Video History: Making Connections

Panels - Saturday, October 17, 1998


Pioneers Of Digital Photography
This lecture and slide presentation features 2?dimensional works by artists exploring the intersection of photography and early electronic media including Peer Bode, Nancy Burson, Walter Chappell, Connie Coleman/Alan Powell, Laurence Gartel, Carl Geiger, Robert Heinecken, William Larson, Nam June Paik, Sheila Pinkel, Mary Ross, Sonia Landy Sheridan, Howard Sochurek, Mary Jo Toles, Woody Vasulka, Joan Truckenbrod, Julius Vitali and Linda White. The exhibition was on view during the summer 1998 at Open Space Gallery, in Allentown, PA. Co?sponsored with Light Work.

Mary Ross, artist and curator


Writing About Video
This panel will explore a range of issues involved in writing about video. Paul Ryan will explicate a manifesto text on Guerrilla Television he published in Radical Software in 1971. Melinda Barlow will focus on issues of fantasy and memory in writing about two video installations of Mary Lucier, one known through documentation and the other through experience. Laura McGough will weave a path through video history to new media and back again in a search for models of writing that both enlarge and reintegrate the field of video.

Melinda Barlow, author and educator, University of Colorado at Boulder
Laura McGough, artist, curator, critic and co-director of Nomads
Paul Ryan, author and educator, New School for Social Research


Tool Developments/People & Machines
A round-table discussion among some of the early practitioners of video and artists using new interactive technology within installations and web projects. Artists working in collaboration with tool designers and engineers to create original image-making devices was a hallmark of early video activity. Is this still possible? How does custom-designed software fit into the tradition of artist-built image processing devices? How do we address issues of access by artists to new media tools? Are older strategies still relevant? What are the restoration challenges facing museums with installations relying on old technology? What is the role that interfaces play in designing and working with new media environments?

Greg Bowman, OffLine
Carl Geiger, artist
Ralph Hocking, artist and director, Experimental Television Center
David Jones, artist and designer, Dave Jones Design
Jennifer McCoy, artist and educator, Brooklyn College
Kevin McCoy, artist and educator, City College of New York
Steina Vasulka, artist


Negotiating Distribution & Audience
Panelists will discuss how the media arts community has interacted with non-media groups to distribute work and build audiences, and how those connections can be expanded and strengthened. From the mid 1960's to the 1980's, Jean Haynes worked at the Chautauqua-Cattaraugus Library System and built a collection of independent video and film. She will talk about her experiences working collaboratively with the early video group Survival Arts Media who did workshops and production in library, educational and community settings. Organized by Media Alliance.

Linda Gibson, artist and Executive Director, Media Alliance
Jean Haynes, librarian, Chautauqua-Cattaraugus Library System


Teaching Video History
This session will present strategies for successfully integrating video history courses or seminars into production?oriented curricula. How can video history prove itself relevant in this era of digital multimedia? How can video history be taught without great resource libraries? How can video history courses link students and faculty with media arts communities beyond the classroom?

Kathy Rae Huffman, artist, writer, and educator, Rensselaer Polytechic Institute
Tom Sherman, artist, writer and educator, Syracuse University
Lisa Steele, artist, writer and co?director of V tape


Falling Forward Gracefully: Cultural Context & Audience
Makers Richard Fung, Kathy High and Walid Raad will discuss their own personal histories and ways they have connected to their local/global communities through their work as cultural practitioners and as activists. Looking at their participation in the media arts communities from the late 1970s until the present, these makers will discuss the various strategies that have enabled them to exhibit/distribute their work, curate/write about work, and engage audiences: how motivations have changed from then to now; how we need to adopt alternative approaches to attract audiences; and how shifts in gender, class, cultures of makers/audiences have affected the media arts field and production/distribution.

Richard Fung, artist, writer and educator, SUNY Buffalo
Kathy High, artist, curator, educator and editor of Felix: A Journal of Media Arts and Communication
Walid Ra'ad, artist, writer and educator, Queens College, CUNY


Arts Practice I
Artists will present work and lead a discussion of methods and ideas in art-making, theory, and recurrent elements in arts practice such as long distance communication, interactivity, mass media/cultural critique, and inter-media work.

Sara Hornbacher, artist and educator, Atlanta College of Art
Alan Powell, artist and educator, Temple University
Igor Vamos, artist and educator, Rensselaer Polytechic Institute


History of Magnetic Materials
Jim Lindner from the video restoration company VidiPax, will trace magentic materials from wire recording to the present. Also discussed will be VidiPax's new project for a museum and study center focused on older video and audio equipment.

Jim Lindner, President, VidiPax


Arts Practice II
Three artists will present work and encourage a discussion of methods and ideas in art-making, theory, and recurring elements in arts practice such as long distance communication, interactivity, mass media/cultural critique, and inter-media work.

Kristen Lucas, artist
Rita Myers, artist
Reggie Woolery, artist


Activist Media
Join video activists from the Downtown Community Television Center, (DCTV) Paper Tiger TV and the Haitian Community Action Group (KAKO) to explore some historical and current successful uses of activist video. Keiko Tsuno will discuss DCTV's over 25 year history as a media arts center video in New York City's Chinatown. Paper Tiger TV is a video collective that makes programs addressing democratic communications, media representation and the economics of the information industry. They will talk about the Gulf Crisis TV project and a current PTTV outreach initiative for the tape Subverting Media: A Low-Tech Guide to Information Activism. KAKO's cable ccess series explores topics relevant to New York City's Haitian ommunity, including immigration policy, police brutality, and community development in Haiti.

Rejin Leys, Haitian Community Action Group
Marty Lucas, Paper Tiger TV
Denise Gaberman, Paper Tiger TV
Keiko Tsuno, Downtown Community Television Center


Media Infrastructure
The session will explore the types of organizations, collectives, institutions and other environments that support/have supported media art and community media, how they came about, endured and/or faded away, how they have impacted or influenced various cultural or social sectors. Learn about early groups such as the Videofreex, Media Bus, and the first pirate television station, Lanesville TV, as well as contemporary structures, both ad hoc and institutionalized.

Chris Hill, artist, writer, and educator, Antioch College
Parry Teasdale, writer, and editor of the Woodstock Times
Sara Zia Ebrahimi, community radio activist and educator