between new video practices and already existing filmmaking practices, the chapter concludes with a discussion about old media and new media and particularly celluloid vs. video, showing how the new media always build on old media, yet, as in the case of video, expanding the practice further.
