Experimental Television Center
1971 - present
Owego, New York
For background and earlier years, see https://www.videohistoryproject.org/etc-history
1990-91
A third Amiga is added to the system, along with the Toaster, to further expand the digital imaging potential of the systems. Artists in residence include Mara Alper, Irit Batsry, Alan Berliner, Laurie Beth Clark, Peter D’Agostino, Tami Gold, Brian Goldfarb, Shalom Gorewitz, Alex Hahn, Philip Mallory Jones, Richard Kostelanetz, Barbara Rosenthal and Ann Wooster. Tapes were exhibited at Exchange of Information, Museum of Modern Art; Time Based Review, Visual Studies Workshop; Third Emerging Expressions Biennial, Bronx Museum; Rome Video Festival; MIX Festival; International Video Days, Turkey; Bonn Videonale; Osnabruck Video Festival; and the Stockholm Video Festival. They were included on Growing Up, The Learning Channel; Independent Focus, WNET; Maybe but Not Necessarily Music, Rochester; and Deep Dish TV. Artists received awards from the Checkerboard Foundation; the NEA; the Grand Prix at the Locarno Video Festival; First Prize for Short Experimental Work at the Athens International Video Festival; and the Jerome Foundation. The Center sponsored projects by Alex Hahn (The Kirchner Itinerary) and Shalom Gorewitz (Roots and Branches). Presentation Funds provides assistance to the Brooklyn Museum (AFI Video Festival), Asian Cinevision (Videoscape: An Asian American Showcase), the Adirondack Cultural Foundation (The Logging Project), Cornell Cinema Presentations by Michael Smith and Carol Ann Klonarides), Dance Theater Workshop Silent Echoes), DCTV (Video History III and the Video Witness Festival), Harvestworks (Presentations by Alvin Lucier, Terese Svoboda, Helen Thorington and Paul DeMarinis), Media Alliance (11th Annual Media Conference), Media Network (keynote address by Marlon Riggs for Immediate Impact conference), and the MIX Festival. Finishing Funds 1991 recipients include Bill and Mary Buchen, Jean de Boysson, Bradley Eros and Jeanne Liotta, Cara Mertes and Ellen Spiro, selected by panelists Shu Lea Cheang, Robert Doyle and Philip Mallory Jones.
1991-1992
Artists in residence include, Irit Batsry, Kjell Bjorgeengen, Jon Burris, Andrew Deutsch, Shalom Gorewitz, Thomas Allan Harris, Pamela Jennings, Cheryl Jackson, Joel Katz, Mary Ann Petit, Trish Rosen and Kate Farrell, Kathleen Ruiz, Michael Schell, William Seery and Maria Venuto, and Ann-Sargent Wooster. Works are screened at the Video Viewpoints, Museum of Modern Art; Wexner Center; CEPA; Asian American Vision at the Brooklyn Museum; the Ostee-Biennale; the Dallas Video Festival; the Black Maria Festival; and the London Film Festival. Work was included in cable or broadcast programs The 90s and Independent Focus. David Blair wins Grand Prize for Wax at the 6th Montbeliard Video Festival. We begin a project to catalog the collection of antique equipment, artists’ videotapes, print materials and audiotapes, using a computerized relational database. The project is inspired by our work for the Ars Electronica Video Pioneers exhibition at Linz, Austria in the Summer of 1992. Dan Reeves receives assistance from NYSCA for Obsessive Becoming and Philip Mallory Jones receives support for First World Order. Finishing Funds 1992 recipients selected by Larry Gottheim, Chris Hill and Pam Jennings include Yau Ching, Abigail Child, Vincent Grenier, Jody LaFond, Lynn Masterson and Jim Supanick, and Brian Springer. Presentation Funds recipients include Art in General (Electric Spaces by Bill and Mary Buchen), DCTV (77HZ performance), Drift Distribution (Flesh Histories, at The Kitchen), Saratoga Public Library (Video on Video series), iEAR Studios (Joseph Celli performance); Media Network (RePackaging Paradise: Media Strategies for a New World, conference); Squeaky Wheel (Second Annual Native American Indigenous People’s Video Festival); Third World Newsreel (Emerging Latin American Film and Video at Hunter College); Women One World Festival; and The Wooster Group (Scopic Drive at The Performance Garage).
1992-1993
Artists in Residence include Charlie Ahearn, Peer Bode, Emily Breer, Laurence Brose, Connie Coleman and Alan Powell, Lara Davis, Shalom Gorewitz, Alex Hahn, Pamela Hawkins, Bianca Bob Miller, Ray Rapp, Van McElwee, Alan Sondheim, Nancy Meli Walker, Walter Wright and Jud Yalkut. The Museum of Modern Art presented three shows, Two Decades, Video Fest Berlin and Between Word and Image, all of which included works produced at the Center. Works were also screened at the MIT Media Lab; the Franklin Institute; the DAAD Galerie in Berlin; The Final Frontier at the New Museum of Contemporary Art; and included in the Bonn Film Festival, the Atlanta Film Festival, the Worldwide Video Festival in the Netherlands, and the Vancouver International Film Festival. Artists received recognition from the Swiss Cultural Council; DAAD Fellowship; Fulbright Scholarship; McDowell Colony; French Ministry of Culture; and the MacArthur Foundation Production Fund. Finishing Funds 1993 recipients selected by Rii Kanzaki and Carlota Schoolman include Kelly Anderson, Maria Beatty, Skip Blumberg, Yau Ching, Johan Grimonprez, Sara Hornbacher, Kit Fitzgerald, Jeffrey Lerer, Dean Moss, Richard Povall, Reggie Woolery, Ned Sublette, and Ann-Sargent Wooster. Beginning in 1993 we were able to support film series programming in addition to the exhibition of single-evening media presentations. Presentation Funds recipients include the Adams Art Gallery Film series in Chautauqua County); Alfred University (Tony Conrad Video Works); the Brooklyn Museum (African American Women Behind the Camera, with appearances by Julie Dash and Jacqueline Shearer); CEPA Gallery (Ballet DiGiTal, by Connie Coleman and Alan Powell); Franklin Furnace (The Emerging Performance Artist series); Harvestworks (The Interactive Show at Thread Waxing Space); Roulette (Works by Neil Rolnick and Pat Abt); The Kitchen (STELARC); Third World Newsreel (Drinking From Our Own Wells, curated by Thomas Harris); Squeaky Wheel (Annie Goldson and Visible Women, with works by Chris Hill, Annie Fergerson, Jody LaFond and other Western NY women); Willow Mixed Media (Amiga Artists on the Air, curated by Toby Carey).
