Categories
Announcements

Early Media Instruments: A Set of 8 DVDs

Early Media Instruments features demonstrations by Dave Jones, Hank Rudolph and Benton C Bainbridge of some of the most influential real-time analog video processing tools used by media artists internationally. Many were designed in the 1970s.

Each of the 8 DVDs covers the purpose, operation and function of a specific instrument:

• Jones Colorizer
• Jones Frame Buffer
• Jones Keyer
• Jones Sequencer
• Paik/Abe Video Synthesizer
• Raster Manipulation Unit – Wobbulator
• Rutt/Etra Model RE-4 Video Synthesizer
• Sandin Image Processor

Documentation by Carolyn Tennant, Pamela Susan Hawkins, Hank Rudolph, Mona Jimenez and Kathy High with Meredith Baxter, Monica Duncan, Neil Fried, Annie Langan, Michael Montagne, Yesael Sumalave and Terese Longova. Design and post by Matthew Underwood, Necole Zayatz and Dave Jones Design.

This DVD set was produced by Experimental Television Center through the Video History Project.

Categories
In Memoriam

Dr. Donald McArthur 1938-2012

The Experimental Television Center is sad to report the passing of Dr. Donald McArthur on October 7, 2012. Don worked with others at ETC on several projects including his Spatial and Intensity Digitizer, a ground-breaking instrument, and the interface of a digital computer to analog video instruments. He also collaborated with Woody and Steina Vasulka on their Digital Image Articulator. Our sympathy extends to his family. The obituary follows.


Donald retired from Lockheed-Martin in Irving, TX where he worked designing computer software and hardware for imaging systems and simulators. Survived by his son Michael, Michael’s wife Sophie Alexander and their daughter Gemma Mae Rose of Newfield, NY; His first wife Jane McArthur nee Spicknall originally of Lincoln, NE; three step-children from his second marriage: Suzanne, Lisa, and John and their families; several cousins. Predeceased by his parents, aunts, uncles, several cousins, and his second wife Marilyn of Homer, NY.

Donald was born January 19, 1938 in Holdrege, NE the only child of David Kenneth McArthur and Olive Bernice McArthur nee Troutman. He attended Ragan schools through 8th grade, living on the family farm south of Holdrege. Donald graduated Holdrege High School in 1955, University of Nebraska at Lincoln 1959 with a B.A. and a PhD in Theoretical Physics in 1967. At the University of Saskatchewan-Saskatoon Don filled a post-doctoral fellowship post for six years at the Linear Accelerator Laboratory where he contributed mathematical physics and advanced electronics before moving to New York State to teach at the State University in Cortland.

In the early ‘70s Donald was invited to work with The Experimental Television Center, (then in Binghamton, NY),  where artists, designers, and scientists gather to create new visual art forms and technological tools for the artists. Donald designed some of the early digital technology that lead to the development of computer-generated imagery, including 3-D images. This work led to a job with Singer-Link where he designed systems for the first flight simulator to train space shuttle pilots. His work took him to Irving TX in 1980 where he lived until 2004, working for several companies on imaging projects including LTV, Texas Instruments and Lockheed-Martin.

Don also taught as an associate professor at University of Texas at Arlington. His work earned several patents and had applications for the mars rovers and military training simulations. Donald co-authored at least one paper on simulation. This website talks about one of his innovations. 

Donald had many interests throughout his life, besides being dedicated to puzzling out some new problem in his work, he enjoyed reading, writing, square dancing, Buddhist meditation, painting, travel and in his youth boy scouts and amateur radio. Don loved a good joke, even more if it was dirty.

Categories
Announcements

Experimental Television Center: 1969-2010 DVD Set

ETC: Experimental Television Center 1969-2009 is a 19 hour DVD set presenting the electronic media work of over one hundred artists who worked in ETC’s Residency Program.

The collection offers a look at the evolution of the unique artist-designed sound and image tools that are the hallmark of the Center’s studio and provides a view into the constantly changing artistic processes and practices that have shaped the work over the years.

LUX, the influential arts organization in London, UK, named it as one of 50 essential moving-image DVDs in publication.

Video art began to develop in the US in the late 1960s, with the introduction of new portable video tools. While many artists used the technology to document and have voice in social and political issues, others collaborated with technologists to design unique instruments which allowed the creation of imagery never before seen. ETC remains dedicated to the development of video and digital instruments in the service of creative visual and sonic investigation by artists from around the world.

This set contains works by the first generation of video and film artists – including Barbara Hammer, Gary Hill, Jud Yalkut and Aldo Tambellini – experimental work by Nicholas Ray, and contemporary works by Marisa Olson, Kristin Lucas, Lynne Sachs and Mark Street. A complete list of artists is below.

The works have been widely exhibited internationally and received awards from festivals around the world.

For over 40 years the Center offered programs in support of the media arts, offering an international Residency Program, grants to individuals and media organizations, and sponsorship assistance for independent media and film artists. The Video History Project is an online resource for scholars documenting the formative development of media art and community television.

An essential component of the project, the digitizing of early video recorded on obsolete formats, was performed through the Standby Program by Bill Seery. We also wish to recognize Maria Venuto and Kelly Spivey for their contributions.

The project received support from the Digitization Project Grants Program at the New York State Council on the Arts, mediaThe foundation, and the Daniel Langlois Foundation for Art, Science and Technology. The project manager was Aaron Miller. The art designer for the project was Diane Bertolo (lotusandpixel.com).

5 DVD set (dual sided) with 132 page catalog. Running time: 19 hours.

Mara Alper • Amoeba Technology • Kristen Anchor • Benton Bainbridge • Irit Batsry • Bebe Beard • Alan Berliner • Kjell Bjorgeengen • David Blair • Peer Bode • Philip R Bonner • Jean-Pierre Boyer • Lawrence Brose • Nancy Buchanan • Barbara Buckner • Torsten Zena Burns • Michael L. V. Butler • Abigail Child • Laurie Beth Clark • Cohen Charles • Connie Coleman • Dearraindrop • Andrew Deutsch • Kenneth Dominick • Monica Duncan • Nicholas Economos • David Fodel • Joshua Fried • Larry Gartel • Raymond Ghirardo • Jonnathan Giles • Shalom Gorewitz • Carol Goss • Alexander Hahn • Barbara Hammer • Julie Harrison • Sachiko Hayashi • Janene Higgins • Gary Hill • Tali Hinkis • Sara Hornbacher • Takahiko Iimura • Kelly Jacobson • Deborah Johnson • Brian Kane • Peggy Kay • Zohar Kfir • John Knecht • Andrew Koontz • Richard Kostelanetz • Annie Langan • Kyle Lapidus • Paula Levine • Henry Linhart • Jeanne Liotta • Jason Livingston • LoVid • Kristin Lucas • Darrin Martin • Mimi Martin • Christina McPhee • Rohesia Hamilton Metcalfe • Aaron Miller • Bianca Bob Miller • Terry Mohre • Brian Moran • Ikue Mori • NNeng • Marisa Olson • Carol Parkinson • John Phillips • Michael Phillips • Alan Powell • Nicholas Ray • Megan Roberts • Ron Rocco • Peter Rose • Eric Ross • Mary Ross • Dave Ryan • Lynne Sachs • Eric Schefter • Michael Schell • Matthew Schlanger • Jessie Shefrin • Alan Sondheim • Caspar Stracke • Mark Street • Chad Strohmayer • Aldo Tambellini • Carolyn Tennant • Matthew Underwood • Liselot van der Heijden • Siebren Versteeg • Ben Vida • Nancy Walker • Reynold Weidenaar • Ann-Sargent Wooster • Walter Wright • Jud Yalkut • Neil Zusman

Categories
Announcements

Ralph Hocking Work: 1969 to 1986 DVD

Ralph Hocking, founder of the Experimental Television Center, released a DVD containing select video works from 1969-1986.

About Ralph Hocking

Ralph Hocking has been a leader in the field of electronic media art since the 1960s, founding one of the first campus-based media access programs in the country at Binghamton University where he served as Professor of Video and Computer Art and Chair of the Cinema Department until his retirement in 1998.

In 1971 he established the independent nonprofit Experimental Television Center, with a residency and research program for artists, equipment access and training programs for the community, and regional and national exhibition programs.

He has served as consultant, advisor and panelist with such organizations as the New York State Council on the Arts, the University Wide Arts Committee, the Society for Photographic Education, the Massachusetts Arts Foundation, the New York Foundation for the Arts, and many museums and galleries.

His personal creative work has been exhibited widely worldwide. He has received support for his work from the NEA Visual Arts Fellowship Program and the New York State Council on the Arts.

Through a Residency from the Institute for Electronic Arts at Alfred University, he created a compilation of his video, Work 1969-1986.

Categories
Announcements

ETC @ 25

Before MTV, before Industrial Light and Magic, a radical group of people believed that television was an art medium. They felt free to play with the television signal to make funky, sophisticated, chaotic, poetic, raw, cutting edge, disruptive, politically savvy, artistically elegant tapes that were the antithesis of the broadcast television of then and most of now.

Tucked away in upstate New York, the Center is outside the mainstream. It is easy to forget its ongoing importance, but many of the 1,200+ artists who have passed through there, including Bill T. Jones and Arnie Zane, Doris Chase, Nam June Paik, Shigeko Kubota, Shalom Gorewitz, Sara Hornbacher, Barbara Hammer, Peter Rose, Kathy High, Ernie Gusella, Richard Kostelanetz, Peter d’Agostino, myself and many others, have all been nourished in its crucible…

Excerpted from 25 Years of the Experimental Television Center (2006) [Ann-Sargent Wooster, pdf].