A second generation of pioneers in live video, The Poool (1996-1999) brought the immediacy and accessibility of live image processing and cinema-making before an audience. Like a music group, they played low-fi consumer equipment, such as tube cameras, teleconferencing cameras, spy cameras, 9mm cameras, wedding video mixers. Like puppetry they manipulated quotidian household objects and recyclables (tin foil, Styrofoam, shampoo, food, stuffed animals, etc.) On stage the audience viewed the transformation of visual matter being manipulated with real time digital effects (pre-laptop video processing) mixed with pre-recorded footage and live action. The Poool achieved a visual language evoking journeys through psychological states with a sense of humor in discovering the foreign in the familiar. They captured basic human emotion of anxiety, fear, alienation through delicate scrutiny. With mountains of analogue equipment in a time before computers were fast enough to process video in real time, they played in New York clubs, parties, galleries, and art institutions. The Poool collaborated with many talented musicians and the architectural duo, Liminal Projects.

Unfortunately, little documentation and publication of their performances exist. Today the Poool remains in hundreds of 8mm rehearsal cassettes and in the memory of those from the downtown New York electronic art party scene of the 1990s. They were in good company with electronic groups such as Ovni, Feedbuck and Missy Galore, and Floating Point Unit. The documentary on live video, Video Out includes members of the Poool and their experience of the downtown NYC and Brooklyn AV scene of the 1990s. More on Angie’s VJing.