1993-1994
Artist in Residence include Alan Berliner, Sandi DuBowski, Annie Fergerson, Shalom Gorewitz, Sara Hornbacher and Robert Natowitz, Tatiana Louriero, Darrin Martin, Andrea Mancuso and Peter D’Auria, and Robert Wyrod. Works were screened at Film/Video Arts; Iterations: The New Image at the International Center of Photography; the Venice Biennale; Montage 93, Rochester; the Knitting Factory; Venice Biennial; and the Osnabruck Media Art Festival. The Center is a member of the Preservation Working Group of Media Alliance, and the National Moving Image Database project of the American Film Institute. Artists received recognition from ZKM, Astraea Foundation, Jerome Foundation and the Mid Atlantic Regional Media Arts Fellowship Program. Finishing Funds 1994 recipients selected by Anne Fergerson and Mona Jimenez include David Blair, Vivek Renjen Bald, Larry Brose, Vincent Grenier, Pamela Susan Hawkins, Carol Kalil, Michael Schell and 77 Hz, Branda Miller and Stephen Vitiello. Organizations receiving exhibition support include the Afrikan Poetry Theatre (Black Women Film Festival); Electronic Arts Intermix (Emerging Women Artists); Experimental Intermedia Foundation (Jerry Hunt concert); Rome Art and Community Center (Film Series); the Matrilineage Symposium at Syracuse University; Squeaky Wheel (Works by John Knecht); OffLine cable series; and Videoteca del Sur (Cuban Media Artists).
1994-1995
Artists in Residence include Veena Cabreros-Sud, Anita Cheng and Ronaldo Kiel, Abigail Child, Lisa DiLillo, Genevieve Hayes, Barbara Hammer, Walid Raad, Dave Ryan, Debra Robinson, Sarah Smiley, and Sui Kang Zhao. Exhibition sites include Exit Art; Art in General; Colgate University; @ Café; the New Museum; Hallwalls; the Black Maria Festival; the 5th International Symposium of Electronic Art in Helsinki; the 8th Annual MIX Festival; the New York Video Festival; the Copenhagen Film Festival; the Atlanta Video Festival; the Bonn Videonale; ISEA, Helsinki; Osnabruck Media Festival. Artists were recognized by the Canada Council, the Lyn Blumenthal Foundation and the New England Film and Video Program. Presentation Funds support went to almost 40 organizations in 22 counties throughout NYS and included Bard College (George Kuchar); City Lore (9th Annual Festival of Folk Cultural Documentaries); Corning Museum of Glass (Film Series); Electronic Arts Intermix (NY International Video Festival); Gallery 53 (Winter Films Series); Ithaca College (Works by Liss Platt, Mona Jimenez, Carl Geiger and Amy Hufnagel); Polish Community Center (Kino Polski III); Women Direct (Works by Barbara Hammer and Not Channel Zero). Finishing Funds recipients selected by Bob Harris and Steina Vasulka include Tom DeWitt, Carl Geiger and Amy Hufnagel, Jody Lafond, Simon Leung, Michelle Lippitt, Rohesia Hamilton Metcalfe, Duston Spear, Kristin Tripp, and Cathy Weis. The State Arts Council supported creative projects by Shalom Gorewitz (Now What?), Alex Hahn (On the Nature of Things), and Jeffrey Lerer (Memory Box). Susan Muska and Greta Olafsdottir received support from the Astraea National Lesbian Action Foundation for The Brandon Teena Story.
1995-1996
Artists in Residence include Mara Alper, Kjell Bjorgeengen, Barbara Columbo, Michael Betancourt, Andrew Deutsch, Linda Gibson, Sooz Hewitt, John Knecht, Kristin Lucas, Darrin Martin, Diane Nerwen, Jessie Shefrin, Barbara Sternberg, Virgil Wong, Reynold Weidenaar and Jud Yalkut. Works were exhibited at Momenta Art; the Donnell Media Center; the Not Still Art Festival at the Boswell Museum; the Knitting Factory; Threadwaxing Space; and the Whitney Museum. They were included in the 6th International Symposium on Electronic Art in Montreal; the 15th Annual Small Computers in the Arts Festival; the 4th NY Video Festival; and selected for inclusion in the distribution package Video: The First Decade, curated for Video Data Bank. Work was also included in Set in Motion, a survey of works created with support from the New York State Council on the Arts. Artists received awards from the Black Maria Festival, the NYFA, the Lynn Blumenthal Foundation and the Swiss Arts Foundation. Finishing Funds recipients chosen by panelists Peer Bode and Ken Jacobs include Shawn Atkins, Zoe Beloff, Alan Berliner, Diane Bertolo, Bill and Mary Buchen, Tirtza Even, Jane Greenberg, Bob Harris, John Knecht, Richard Kostelanetz, and Jeanne Liotta. Presentation Funds programming reached over 40,000 people in 28 counties in the State. Presentation Funds support was provided to American Museum of the Moving Image (A Spike Lee Retrospective); Anthology Film Archives (Winter Program of Early Films); Artists Space (The Poool); Cooper Union (Work by Su Friedrich, and Jeff Preiss); Crandall Public Library (Meet the Maker series); Matrilineage Symposium at Syracuse University; OffLine, a nationally distributed cable series; the Rochester Lesbian and Gay Film/Video Festival; and Olean Public Library (Work by Ngozi Onwurah and Four Evenings of Film). The Center continues its sponsorship of The Brandon Teena Story, an experimental documentary by Susan Muska and Greta Olafsdottir.
