ETC History 2001 - 2002

 

 History 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 Fall 2002.

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. 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 2003, 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.