Kathy High is a media artist, curator, and teacher living and working in upstate New York and Brooklyn. Her videos and installations look at issues of gender and technology, pursue queer and feminist inquiries into areas of medicine/bio-science, and engage with science fiction and animal studies. Her video works have been shown in festivals, galleries and museums both nationally and abroad, including the Guggenheim Museum and Museum of Modern Art (NYC), as well as aired on PBS. Her installation, Embracing Animal <http://www.embracinganimal.com> was exhibited in“ Becoming Animal” at MASS MoCA, North Adams, 2005-06. High is Chair and Associate Professor of the Department of Arts at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, in Troy, NY, a department of integrated electronic arts practices <http://arts.rpi.edu>.
Abstract:
Portable Technologies, Contestational Media: NY State in 68
Talk and screening with Dara Greenwald and Kathy High
1968 was not only the year of the student uprisings in Paris and the
spread of revolution in many parts of the world, but was also the year
that Sony introduced relatively affordable portable video equipment
to the US market. Soon artists and media makers began including video
in
their practices and a vibrant media counter culture emerged. In New
York State specifically, many lasting collectives and media arts centers
formed.
Dara Greenwald has been researching, presenting, and working on preserving
work from media collectives of this time, specifically the NY based
Videofreex. Kathy High is working on exploring the utopian histories
of NY and relating
that to utopian impulses and practices in the media arts that sprung
up in the late 1960’s. We are proposing a session that will involve
both of our research as well as a screening of media from the time period.
The media arts multi-locational tendency (located in the art world, in
the street, in broadcast, community activism and in theaters) and its
fragile format contribute to its exclusion from histories of this time.
It’s valuable to look at how media technologies and practices from
the late 60’s and early 70’s contributed to the radical sense
of possibility of the time. It’s even more exciting to actually
view the visible evidence from this time.
Dara Greenwald's presentation will explore how the advent of portable
and relatively affordable video equipment in the late 60's spurred
a movement of video collectives (including People's Video Theater,
Peoples
Communication Network, Raindance, Global Village, Portable Channel,
and the Videofreex among others in the US alone). These collectives
were
interested in using video to transform social relations, intervene
in the corporate media landscape, explore the artistic possibilities
of
this new medium, and in the process of collective media production
itself. The Video Data Bank (where she used to work) acquired over
1,000 1/2" open
reel video tapes from the Videofreex, an early 1970's, NY based video
collective. She will look at the challenges faced today in preserving
these collectively produced works, challenges ranging from obsolete
or dissolving media formats to questions regarding the historical and
decision-making
legacies of collectives after they dissolve and she will connect this
to contemporary contestational media practices. The screening includes
a taped interview with Fred Hampton from the fall of 1968.
Kathy High's presentation will draw parallels between nineteenth century
New York State utopian communities, such as the Oneida Perfectionists,
who had a group marriage between 200 people, and the spiritualist community
Lily Dale Assembly, and the 1960’s genesis of government arts funding
agencies (for example, the New York State Council on the Arts), and various
media art collaborations – between artists and engineers to develop
video synthesizer and imaging tools (works by Ralph Hocking and Experimental
Television Center/Owego, Steina Vasulka, Center for Media Study/Buffalo).
High will screen some examples of these artists’ works that discuss
breaking video equipment in order to get new things out of it – a
possible metaphor for the atmosphere of the time.
Bio:
Dara Greenwald has participated in collaborative and collective cultural
production and activism for many years. Participation includes the Pink
Bloque, Ladyfest Midwest Chicago, Version>03, Pilot TV Chicago, and
other groupings that resist being named. She worked as the distribution
manager at the Video Data Bank from 1998-2005, where she distributed
independent media and experimental video art and worked on the preservation
of the Videofreex collection. She also writes, curates, and makes art.
Her videos have screened widely, including at Images Festival(Toronto),
New York Underground, Yerba Buena Center (SF), and Ocularis(NY). She
is currently studying Electronic Arts at RPI in Troy, NY. More detailed
CV at www.daragreenwald.com.KATHY HIGH is a media artist, curator, and
teacher living and working in upstate New York. She produces videos and
installations around issues of gender and technology, pursues queer and
feminist inquiries into various areas of medicine/bio-science, and is
engaged with science fiction, and studies animal behavior.
High is currently the Chair of the Department of Arts at Rensselaer Polytechnic
Institute, in Troy, NY, a department specializing in integrated electronic
arts practices <http://arts.rpi.edu>. She also continues to be
the editor of the critical journal, FELIX: A Journal of Media Arts and
Communication, encouraging dialogue among radical media makers since
1991 <http://www.e-felix.org>. FELIX's most recent issue is a bilingual
collaboration with Mexican and U.S. artists entitled RISK/RIESGO. Upcoming
issue is a collaboration with Sherry Miller Hocking and Mona Jimenez
entitled “TOOLS: Analogues and Intersections: Video and Media Arts
Histories.” And she is also co-editing a publication with Helen
de Michiel, “Hidden Histories” for the National Association
of Media Arts Centers.