1996-97
The Residency Program invited the participation of Gretchen Bender, Daniel Cooney, Terry Cuddy, Lisa DiLillo, Janet Grau, Jolie Guy, Jillian McDonald, Laura Parnes, Joseph Scheer, Liselot vander Heijden, Xiomin Gu, Jed Speare, and Charlie Woodman. Works were exhibited in the American Film Institute Video Festival; the 10th Annual MIX Festival in New York; The Knitting Factory; Do Not Adjust Your Set at Hallwalls; the Biennial and the Lesbian Genders exhibitions at the Whitney Museum; Video on Video series at the Saratoga Springs Public Library; Private TV at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art; the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston; and at museums and galleries in France, Germany, Canada, Poland and New Zealand. The 25th Anniversary of the Center was curated by Ann Wooster and Joanna Spitzner for Art in General. Artists received awards from the Black Maria Festival, the Louisville Film Festival, and the NAP Video Festival and from the Jerome Foundation, the New York Foundation for the Arts and several State Arts Councils. Mary Ann Petit won First Prize at the Thaw 96 Festival. Kristin Lucas work Host was selected for inclusion in the Whitney Museum Biennial and exhibited at the NY Film and Video Festival at Lincoln Center and at the Museum of Modern Art. The system available to artists includes modules designed at the Center as well as commercially available tools. The digital portion of the system was expanded a PC computer system with a Miro non-linear board. The Center sponsored several artists’ projects this year. Slawomir Grunberg and Ben Crane received support from the New York State Council on the Arts for School Prayer: A Community Divided, a documentary illuminating the debate over prayer in the public schools. The project received additional support from the Soros Documentary Fund and the Independent Television Service. Barbara Hammer’s experimental documentary The Female Closet traces the closeted lesbian histories of three artists. In addition to support from the New York State Council on the Arts, the project was also supported by the Wexner Center. The Brandon Teena Story, a documentary by Susan Muska and Greta Olafsdottir, received support from the New York State Council on the Arts, the Astraea Foundation and private contributors. Through Presentation Funds we provided partial support to 54 organizations representing 20 counties throughout the State, providing nearly 40,000 people the opportunity to view independently produced work. The organizations contributed well over $300,000 from other sources in support of these exhibitions. This year the American Museum of the Moving Image (Isaac Julien Retrospective); Downtown Community TV Center (Guerilla Television, works by Shu Lea Cheang and Dee Dee Halleck); the George Eastman House (Films by Laurence Brose and Christine Russo); Movies on a Shoestring Annual Festival; Northern Westchester Center for the Arts (Politics from a Multicultural Perspective); Queens Museum of Art (Satyajit Ray Retrospective); and the Schroon Lake Arts Council (Film by Mike Camoin) all received support for media exhibitions. Finishing Funds artists include Luca Buvoli, Roz Dimon, Amy Jenkins, Jody LaFond, Uzi Parnes, John Roach, Lynn Sachs, and Keith Sanborn. Serving as panelists were independent artist and educator Pia Cseri-Briones of Rochester and curator and preservation consultant Jim Hubbard of New York. In 1996, the Center formally organized the Video History Project, which we have been working on for many years. A goal of the project is to document the early historical development of video art and community television.
1997-98
Artists in residence include Peter Chamberlain, Honolulu, HI; Leah Gilliam, Tivoli, NY; Sara Hornbacher, Atlanta, GA; David Knoebel, West Center, PA; Kristin Lucas, Brooklyn, NY; Tarja Nieminen, Helsinki, Finland; Mary Ann Petit, New York, NY; Cara O’Connor, New York, NY; John Roach, New York, NY; Lynn Sachs, Brooklyn, NY; Barbara Sternberg, Toronto; Sue Wrbican, Berkeley Heights, NJ. Works produced through the Residency Program were exhibited at Cornell Cinema, the Brooklyn Museum of Art, Nexus Contemporary Art Center, Atlanta; Artists Television Access, San Francisco; and the Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston. They were included in Reel NY, a series focusing on independent works produced by WNET, Channel 13, NY and at circuits@nys, The Governor’s Conference on Art and Technology. They were included in the Ohio Independent Film Festival, the 6th New York Video Festival at Lincoln Center, the Montreal International Festival of Cinema and New Media, the Robert Flaherty Seminar, and the Osnabruck Video Festival. Works are distributed by Video Data Bank, Electronic Arts Intermix; Women Make Movies; Filmmakers Coop; Drift; Canyon Cinema; Facets. The Center sponsored independent videomakers Slawomir Grunberg for School Prayer which received support from the New York State Council on the Arts, ITVS, and the Soros Documentary Fund; Barbara Hammer for Culture Doctor which received support from the New York State Council on the Arts; and Susan Muska and Greta Olafsdottir for The Brandon Teena Story. The International Student Residency, organized by Pamela Hawkins and Hank Rudolph was held in the Spring at the Center, attracting the participation of 30 students representing Alfred University, the University of Buffalo, Binghamton University, Atlanta College of Art and the National Art Academy, Oslo. Presentation Funds supported 59 organizations in 23 counties around New York State, providing almost 35,000 people the opportunity to view independently produced works. These organizations provided over $300,000 in direct support for these programs. Organizations which received support include Aaron Davis Hall (Visions of New Black Filmmakers); Albany Public Library (Fall Film Festival); Anthology Film Archives (Presentations by Kenneth Anger and Stan Brakhage); Castellini Art Museum (John Knecht); Everson Museum of Art (Alan Berliner); Institute for Electronic Arts (Steina Vasulka and Mona Jimenez); Olean Public Library (Annual Film Exhibition Series); Renssalear Polytechnic Institute (The Poool); and Visual Studies Workshop (Lynn Corcoran and Wendy Smith). In partnership with the Institute for Electronic Arts at Alfred University and the New York State Alliance for Arts Education, the Experimental Television Center continues to sponsor the Video History Project, which documents the early historical development of video art and community television in upstate New York during the period 1968-1980. The goals of the project will be realized in an interrelated set of activities combining research, the collection of oral histories, the creation of educational resource materials, a World Wide Web site, and a Video History Conference. The conference will be held at Syracuse University on October 16-18, 1998 in conjunction with the Common Ground Conference, sponsored by the New York State Alliance for Arts Education. This project has received support from the Challenge Grant Program of the New York State Council on the Arts, The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, the Media Action Grant program of Media Alliance and individual and corporate contributors.
