1952
Italy
In Milan, the group "les spatialistes" draws up its manifesto for television.
United States
John Cage organizes an untitled
event at Black Mountain College consisting of non-coordinated actions in different media (with Merce Cunningham, Charles Olson, Robert Rauschenberg, and David Tudor).
1958
France
The professional video recorder, produced by the American company Ampex, is imported for the first time. This very cumbersome equipment is mainly used by technicians at Radiodiffusion-Télévision Française (RTF).
Germany
Nam June Paik meets John Cage in Darmstadt. From 1958 to 1961, Paik works with Karl-Heinz Stockhausen in the Studio für Elektronische Musik at the Westdeutscher Rundfunk (WDR) in Cologne.
1959
TV-décollage (events and actions for the Millions in 1959) by Wolf Vostell.
A sketch in
George Brecht's notebook, dated 25 June, shows a "television piece", an assemblage of nine working televisions forming what would now be called a video wall. In the notes relating to his "television piece", Brecht enumerates in detail the possibilities for intervening: "picture and horizontal adjustment, sound, volume, tuning depends on picture."
United States
Allan Kaprow presents 18 Happenings in Six Parts at the Reuben Gallery in New York.