Video as urban condition is about the ways in which video has become part of the urban fabric: the omnipresent screen and the watchful eye that inhabits private and public space. Video is the ubiquitous equipment of the home, the street and the work place: the tube, the box, the telly, CCTV, info-screen, electronic billboard, in-store advertising, mobile, terrestrial, cable, satellite, pay-per-view, downloadable, for sale, to rent. Video as urban condition is about how our knowledge, perception and fantasy of urban environments are mediated by video. Video is the mass medium of innumerable fragments, multi-channel, remote control, camcorder, games console, webcam, public service broadcasting, peer-to-peer, MTV, 24-hour news, reality TV, soap opera, family entertainment, pornography, home video.

The project examines a medium whose most distinctive characteristics are multiplicity and diversity, a form which is not contained by the norms of art institutions or the exclusive domains of professionals. Video is a medium of mass production — that is, mass participation — as well as of mass consumption. The accessibility of video technology has encouraged not only the private interests of home video and independent artistic activity, but has also prompted community and educational initiatives putting the medium in the hands of underprivileged or excluded groups in society. Video technology has moreover become established among the tools of communication and witness at the disposal of activists and campaigners who maintain a position beyond the mainstream. At the same time, the power of video as a means of controlling desire and space continues to grow.

The Video as Urban Condition "Video-pool" archive is a mobile collection of moving images reflecting the mutability of video as it shifts between fact and fiction, entertainment and persuasion, urban fantasy and reality-TV, art and activism, surveillance and control.