1998-1999
This year’s 48 artists represent eight states as well as Canada, Switzerland and Puerto Rico. Artists this year included Juan Alonso, Binghamton, NY; Torsten Burns, New Haven, CT; Sarah Drury, New York; Phil Galanter, New York, NY; Lisa DiLillo, New York, NY; Jed Speare, Boston, MA. Greg Bowman, Director of the nationally syndicated cable series OffLine showcasing the new media work of independent artists, worked on Detour, a multimedia exploration of the psychology of detours. Tim Dallett, multi-disciplinary artist and past Program Officer at the Canada Council, and collaborator Graham Collins, performer and writer, both of Ottawa worked on an integration of audio and video for their live performance pieces. International artist Alex Hahn worked with five other theater artists on Theater of Memory, a mixed media theater work for the Theatre House Gessner Allee in Zurich, the Festspiele Overhausen and the Hebbel Theater in Berlin. Lyell Davis, Lecturer at Hunter College and member of the video collective Paper Tiger TV, worked on an experimental narrative aka Hollywood, concerned with the filmmaking industry.
Tapes produced at the Center were again included in exhibitions throughout the United States and Europe. Artists were represented in the 18th Annual Black Maria Film and Video Festival, Reel NY and the 11th Annual MIX Festival in New York. Tapes were shown at such venues as the Museum of Modern Art, the Whitney Museum, the New Museum of Contemporary Art and at museums and galleries in France, Germany, Canada and Amsterdam. Tapes are distributed by Electronic Arts Intermix, Filmmakers Coop, Drift Distribution, Facets, Women Make Movies and many others.
As a sponsoring organization for independent artists’ projects, the Center has recently administered awards to artists totaling $186,100. Completed projects have received worldwide exhibition and distribution. Slawomir Grunberg completed School Prayer: A Community Divided, a documentary illuminating the debate over prayer in the public schools. The project received support from the New York State Council on the Arts, the Soros Documentary Fund and the Independent Television Service. Alan Berliner received a major grant from the National Endowment for the Arts for work on The Language of Names. This project has received support from the National Endowment for the Arts, ITVS, ARTE-TV, and Channel 4. David Blair, a visual artist working in New York City whose feature-length film and Internet text project Wax has received world-wide exhibition and distribution, received support from the New York State Council on the Arts for The Telepathic Motion Picture of the Lost Tribe, a feature-length project with Internet, installation and videotape versions. The New York State Council on the Arts also supported Time Shifts: A Visual Narrative, a new work for computer graphics, text and video installation by collaborators Peer Bode, Joseph Scheer and Jessie Shefrin. Barbara Hammer was able to complete work on The Female Closet, with assistance from the New York State Council on the Arts and the Wexner Center; she received support in 1998 for Culture Doctor. Susan Muska and Greta Olafsdottir completed The Brandon Teena Story, a documentary which received two awards from the Astraea Foundation. Muska’s new work in collaboration with Greta Olafsdottir, Women and Genocide, has received support from the Mary and John McCarthy Foundation, the Rockefeller Foundation and the Joy Weiss Foundation.
Presentation Funds provided support to 49 organizations in 16 counties around the State. This year we supported programs at the American Museum of the Moving Image (Ernie Gehr); CEPA Gallery (Peggy Ahwesh, Ghen Dennis); Dance Films Association (Amy Greenfield, Dennis Diamond); Gallery 53 (Film Festival); New City Library (Cinema Down Under); NY Animation Festival; NY Expo of Short Films; Thread Waxing Space (Cecilia Dougherty, Luther Price) Videoteca del Sur (Patricio Gutzman, Julio Garcia Espinoza).
Since 1989, Finishing Funds has provided over $115,000 to 200 media artists from throughout the State to help with the completion costs of moving-image, new media and sound art projects. The work is very diverse and encompasses documentary and experimental film and video, animation, interactive digital and Web projects, works for CD ROM, and installations. This year’s recipients include Erika Beckman, Terry Cuddy, Rebecca Herman, Ken Kobland, Megan Michalak, Prema Murthy, John Roach and James Rouvelle, and Michael Smith.
The Media Arts Technical Assistance Fund responds to the needs of the media community in the State, helping to stabilize, strengthen or restructure media arts organizational capacity. This year we have supported conference participation at the 14th NAMAC conference, Media Generation: What Works to What’s Next by representative from Paper Tiger Television, Squeaky Wheel, Women Make Movies, Deep Dish TV, and Media Alliance. The Media Arts Fund also assisted with Access 2000, a Statewide meeting of representatives of media arts organizations, held at Downtown Community TV Center. The purpose of the meeting was to share information and strategies for addressing the demands of new media technology, and to strengthen networked partnerships among participants. We also supported conference participation at Video History: Making Connections organized by the Center and held at Syracuse University in conjunction with the Common Ground Conference of the NYS Alliance for Arts Education.
In keeping with our educational objectives, we hosted the 5th Annual International Student Residency, a week-long intensive residency for 25 graduate and undergraduate students representing Alfred University; University of Buffalo; Binghamton University; Atlanta College of Art; and Syracuse University. The workshop was co-taught by Pamela Susan Hawkins and Hank Rudolph.
For the past five years, the Center has been working on the Video History Project an on-going research initiative, which documents the early historical development of video art and community television, with particular focus on upstate New York during the period 1968-1980. The goals of the project will be realized in an interrelated set of activities combining research, the collection of oral histories, the creation of educational resource materials, a World Wide Web site, and Video History: Making Connections, a conference concerning the links between the early history and contemporary practice.
The project goals are to identify and make accessible information which describes and locates resources concerning independently created media; to facilitate partnerships for preservation of the works; to encourage the exhibition and study of these materials among curators, educators, and scholars; and to increase public awareness of and appreciation for media history throughout the State and nationally.
The website is crafted as both a research collection and dissemination vehicle. Main areas include a resources section, an area for contributions of images and personal recollections by visitors, and a search area. Topics addressed in the Resources area include: profiles of organizations, artists’ biographies and interviews, media tools, magnetic media preservation, bibliographies, distributors and collections, all with Internet links. The website is an on-going project depending on much volunteer effort.
