Historic works on view in
'Birth of American Video' series

By PATRICIA DONOVAN
News Services Editor

Over the course of the next four months, the UB Media Study Department, in collaboration with Hallwalls Contemporary Arts Center, will premiere the results of Hill's effort, a remarkable series titled "The Birth of American Video."

The 11-program series, which began Sept. 4 and runs through Dec. 4, features 70 re-mastered historic works that represent landmarks in the early history of American independent video. Each program is one to two hours in length and features from two to 18 short pieces.

Screenings will take place in the Screening Room (Room 112) of the Center for the Arts on the UB North Campus, except for Program 4 on Friday, Oct. 11, and Program 6 on Thursday, Oct. 24, which will be held at Hallwalls, Tri Main Building, 2495 Main Street, 4th floor (main entrance is at rear of building).

Programs screened at UB will be free of charge and open to the public. Admission to Hallwalls events is $4 for Hallwalls members, students and seniors and $5 for all others.

After its presentation here, the show will begin a national tour.

"The Birth of American Video" project represents the keystone in the effort to preserve significant work in the field of video art. Although produced within the last three decades, many important early videotapes are already at risk of loss or decay and this re-mastered tape collection has saved many significant works from being lost.

Hill, a UB alumnus and former visiting professor, is a Buffalo-based curator, photographer and video artist who was the curator of the pioneering video program at Hallwalls for many years. She has produced or co-produced 10 works of video art and her videographic work and photography have been exhibited in major venues here and abroad.

"In addition to preserving and restoring important early works," said Hill, "our goal here is to demonstrate how video art is related to the history of film and to the new digital image technology."

The series explores such issues as the relationship between performance and audience; mediated relationships; video documentation of issues in healing and health care; analysis of art and video as commodity and spectacle; a look at decentralized communications projects, narrative form, gendered imaging and video imaging tools, and video investigations of world-space, sound and light. It features early productions now recognized as landmarks in these and other areas.

Hill promises Buffalo audiences exciting rediscoveries of this radical artistic vein, including groundbreaking groups unrecognized today, such as the People's Video Theater, Portable Channel and the incredible "Queen Mother Moore."

Tapes in the series were produced by central artistic figures of our time: artists Vito Acconci and Bruce Nauman, director Richard Foreman, photographer William Wegman and video pioneer Nam June Paik.