Category: Announcements

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Every so often, you’ll see a portrait-of-the-artist documentary that’s so beautifully made, about a figure of such unique fascination, whose art is so perfectly showcased by the documentary format, that when it’s over you can’t believe the film hadn’t existed until now.

Critic’s Pick @ Variety

Experimental Television Center contributed research and archival material to the production.

Now streaming on Amazon Prime and Apple TV.

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https://www.pbs.org/wnet/americanmasters/nam-june-paik-moon-is-the-oldest-tv-about-the-documentary/

From: Sherry Hocking

ETC has some exciting news about our future. Ralph and I have stepped back, and ETC is moving to Atlanta, Georgia under the direction of Erik Gavriluk.

Ralph and Erik have been working together since 2019, discussing our past programs, the research into early video history, and the historic analog instruments which were used by artists in the studio for over 40 years. They reimagined ways to incorporate and nurture those legacies, while enfolding new initiatives.

Erik is an excellent guide for ETC’s next stage. He brings experience in restoring and promoting electronic machines across research, commercial and philanthropic environments, plus innovative ideas and new people.

The ETC studio and hundreds of video and audio tools and systems are now in a large space in Atlanta suitable for residency and research projects. Restoration of historically important devices is underway. Ralph and I always wanted these old machines to live on, and we look forward to this reinvention.

From: Erik Gavriluk

It’s the 50th Anniversary of the Experimental Television Center so today is all about Ralph, Sherry, and the amazing artists who contributed memoirs.

But I will confirm that all the pillars of ETC are coming back: the residency program, finishing funds, and hardware development. Plus new programs around attribution, rights recovery, and distribution.

Please join our mailing list to stay up to date with announcements.

Led by Media Burn in partnership with the University of Chicago, a massive preservation effort to digitize early video tapes is underway.

The effort draws from the collections of six influential media arts organizations: Media Burn, Community TV Network, Kartemquin, Appalshop, NOVAC and Experimental Television Center.

The three-year project will digitize 1,015 videotapes produced from 1967-1979 with the collections of six institutions from across the United States. They represent the “Guerrilla Television” movement, a period when artists, activists, and community organizers utilized the new technology of portable video to create experimental works outside the restricted structures of broadcast television.

https://www.clir.org/hiddencollections/funded-projects/

For more information:

• The hidden history of ‘guerrilla television’: UChicago scholars preserve decades-old videos (uchicago.edu)
• Announcement at Media Burn (mediaburn.org)
• Subject to Change: Guerrila Television Revisited (Deirdre Boyle, 1985) [pdf]

About CLIR

The Council on Library and Information Resources is an independent, nonprofit organization that forges strategies to enhance research, teaching, and learning environments in collaboration with libraries, cultural institutions, and communities of higher learning.

CLIR promotes forward-looking collaborative solutions that transcend disciplinary, institutional, professional, and geographic boundaries in support of the public good.

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.

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

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.