ETC History 1997 - 1999

 

 History 1997-98

 

Artists who worked in the Residency Program represented seven states as well as Finland and Canada and included Mara Alper, Sara Hornbacher, Kristin Lucas, Jillian McDonald, Rohesia Metcalfe, Bianca Miller, Mary Ann Petit, Barbara Sternberg, Jed Speare, Kristin Tripp, Sue Wrbican and Neil Zusman. Peer Bode, Professor at Alfred University and Co-Director of the Institute for Electronic Arts, worked on a series of untitled pieces which explore distinct characteristics of the medium; his work was selected for inclusion this year at the Osnabruck Video Festival. Leah Gilliam, Professor of Electronic Media at Bard College, completed a new tape which re-defines the science fiction genre. Janet Grau's Everything I've Got Belongs to You explores the complex relationships between men and women as well as domestic abuse.
  Tapes were presented in the American Film Institute Video Festival, the 10th Annual MIX Festival, the Museum of Modern Art, the Museum of American Art in Philadelphia, the Institute of Contemporary Art in Boston and at museums and galleries in England, Germany, the Czech Republic, Austria and Mexico. This year we were invited to curate Landscape: Mediated Views for exhibition at Visual Studies Workshop, as well as a short program for circuits@nys, The Governor's Conference on Art and Technology, hosted by the New York State Council on the Arts. Tapes are distributed by Electronic Arts Intermix, Filmmakers Coop, Drift Distribution, Facets, Women Make Movies and many others.
The Center offers administrative and advisory services to artists seeking support for media projects. Slawomir Grunberg and Ben Crane 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. Barbara Hammer's The Female Closet, an experimental documentary, traces the closeted lesbian histories of three artists; the project received support from the New York State Council on the Arts, and the Wexner Center. The Brandon Teena Story, a documentary by Susan Muska, received two awards from the Astraea Foundation.
  Presentation Funds assisted 59 organizations representing 23 counties throughout the State, providing over 32,000 people the opportunity to view independently produced work. The organizations contributed well over $300,000 from other sources in support of these exhibitions. Organizations included the American Museum of the Moving Image, the Broome County Arts Council, the Boswell Museum, Downtown Community TV Center, the George Eastman House, the Museum of Modern Art, and the Saratoga Springs Public Library.
Finishing Funds 1998 awards went to 18 artists including Alan Berliner, Abigail Child, Les Leveque and Diane Nerwen and Ioannis Mookas. Serving as panelists were independent artist and educator Barbara Lattanzi of Buffalo and Vincent Grenier, filmmaker and Professor at Ithaca College.

We hosted the International Student Residency, a week-long intensive residency for 30 graduate and undergraduate students representing Alfred University; University of Buffalo; Binghamton University; Atlanta College of Art; National Art Academy, Oslo. The workshop was co-taught by Pamela Susan Hawkins and Hank Rudolph.

 

 History 1998-99

 

 

This year's 48 artists represent eight states as well as Canada and Switzerland. Artists this year included Juan Alonso, Torsten Burns, Terry Cuddy, Lisa DiLillo, Phil Galanter, Jolie Guy, David Knoebel, Darrin Martin, Megan Michalak, Cara O'Connor, Laura Parnes, Cindy Penter, and Liselot van der Heijden. 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. Alex Hahn worked with five other 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. Independent video producer and activist Jody LaFond worked on Looking for Tim (McVeigh), some serious musings on slow motion and extremist politics. Media performers Benton Bainbridge, Nancy Meli Walker, Brian Moran who collaborate as The Pooool worked on aspects of their live video performances.
  Tapes were exhibited at the 18th Annual Black Maria Festival, Reel NY and the 11th Annual MIX Festival, at 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.
The Center serves as a sponsoring organization for artists' projects in the electronic and film arts. 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 received support for Culture Doctor. Susan Muska and Greta Olafsdottir began a new work, Women and Genocide, which received support from the Mary and John McCarthy Foundation and the Rockefeller Foundation.
  This year Presentation Funds provided partial support to 49 organizations representing 16 counties throughout the State, providing over 15,000 people the opportunity to view independently produced work. The works were made available to over 2 million broadcast, cable and Web viewers. The organizations contributed over $250,000 from other sources in support of these exhibitions. This year the American Museum of the Moving Image, Hallwalls, The Goethe Institute, Cornell Cinema, Threadwaxing Space, The Kitchen and the Women Direct Film series at Ithaca College have all received support.
Finishing Funds supported 17 electronic media and film projects by artists includimg Erika Beckman, Prema Murthy and Michael Smith. 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. Panelists were Ghen Dennis, independent filmmaker and curator, Squeaky Wheel, Buffalo and Kristin Lucas, independent new media artist, performer and educator, New York City.
  The Media Arts Technical Assistance Fund supported conference participation at the 14th NAMAC conference, Media Generation: What Works to What's Next by representatives from Paper Tiger Television, Squeaky Wheel, Women Make Movies, Deep Dish TV, and Media Alliance. The Media Arts Fund also assisted with 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. MIX receipved support for the design of a planned giving campaign and membership program. Thundergulch received assistance for the design of the website, in collaboration with Parsons School of Design. The Fund also supported Access 2000, a statewide meeting of media arts centers sponsored by NYSCA at Downtown Community TV Center.
  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.
Since 1990, 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 involve 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 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 and independent preservation consultant Mona Jimenez, in collaboration with Amy Hufnagel of the New York Foundation for the Arts.
  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.