Program online beginning July 7, 2016
Curated by Abina Manning and Eugenia Marketou
As part of our ongoing commitment to the presentation of groundbreaking moving image art, VDB TV presents this free online program of curated video works (1997–2012) that are concerned with media and mediation, technology and collaboration… and all things in between. This program was originally curated for Uncommon/Common, an incubator for skills and knowledge-sharing that responded to the themes of the commons and “commoning,” held at the 2014 College Art Association Conference.
“Since we realize that mediation is everywhere, and involves both the physical—sea, air, earth, humans—and new media or electronic forms, how have the endless streams of pixilated films and videos changed the way we experience our hypervisual world?”
–Eugenia Marketou
These artists’ videos appropriate material from social media platforms such as YouTube, cell phones, surveillance cameras, video games, and found footage to address the issues surrounding the politics and proliferation of what Hito Steyerl calls the “poor image.”
The program was curated by Video Data Bank Executive Director Abina Manning and Greek curator, activist and interdisciplinary artist Eugenia Marketou.
About VDB TV
VDB TV is a rotating series of groundbreaking programs presenting essential video art, streaming free for the first time to the general public on the Video Data Bank website. From early media pioneers, to sensational contemporary artists, VDB TV provides unprecedented access to the culturally significant VDB archive of over 6,000 video art titles. VDB TV is curated by prominent programmers and moving image art specialists from around the world. To advance accessibility to the VDB collection, all programs included within VDB TV are close captioned for the hearing impaired.
VDB TV is supported in part by a Media Arts award from the National Endowment for the Arts. To find out more about how NEA grants impact individuals and communities, visit www.arts.gov.
About Video Data Bank
Founded at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (SAIC) in 1976 at the inception of the media arts movement, the Video Data Bank (VDB) is a leading resource in the United States for video by and about contemporary artists. The VDB collection includes the work of more than 550 artists and 6,000 video art titles.
The VDB makes its collection available to museums, galleries, educational institutions, libraries, cultural institutions and other exhibitors through a national and international distribution service. VDB works to foster a deeper understanding of video art, and to broaden access and exposure to media art histories through its programs and activities. These include preservation of historically important works of video art, the perpetuation of analog and digital archives, publishing of curated programs and artists’ monographs, the commissioning of essays and texts that contextualize artists’ work, and an extensive range of public programs.