The conference Video History: Making Connections was held October 16-18, 1998 at Syracuse University in conjunction with the Common Ground Conference, sponsored by the New York State Alliance for Arts Education. Bringing together media makers active in the 70s with artists working today in new media and interactive technologies, the conference celebrated our history and established new partnerships with cultural and educational institutions across the country. Over 250 individuals from around the country attended the conference, representing many of the major media institutions on the East Coast.
The Video History Project is under the direction of the Experimental Television Center. The website partner is the Institute for Electronic Arts at Alfred University. The conference partner was the New York State Alliance for Arts Education. The Project is under the direction of Sherry Miller Hocking of the Experimental Television Center, with assistance from independent preservation consultant Mona Jimenez. The project is made possible with support from The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, the New York Foundation for the Arts Technology Planning Grant Program, with public funds from the Statewide Challenge Grant Program and the New York State Council on the Arts, and from the Everson Museum of Art and the Media Action Grant Program of Media Alliance, with corporate support from Dave Jones Design and VidiPax as well as individual contributors.
1999-2000
Residency Program
Matt Biedermann (San Francisco, CA), Peer Bode (Hornell, NY), Yael Braha (San Francisco, CA), Greg Bowman (Troy, NY), Torsten Burns (New Haven, CT), Lynn Cazabon (Philadelphia, PA), Graham Collins (Ottawa, Canada), Tim Dallett (Ottawa, Canada), Lisa DiLillo (New York, NY), Robert Doyle (Palmyra, NY), Sarah Drury (New York, NY), Brendan Earley (Ireland), Raymond Ghirardo (Ithaca, NY), Nancy Golden (Jersey City, NJ), Jackie Goss (Boston, MA), Alex Hahn (Zurich, Switzerland), Susan Hamovich (Brooklyn, NY), Genevieve De Monvel Hayes (New York, NY), Pamela Susan Hawkins (Hornell, NY), Janene Higgins (New York, NY), Sara Hornbacher (Atlanta, GA), Jody LaFond (Buffalo, NY), Kaelo La Belle (Luzern, Switzerland), Kristin Lucas (Brooklyn, NY), Mary Magsamen (Brooklyn, NY), Dena Mermelstein (Brooklyn, NY), Cara O’Connor (New York, NY), Bob Paris (New York, NY), Megan Roberts (Ithaca, NY), Lynne Pidel (New York, NY), Ron Rocco (New York, NY), Mary Ross (Binghamton, NY), Lynne Sachs (Baltimore, MD), E Jessie Shefrin (Alfred Station, NY), Alan Sondheim (New York, NY) Jed Speare (Boston, MA), Jim Supanick (Brooklyn, NY), Diane Teramana (Cincinnati, OH), Liselot van der Heijden (New York, NY), Julius Vitali (Flicksville, PA), Walter Wright (Boston, MA), Jud Yalkut (Dayton, OH).
With support from a Technology Grant from the New York State Council on the Arts, the system to include a G4 Mac with nonlinear editing and other image processing software.
Exhibitions
Artists’ works have been recently included in the 18th Annual Black Maria Film and Video Festival, Reel NY and the 11th Annual MIX Festival in New York. Tapes were shown at such venues as the Museum of Modern Art, the Whitney Museum Biennial, the New Museum of Contemporary Art and at museums and galleries throughout Europe. Tapes are distributed by Electronic Arts Intermix, Filmmakers Coop, Drift Distribution, Facets, Women Make Movies and many others. Artists working at the Center this year have received awards and recognition from the Ohio Arts Council, the New York Foundation for the Arts, the New York State Council on the Arts, Canada Council and won numerous awards and citations in festivals around the world.
Motion, a two month long exhibition curated by John Knecht for the Munson Williams Proctor Institute in Utica, included a tape exhibition honoring the artists who have worked at the Center over the past 25 years. The Center also organized a panel, The Video/Cyber Connection: Technologies in the Arts, exploring the common grounds between the historical evolution of video art and the emerging Web works.
Education and Research
In keeping with our educational objectives, we will host the 6th Annual International Student Residency, a two week intensive residency for 25 graduate and undergraduate students representing Alfred University; University of Buffalo; Binghamton University; Atlanta College of Art; Syracuse University; Temple University. The workshop is co-taught by Pamela Susan Hawkins and Hank Rudolph, and is offered for university credit.
The Video History Project received assistance from the New York Foundation for the Arts to assist with the planning for revisions to the website. The site was launched Summer 2000
Sponsored Artists Projects
Slawomir Grunberg received support for initial work on the film Through the Eyes of Albert Maysels. Alan Berliner received a major grant from the National Endowment for the Arts for work on The Language of Names. This project has received support from the National Endowment for the Arts, ITVS, ARTE-TV, and Channel 4. Alan also received support for a new work Elegy. The Righteous Persons Foundation awarded Alan a major grant for his films in 1999. Susan Muska completed The Brandon Teena Story, a documentary which received two awards from the Astraea Foundation. Muska’s new work in collaboration with Greta Olafsdottir, Women and Genocide, has received support from the Mary and John McCarthy Foundation, the Rockefeller Foundation and Rosie O’Donnell. Irit Batsry received support for Neither There Nor Here, which was produced in association with the Academy of Media Arts, Cologne, La Sept/ARTE, the French Ministry of Culture, the Central St. Martins College of Art and Design, Grand Canal and The Lux Center.
Finishing Funds
Zoe Beloff (Shadow Land or Light from the Other Side); Richard Bloes (Night Space); Lawrence Brose (Crossing); Anita Cheng (Daily Dance); David Crawford (International Velvet); Brian Frye (Wormwood’s Dog and Monkey Show); Neil Goldberg (Random Walk); Shalom Gorewitz (IVRI); Barbara Hammer (Culture Doctor); Janene Higgins and Zeena Parkins (Arch); Amy Jenkins (Shelter for Daydreaming); Jodi Kaplan (Onto); Jody Lafond (Sigh...); Jeanne Liotta (Placid unto Vermont); Michelle Lippitt (Ausencia); Rik Little (Home Invasions); Dena Mermelstein (Lucy 1974); Ken Montgomery (One Less Sense); Diane Nerwen (Blindspot); Megan Roberts and Raymond Ghirardo (Cone Field); Jason Rosette (Book Wars); Caspar Stracke (Threads); Maria Venuto (She Sleeps with the Fishes); Jennifer Whitburn (Esperanza). Panelists: Mara Alper, Ithaca, NY; Robert Attanasio, New York, NY.
