This visual overview – comprising sketches, experiments, and archival materials – highlights the early days of video art in the Netherlands (1973–1984), orbiting the investigative practice of Livinus and Jeep van de Bundt. 

Where other artists used video as a means to react to mass media, or to dissect the commercial aspects of television, this pioneering father-son duo aspired to develop a new visual language – in which the visual and auditory properties of video took centre stage. .

In 1978, the year that MonteVideo was founded, Livinus wrote: “Although very sympathetic to groups such as Radical Software, I sought – and still seek – the medium’s own nature and began tinkering, but the camera remained my main focus for a long time, which led to the purchase of a Sony and a Philips open-reel set. It was only with ‘synthesising’ that I was able to actually evoke structurally/formally abstract compositions and generate form and change using electronic (test) equipment and my own builds, that I really got going and stayed there.”