Cynthia Maughan's 1970s Video Archive Digitized by Getty, Revealing Feminist Punk Aesthetics

Between 1973 and 1980, Cynthia Maughan created over 300 self-directed video performances in her Pasadena, California studio, treating the camera as a two-way mirror for exploring alternate personas. Her low-fi aesthetic, drawing from B-movie genres, used language as a framing device in works like I Tell Three Cats about Jail (1977-78) and The Way Underpants Really Are (1975). Though her videos screened at the Woman's Building in the late 1970s, Maughan described her approach as 'lazy anarchism,' avoiding organized political activism. Her practice migrated to punk/DIY music venues in the early 1980s, where she performed with bands like Auto De Fé and The Shrews. The Getty Research Institute is now undertaking an extensive digitization of her archive, making her entire body of work available. Maughan cites seeing William Wegman's videos in 1973 at University of California at Long Beach as an initial influence, though her primary visual references came from childhood movies and television. She grew up in Norwalk, California, near the Metropolitan State Hospital, an experience that informed her fascination with insanity. Recent interest in her work followed the 2008 exhibition 'California Video' at the J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles. Maughan is considering making new videos but hesitates, unsure if she could recapture the earlier excitement.