Media Arts Technical Assistance Fund
Support for attendance at professionalevents, including National Association of Media Arts and Culture and the Association of Moving Image Archivists conferences. Organizational support was awarded to the New York Expo, Felix, Columbia County Council on the Arts, Thundergulch, Film/Video Arts, Paper Tiger, Association of Hispanic Arts, IMAP, Media Alliance and the Williamsburg Brooklyn Film Festival.
Presentation Funds
Supported in-person presentations by film, video and new media artists sponsored by 50 organizations representing 18 counties throughout New York State. Sponsors provided almost $250,000 in additional funding. Organizations included Cornell Cinema, Educational Video Center, Firefly Cinema, Foundation for Hellenic Culture, Hallwalls, Millennium Film Workshop, New Radio and Performing Arts, Saratoga Springs Public Library, and Squeaky Wheel.
2001-2002
The Residency Program offers self-directed creative time to mediamakers from throughout the country. Since 1971 we have assisted over 1100 artists in the creation of works using new electronic video, audio and computer technologies. Each year from among 80 applicants, about 45 artists are invited to work in the studio, in a retreat-like workshop environment, which offers access to an image processing system, intensive individualized instruction and time for exploration and personal creative growth. This year’s 50 artists represent 11 states, Canada and Switzerland. Over one-third are artists from outside New York State.
Residents in 2001-02 included Mara Alper (Ithaca, NY), Stephan Apicella-Hitchcock (NY, NY), Benton Bainbridge (NY, NY), Irit Batsry (NY, NY), Kjell Bjorgeengen (Stabekk, Norway), Peer Bode (Alfred, NY), Anney Bonney (NY, NY), Yael Braha (San Francisco, CA), Torsten Burns (Brooklyn, NY), Graham Collins (Ottawa, Ontario), Tim Dallett (Sackville, New Brunswick), Ghen Zando Dennis (Brooklyn, NY), Hayley Downs (Brooklyn, NY), Nicholas Economos (Alfred Station, NY), Unn Fahlstrom (Oslo, Norway), Nancy Golden (Jersey City, NJ), Pamela Hawkins (Rochester, NY), Janene Higgins (NY, NY), Sara Hornbacher (Atlanta, GA), Jody Lafond (Buffalo, NY), Kristin Lucas (Brooklyn, NY), Darrin Martin (Alfred Station, NY), Rohesia Metcalfe (NY, NY), Bianca Bob Miller (NY, NY), Aaron Miller (Alfred, NY), Chris Musgrave (San Francisco, CA), Tarja Nieminen (Lahti, Finland), Lara Odell (Buffalo, NY), Shawn Onsgard (Binghamton, NY), Blithe Riley (Chicago, IL), Ron Rocco (Brooklyn, NY), Frank Shifreen (NY, NY), Jed Speare (Ayer, MA), Jim Supanick (Brooklyn, NY), Diane Teramana (Kingston, NY), Julius Vitali (Allentown, PA), Reynold Weidenaar (NY, NY), Charles Woodman (Cincinnati, OH), Ann Sargent Wooster (New York, NY), Jud Yalkut (Dayton, OH), Robert York (Clifton Park, NY), Neil Zusman (Newfield, NY)
Tapes produced at the Center were again included in exhibitions throughout the United States and Europe. Artists have been recently included in festivals including Media Art Friesland (Netherlands); Mediaterra (Greece and traveling); Not Still Art Festival (NYC); Three Rivers Film Festival (Pittsburgh); The Culture Project; Darklight Digital Film Festival (Dublin); Digging the Channel/Mediating the Channel, an international cultural exchange exhibition (Croatia). Tapes were shown at such venues as C.U.A.N.D.O., “From The Ashes: Artist Reflections on the Recent Tragedy”, a benefit for WTC victims, and featuring the work of over 100 artists; Teachers & Writers Collaborative (NYC); Visual Studies Workshop (Rochester); MIX at Anthology Film Archive (NYC); “Band of Outsiders” @On Line and on the Web; Gale Gates (Brooklyn); Julia Friedman Gallery (Chicago, IL); Miami University Art Museum (Oxford, Ohio); Gallery at 111 (NJ); Art in General's “4th Annual Video Marathon” (NYC); “Arts and Letters: A Series of Gallery Talks by Working Artists” sponsored by the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council; Art in General (NY); MOMA: Video Viewpoints; Centre Pompidou in Paris and on the web; DIGITAL H@PPY HOUR @ The Kitchen– “Electronic Arts Intermix in 2002: 30+ Years of Media Art”.
Tapes are distributed by Electronic Arts Intermix, Filmmakers Coop, Drift Distribution, Facets, Women Make Movies and many others. Artists working at the Center this year have received awards and recognition from the Ohio Arts Council, the New York State Council on the Arts, Canada Council and won numerous awards and citations in festivals around the world.
In keeping with our educational objectives, we hosted the 7th Annual International Student Residency, a 10 day intensive residency available for academic credit to 18 graduate and undergraduate students. The workshop is co-taught by Pamela Susan Hawkins and Hank Rudolph. We also presented workshops for the Department of Art and Art History University of Rochester and the Department of Art and Design, Alfred University. We were invited to participate as a panelist in “Media Preservation” a four-week on-line salon organized by NAMAC. We were invited to contribute several articles for “The Squealer”, a publication of Squeaky Wheel, concerning media preservation.
The Center serves as a sponsoring organization for artists’ projects in the electronic and film arts, providing support services, assistance with development and fiscal and administrative management services. We sponsor about 20 projects each year. Completed projects have received worldwide exhibition and distribution. In the last 5 years, with requests totaling over one million dollars, artists have received over $300,000. Completed projects have received worldwide exhibition and distribution, and have been supported by the National Endowment for the Arts, the NYS Council on the Arts, the Rockefeller Foundation, ITVS, Astraea Foundation, Soros Documentary Fund, Chase Manhattan and many others.
