Sony Portapak

The Portapak was introduced by Sony in 1967. "The first Portapaks were entirely in the hands of the military and they were used basically to check where their napalm or bombs had gone. Like virtually everything in our society, the driving force is actually conquest" (Meigh-Andrews (61). However, the Portapak made video art available to the masses, placing it directly in the hands of the artist (9). Namely artists working against pop culture and mass media. A growing number of homes had televisions in them, and what was being viewed on the television was being filtered. The artists could now choose what was being recorded and projected, as well as manipulate that transmission. Significant events that were broadcast, such as Abraham Zapruder's recording of the Kennedy Assassination in 1963 demonstrated the power of what a camera could record.