Review: Undercurrents video

Undercurrents 3 Small World Video 1995, £9.50 (unwaged £6.50). Reviewed by HOWARD CLARK.

<*> Undercurrents 3 is good news indeed: two hours with 13 spots of alternative news reports made by committed camcorder activists.

Here is history: latterday diggers celebrating the anniversary of 1649; latterday druids creating an auto-graveyard--Carhenge -- at Pollok; and then the bad history--the first death from the new-to-Britain US-style police baton, and the licence given the policy by the Criminal Justice Act.

Here is economics: shareholders' actions on the environment and arms trade, and the Lloyds and Midland Bank boycott.

Here is morality: "This is a private office"; "Yes, and it's a private office that's destroying the planet".

Here is humour: I especially think of the interview with a spokesperson for the British Roads Federation--behind him two protesters make a silent commentary, coughing and spluttering.

Small World Videos have become a vital part of the protest scene in Britain today. This video demonstrates why. It gives activists with a variety of styles and standpoints the chance to explain what they are doing and why--and to show how. A purple booklet published with the video gives you the contact addresses for the groups covered, in the hope you feel inspired to join in. Naturally enough, there is quite a bit of footage of violence against protesters. When one item was shown in court, it horrified the magistrate as it showed security guards repeatedly trying to slam a door on a trapped protester's head.

There are also glimpses of how some activists have set about minimising violence, both organisationally by appointing legal observers and in human terms, by clear and open communication with employees of targeted companies.

Contrasting examples of the power of the video to unveil the establishment's pretences were when Wildlife Action got close enough to document the savage "kill" at a deer hunt, and an item on the Lloyds and Midlands Bank boycott that interspersed their trendy youth-directed advertising clips with hard facts about third world debt, military production, and environmental destruction.

There is more to Small World than producing Undercurrents. The group offers training in how to use camcorders, and also for campaigning purposes such as for media interviews or for use in court. The presence of the camcorder can restrain violence, and while it undoubtedly encourages a little exhibitionism (which can sometimes be an asset on demonstrations) and some self-indulgence, it also helps activists learn about what they're communicating and how.

A lifetime ago, Marshall McLuhan called TV a "hot" medium. There's no denying the immediacy of TV news, but there's also its tendency to render viewers passive and to immunise us against "too much reality". In a different and more exciting sense, Undercurrents 3 is really hot. Juxtaposing the manufactured lauranorder "sound bites" from a Conservative Party conference with the self-effacing "I'm not really into making speeches" message of the first person arrested under the Criminal Justice Act is a statement about two different political worlds: one where we are spectators and it is done to us (and allegedly for us); the other where political action is part of everyday life and carried out by people like you and me.

McLuhan also argued that TV technologies would transform the world into a global village: well, not into the kind of village in which I'd care to live. So far, the international section of Undercurrents 3 is a bit slight. I suppose this is partly a question of limited finances, and mainly that the global network of camcorder activists is in its infancy.

As Britain has the highest per capita ownership of video machines, the prospects should be good for Small World Video's alternative news service to get plenty of subscribers. And if you're a video owner with the slightest qualm about this consumerist indulgence, subscribe and invite your friends round.