Recent participants include Irit Batsry, winner of the prestigious Bucksbaum Award for Neither There Nor Here, with a world premiere at the International Film Festival, Rotterdam and inclusion in the Whitney Biennial 2002; Alan Berliner for The Sweetest Sound, featured on POV; David Blair for The Telepathic Motion Picture of the Lost Tribe; Slawomir Grunberg for the Emmy-award winning documentary School Prayer: A Community Divided; Barbara Hammer for Culture Doctor, The Female Closet, and her new work Resisting Paradise; Ken Jacobs for NY Ghetto Fishmarket, 1903; Kristin Lucas for The Electric Donut; Susan Muska for The Brandon Teena Story; Susan Muska and Greta Olafsdottir for Women and Genocide; Joseph Scheer for Night Flyers; Peer Bode, Joseph Scheer and Jessie Shefrin for Time Shifts: A Visual Narrative.
For the present year the following artists have received awards. This year’s projects were supported by the New York State Council on the Arts, Creative Capital, New York Foundation for the Arts, The Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard University, the Jerome Foundation, and National Geographic.
Barbara Hammer for Resisting Paradise, a 16mm film documentary contrasting the lives of three women French Resistance Fighters from a small fishing village in Provence, with the lives of the famous painters Matisse, Bonnard, Derain who were also working during the last two years of the Vichy occupation. The work asks questions about art during political crises.
Jeffrey Lerer for Manuscript Fragments Found at the Gilbert Hotel, a 3D computer animated surreal black comedy taking place at a single room occupancy hotel circa 1959, premieringon on Reel TV.
Ken Jacobs for N.Y. Ghetto Fishmarket1903, The original one minute pan is expanded to 80 minutes during which time unique visual phenomena is generated by Jacob’s Nervous System projection technique.
Kristin Lucas for Supervision, an experimental video and installation which constructs her personal visions of the future. Visions of future as presented through mass media and adopted by the populous have shaped perceptions of reality, inspired hope and optimism about the future, and fueled the capitalist drive to conquer the unknown regardless of the consequences of our actions.
Joseph Scheer for Night Flyers Night Flyers is a new technology installation that will be comprised of video projection from DVDs, triggered sound pieces and high resolution, large format digital prints. The work explores the inherent basis of the human need for nature, called biophilia by EO Wilson.
Since 1989 the Film and Electronic Arts Grants Program, has awarded over $750,000 to individual artists and arts organizations in the State.
Presentation Funds provides support to New York State organizations for in-person appearances by film and media artists. The program brings innovative cinema programming, including independent film and media art created with new technologies, as well as audio installation works to new audiences and to underserved communities in all regions of the State. In addition, the program assists organizations which serve special constituencies and encourages the development of new presentation venues throughout the State.
In 2001-2002 Presentation Funds supported in-person appearances before 17,300 people in 13 counties throughout the State. The 41 sponsoring organizations contributed over $450,000 toward these media projects, and included Art in General, Art Mission, Azure Mountain Friends, Bard College, Barnstormers, Chashama, Chatham Film Club, Cooper Union, Cornell Cinema, Dance Films Association, Downtown Community TV, Film-Makers' Cooperative, Film/Video Arts, Franklin Furnace, Hallwalls, Ithaca College , Loisaida Arts, Millennium Film Workshop, N. Westchester Center for the Arts, Not Still Art, NY Expo, NY Foundation for the Arts, NYS Summer School for the Arts, Ocularis at Galapagos Art Space, Perimeter Media + Culture Projects , Projectile Arts, Riverside Church, Rockland Center for the Arts, Rotunda Gallery, Roulette, Saratoga Springs Public Library, Sephardic House, Squeaky Wheel, Standby Program, The Kitchen, The Media Foundation, Theater for the New City, Third World Newsreel, Thundergulch, Video Lounge, Visual Studies Workshop, Youth Media Arts Program
Now in its 13th year, Finishing Funds program has provided over $165,000 in support of New York State artists, to assist with the completion of diverse and innovative moving image and sonic works.
Finishing Funds 2002 supported 16 electronic media and film projects by artists from all regions of the State. This year=s awards recognize work which is very diverse, encompassing web projects, performances, site-specific installations and interactive works, and includes experimental documentary and narrative, stereoscopic projections, hand-processed films and sonic arts presented on the Internet, CD, DVD and LP. The works addresses such issues as September 11th, magic lantern shows of the late 18th century, robotics, communications technology, the 19th century cultural forces that contributed to the rapid transformation of the Western US and the railroads, and global activists who deliver a lecture to a group of high-powered lawyers, who believe they are listening to the World Trade Organization.The works have received additional support from the Smackmellon Residency Program, the New York State Council on the Arts, New York Foundation for the Arts, Jerome Foundation, the Harvestworks Van Lier Grant program, the Boston Museum of Fine Arts, Tufts University, Creative Capital Foundation, as well as corporations and individuals. Exhibitions are planned for the Whitney Museum, the Basel Art Fair, New York Digital Salon, Maxis Sound and Experimental Music Festival (UK), the International Computer Music Conference, and the Flaherty Seminar. Artists include Leesa and Nicole Abahuni , Zoe Beloff, Torsten Burns, Abigail Child and Benton Bainbridge, Norman Cowie, Raul Vincent Enriquez, Stacey Lancaster, Julia Loktev, Craig Renaud, Kathleen Ruiz, Taketo Shimada, Scott Smallwood, Mark Street, Mary Ellen Strom, Ray Sweeten and the Yes Men. This year=s peer review panel was composed of independent media artists and educators Ariana Gerstein and Kathy High.
The Media Arts Technical Assistance Fund is designed to help non-profit media arts programs in New York State stabilize, strengthen or restructure their media arts organizational capacity, services and activities.
