Please join EAI for Participation, a special three-hour video program that will be screened continuously from noon-6pm on Friday, May 10th and Saturday, May 11th. Featuring works by Steina and Woody Vasulka, Ant Farm, Charlotte Moorman and Jud Yalkut, Carolee Schneemann, and Jean Dupuy, Participation looks to a period during the late 1960s and early 1970s that saw a profusion of artist-initiated projects, collaborative experimentation, and an inclusive, improvisational ethos. The screening features rare footage of performances and happenings, pioneering video documents, and experimental participatory works, capturing a community of young artists responding to the countercultural sensibility and social transformations of that era. Using newly available portable video technology as well as 16mm film, these artists created extraordinary documents that allow viewers in 2013 to experience something of the multi-disciplinary, interactive and process-based spirit that defined the alternative artistic and cultural scenes of that time.

Friday, May 10
Saturday, May 11, 2013
noon - 6pm

Electronic Arts Intermix (EAI)
535 West 22nd Street, 5th floor
New York, NY 10011
www.eai.org

Admission free

Become an EAI Member and receive free admission to all EAI public programs:
www.eai.org/eai/membership.htm

Participation borrows its title from Steina and Woody Vasulka’s Participation (1969-1971, 62:30 min), a fascinating and rarely seen portrait of the wildly creative people and places that made up the New York downtown scene of the late ‘60s and early ‘70s. In this free-form time capsule of an era, the Vasulkas documented, among others, Don Cherry performing in Washington Square, Warhol Superstars on stage, and Jimi Hendrix in concert. Multimedia artist Jean Dupuy’s Soup & Tart (1974-75, 55:45 min), another remarkable, lively document, features over 30 downtown artists, musicians, and filmmakers in a marathon performance soiree organized by Dupuy at the Kitchen in 1974. The audience was first served a home-made dinner of soup, bread, apple tarts and wine, followed by a performance "menu" of two-minute pieces by artists including Philip Glass, Hannah Wilke, Gordon Matta-Clark, Charles Atlas, Joan Jonas, Richard Serra, and Yvonne Rainer. The 4th & 7th Annual Avant Garde Festivals of New York, organized by legendary performance artist/cellist Charlotte Moorman, are recorded in Jud Yalkut’s piece. The 4th Festival in 1966 was held outdoors in Central Park, and featured over 65 events with artists, musicians and performers, including Allan Kaprow, Dick Higgins, Al Hansen, Christo, Shigeko Kubota, Joseph Beuys, and Alison Knowles, among many others. The 7th Avant Garde Festival was presented in 1969 on two islands, Wards and Mill Rock, in the East River, where performances took place beneath one of Buckminster Fuller's famous geodesic domes.

Water Light/Water Needle (Lake Mah Wah, NJ) (1966, 11:13 min) presents an early and influential performance by Carolee Schneemann. In this visually lush film, eight performers appear outdoors in an aerial "Kinetic Theatre" in trees and across the surface of a lake. California-based media and architecture collective Ant Farm’s Inflatables Illustrated (1971-2003, 21:20 min) offers a visual primer on Ant Farm’s utopian, experimental inflatable-plastic architecture, combining DIY how-to-video instructions with film documentation of their monumental temporary structures in action. Objects such as "The 50x50 Foot Pillow," "Spare Tire Inflatable" and "Clean Air Pod" are examples of the group's notion of an architectural practice that was less about pneumatic structure than it was about interactivity and ephemerality.

For more information about the artists and works included in this screening, please visit: www.eai.org

Friends of EAI Membership 2013

Become a 2013 Friends of EAI Member at one of four different levels and enjoy a range of wonderful benefits, including complimentary tickets to EAI's on-site public programs and special access to the artists and works in the EAI collection. Membership helps to support our programs and services, including our online resources, educational outreach, and vital preservation activities. By becoming a Friend of EAI, you support the future of media art and artists. Memberships begin at $40 ($25 for students).

For more information, and to become a member, please visit:
https://www.eai.org/eai/members.htm.

About EAI

Founded in 1971, Electronic Arts Intermix (EAI) is one of the world's leading nonprofit resources for video art. A pioneering advocate for media art and artists, EAI fosters the creation, exhibition, distribution, and preservation of video art and digital art. EAI's core program is the distribution and preservation of a major collection of over 3,500 new and historical media works by artists. EAI's activities include viewing access, educational services, extensive online resources, and public programs such as artists' talks, exhibitions and panels. The Online Catalogue is a comprehensive resource on the artists and works in the EAI collection, and also features extensive materials on exhibiting, collecting and preserving media art: www.eai.org

Electronic Arts Intermix
535 West 22nd Street, 5th Floor
New York, NY 10011
t (212) 337-0680
f (212) 337-0679
info@eai.org

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This program is supported, in part, by public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs.