Dr. Wulf Herzogenrath, Director of the Cologne Kunstverein, is widely recognized as Europe's most informed and involved curator of video art. In this lecture, Dr. Herzogenrath isolates the beginnings of video art in Germany in the early experiments Nam June Paik conducted with the electronic distortion of 10 television sets in 1963 at the Galerie Parnass in Wuppertal; and presents an overview of the critical early phase of the German video scene. It was during this period, roughly lasting until the early '70s, that video artists were able to present their works to a largely receptive public through broadcast productions such as Gerry Schum's pioneering Television Gallery, in 1968. Shortly thereafter, public interest and support was withdrawn, placing the artist in a problematic situation. Dr. Herzogenrath analyzes this situation with the consequences it had and continues to have on the video scene in Germany, such as: the lack of access to media centers for artists; the breach between video groups working in a documentary mode and those working as artists; a general fear of technology in art, on the part of Europeans, leading to virtually no museum support; and a tendency on the part of artists to work within a less flexible, or “austere” method of approach.