This year we provided about $50,000 in support of 18 organizations which included the Adirondack Lakes Center for the Arts, Arts Engine, Children's Media Project, Cinema Arts Center, Dumbo Arts Center, Electronic Arts Intermix, Experimental Television Center Ltd., Fales Library, Global Action Project, Havana Film Festival, Independent Media Arts Preservation, International Film Seminars, Media Alliance, Millennium Film Workshop, National Museum of the American Indian, Squeaky Wheel, Working Waterfront Association and fieldwide assistance projects. In addition, support was given to representatives from many media organizations to help staff attend professional events including the Lake Placid Film Forum, the Media Arts Literacy Institute sponsored by NAMAC, Looking Back/Looking Forward a symposium on moving image preservation, Info Fair sponsored by Media Alliance, Digital Flaherty, the 2001 Association of Moving Image Archivists Annual Conference, and the 48th Flaherty Film Seminar. Approximately 65% of applicants received support.
The Center is committed to the early history of media art and its preservation. Housed at the Center is a collection of over 1000 videotapes which chronicle work produced here over the last 30 years. We are a founding member of Independent Media Arts Preservation. We are past participants of the Regional Cataloging Initiative and the National Moving Image Database project of the American Film Institute, and will participate in the Pilot Union Catalog project in NYS.
Begun in 1994, the Video History Project is an online research initiative which reflects the complex evolution of the media arts field, and encourages a collective voice in the crafting of our histories.
The goals of the Video History Project are to provide a dynamic vehicle for the creation and dissemination of an inclusive media history, crafted by those who are shaping it; to help establish bridges for intellectual access to information regarding the history of the field and current information about the preservation of its artifacts; to position independent media arts activities within a broader cultural context by cultivating research and public programming of these materials by those in the arts, humanities and sciences; and to encourage alliances among collecting institutions and educational and curatorial programs for the preservation of critically endangered works, instruments and documents
Goals are realized in an interrelated set of activities combining research and scholarship, realized on the web and as collaborative projects supporting issues in electronic moving image preservation through the hosting of conferences and seminars.
The focus since 2000 has been on the continued enrichment of content on the Video History Web and the development and implementation of collaborative strategies for advancement of electronic moving image preservation resources and tools.
Launched in 2000, the Video History Website continues to serve as a both a research collection and dissemination medium. The site structure depends on 9 interrelated resource databases containing a total of about 3500 records. The resource areas concern People, Tools, Groups, Distribution and Preservation. The Bibliography resource area contains over 1000 entries. In the Chronology area you can generate a timeline of events in media arts history, or view the events within a defined range. The site is fully searchable, and results are reported topically, organized by resource area. The search function allows visitors to search all of the records, encouraging the visitor to discover broad interconnections among people, places and events. Each resource area contains historically significant texts, descriptive information and extensive links.
Visitors are encouraged to contributed information to the chronology and bibliography areas, and also to those areas which provide access to historically significant texts concerning the evolution of media art and community television. We also target resources, gaining permission before materials are electronically published. Information is uploaded to the site on a regular basis.
The Preservation resource area of the site includes two commissioned papers. Video Preservation: The Basics by Sherry Miller Hocking and Mona Jimenez, was originally written in 200, with assistance from a Media Action Grant from Media Alliance. Sherry Miller Hocking engaged in a significant revision of the text in 2002. Reel to Real: A Case Study of BAVC’s Remastering Facility (2002) was written by Luke Hones, and edited by Sherry Miller Hocking and Mona Jimenez. The Preservation resource area also contains a selection of historically important texts concerning early efforts at media preservation. The working papers from Looking Back/Looking Forward, a symposium on electronic moving image preservation which we organized in 2002, will be posted in this resource area in the Winter 2003.
On May 31st and June 1st the Center invited over 60 media arts professionals, conservators, technical experts, and artists to gather at the historic firehouse home of Downtown Community TV Center in New York for Looking Back/Looking Forward, a working symposium on moving image preservation. The symposium was organized by the Experimental Television Center, in association with Independent Media Arts Preservation (IMAP) and Bay Area Video Coalition. Focused on the physical preservation of independent electronic media works and related issues concerning tools and ephemera, Looking Back/Looking Forward facilitated an honest and sometimes disturbing evaluation of our progress as a field and informed discussion about necessary and realistic initiatives and partnerships.
Participants at the symposium included representatives of Art and Science Laboratory (Santa Fe), Artists Television Access (San Francisco), Bay Area Video Coalition (San Francisco), Electronic Music Foundation, Electronic Arts Intermix, Experimental Television Center, George Eastman House, Guggenheim Museum, IMAP, la foundation Daniel Langlois (Montreal), La Guardia Community College, MercerMedia, Museum of Modern Art, National Museum of the American Indian, New York University Preservation and Cinema Studies Departments, New York State Council on the Arts, Smithsonian Institution Archives (Washington), Standby Program, Tate Gallery (London), The Kitchen, V Tape (Toronto), Video Data Bank (Chicago) and WNET.
Transcripts of the proceedings will be posted on the Experimental Television Center’s Video History site www.experimentaltvcenter.org/history later in the Fall. Looking Back/Looking Forward was also documented by Bay Area Video Coalition. With funding from the National Endowment for the Arts, BAVC is producing a DVD on videotape preservation. The DVD will include footage of presentations made at Looking Back/Looking Forward as well as other recent symposia organized by IMAP and ArtTable. The DVD will feature interviews with leading conservators, curators, media technicians and artists on issues ranging from the latest techniques to ethical issues and viewer experiences. The DVD, to be released in late 2002, will be distributed to museums, libraries, history archives, media arts organizations and colleges throughout the country.
The Video History Project is under the direction of Sherry Miller Hocking of the Experimental Television Center; independent preservation consultant Mona Jimenez served as major contributor for conference and web planning and for the symposium. David Jones Design implemented the web design, and David serves as webmaster.
The Center's programs are supported by the Electronic Media and Film Program at the New York State Council on the Arts, the Media Arts Program of the National Endowment for the Arts, The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, the New York Foundation for the Arts, the Media Action Grant Program of Media Alliance, by corporate support from Dave Jones Design and Black Hammer Productions and by the contributions of many individual artists.
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https://web.archive.org/web/20110719162251/http://www.experimentaltvcent...