TOURING EAI VIDEO PROGRAM VITAL SIGNALS Japanese + American Video Art from the 1960s and 70s July 2009 - November 2010 The introduction of the first consumer-grade video recorder, the Sony "Portapak," in the mid-1960s contributed to a fertile period of creative exploration, as artists and activists engaged with the new video technology. Video by artists based in the U.S. and Europe in the 1960s and '70s, including Nam June Paik, Joan Jonas and Bruce Nauman, is well known internationally. Until now, however, the parallel activities of artists working in Japan, the birthplace of the camcorder and other video technologies, have been screened only rarely. Using a familiar tool kit, these artists explored the nascent medium in unique and innovative ways. Vital Signals, a program of early video art from the U.S. and Japan, highlights the parallel developments in these countries during the 1960s and '70s. Organized by EAI, in collaboration with the Yokohama Museum of Art and a team of Japanese curators and scholars, the three-part screening program brings together rarely screened early Japanese video alongside seminal works from the EAI Collection. Vital Signals is currently touring the U.S. and Japan. On November 14, 2009, the program will be presented at the Japan Society in New York, which will feature a special discussion moderated by Barbara London, Curator of Video and Digital Media, Museum of Modern Art, with artist Takahiko Iimura and an American artist (TBD), both of whom are featured in the screening program. An accompanying catalogue and DVD compilation of the Japanese works from this series will be published by EAI at the end of the year. ___________________________________ Screening schedule Japan Hiroshima Hiroshima Museum of Contemporary Art - July 18, 19, 20, 2009 1-1 Hijiyama Koen, Minami-Ku, Hiroshima, 732-0815 Yamagata Tohoku University of Art and Design - November 11, 18, 25, 2009 200 Kamisakurada, Yamagata, 990-9530 Yokohama Yokohama Museum - November 21, 22, 23, 2009 Minato mirai 3-4-1, Yokohama-shi, Kanagawa prefecture, 220-0012 Aichi Aichi Arts Center - December 2, 3, 4, 2009 1-13-2 Higashisakura, Higashi-ku Nagoya-shi, Aichi 462-8525 Tokyo Waseda University - January 14, 15, 2010 1-104 Totsukamachi, Shinjuku-ku, Tokyo, 169-8050 Nihon University - January 22, 2010 Asahigaoka, Nerima-ku, Tokyo, 176-8525 Tokyo National University of Fine Arts and Music, Photography Center - May 6, 8, 9 12-8 Ueno Koen, Daito-ku, Tokyo, Japan 110-8714 May 6, 6:30 pm: Lecture, discussion and catalogue launch with with artist Takahiko Iimura and Yukie Kamiya, Chief Curator, Hiroshima MoCA. May 8-9 (time TBA) - Screenings Sapporo Hokkaido Museum of Modern Art - February 5, 6, 7, 2010 Kita 1, Nishi 17, Chuo-ku, Sapporo, 060-0001 Kyoto Ritsumeikan University - March 26, 27, 28, 2010 Kinugasa Campus 56-1, Toji-in Kitamachi, Kita-ku, Kyoto 603-8577 USA Houston Aurora Picture Show - September 17, 2009 1524 Sul Ross, Houston, TX 77006 Los Angeles LACMA - October 6, 13, 20, 2009 5905 Wilshire Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90036 2010 Society for Cinema & Media Studies Conference - March 20, 2010 The Westin Bonaventure Hotel and Suites 404 South Figueroa Street, Los Angeles, CA 90071 Q & A with Professor Hirofumi Sakamoto following the screening. New York Japan Society - November 14, 2009 333 East 47th Street, New York, NY 10017 Millenium Film Workshop - December, 2009 66 East 4th Street, New York, NY 10003 Boston Museum of Fine Arts, Boston - February 5, 6, 20, 2010 Avenue of the Arts 465 Huntington Avenue, Boston, MA 02115 Pennsylvania Berks Filmmakers Inc. - March 23, 2010 Albright College Center for the Arts J. Warren Klein Memorial Lecture Hall, 13th & Exeter St., Reading, PA 19604 Artist Taka Iimura will be present. UK London University of London - One-day exhibition on March 4, 2010 Wimbledon College of Art, Merton Hall Road, London SW19 3QA South Korea Seoul Platform Seoul Festival - November 5 -21, 2010 ___________________________________ The Language of Technology (88:30 min) In both Japan and the U.S., the earliest examples of video art exploited the technical possibilities unique to the new medium, such as image manipulation and instantaneous playback. This program shows the diversity of works produced, ranging from the minimalist algorithmic animations of Japanese collective Computer Technique Group (CTG) and Nam June Paik's Digital Experiment at Bell Labs, to the intricate layering of images in Ando Kohei's Oh My Mother. Nam June Paik Digital Experiment at Bell Labs, 1966, 4:40 min CTG Computer Movie No.2, 1969, 8 min Gary Hill Electronic Linguistics, 1977, 3:40 min Toshio Matsumoto Metastasis, 1971, 8 min Katsuhiro Yamaguchi Image Modulator (Document of the installation), 1969(Revised), 0:45 min Ooi and Environs (Document of the installation), 1977, 1:30 min Toshio Matsumoto Mona Lisa, 1973, 3 min Keigo Yamamoto Breath No.3, 1977, 6 min James Byrne Both, 1974, 3:38 min Keigo Yamamoto Hand No.2, 1976, 7:50 min Takahiko Iimura Camera, Monitor, Frame, 1976, 17:15 min Kohei Ando Oh! My Mother, 1969, 13 min Morihiro Wada The Recognition Construction, 1975, 20 min (10 min excerpt) ___________________________________ Open Television (115:26 min) The accessibility of video, and the novelty of the new medium, stoked widespread interest among artists, activists, grassroots organizations and commercial industry alike. In Japan, the collective Video Hiroba used video to document and comment on current social and political events. In the U.S., collectives such as TVTV (Top Value Television) produced their own "guerilla television," a form of independent television production advocated by TVTV founder Michael Shamberg in his influential book Guerrilla Television (1971). These individuals and collectives saw video as a way to directly engage with culture, and with media that had previously been closed to them. Nam June Paik and Jud Yalkut Waiting for Commercials, 1966-72, 1992, 6:35 min Fujiko Nakaya Friends of Minamata Victims - Video Diary, 1971-72, 21 min Toshio Matsumoto Magnetic Scramble (Document of the Performance from the "Funeral Parade of Roses"), 1968, 0:30 min Chris Burden The TV Commercials 1973-1977, 1973-77/2000, 3:46 min TVTV Four More Years, 1972, 61:28 min (23:06 min excerpt) Saburo Muraoka, Tatsuo Kawaguchi and Keiji Uematsu Image of Image - Seeing, 1973, 12:30 min (11:20 min excerpt) Ko Nakajima My Life, 1976~92, 22 min (5 min excerpt) Allan Kaprow Hello, 1969, 4:45 min Fujiko Nakaya Old People's Wisdom, 1973, 10:30 min Shirley Clarke The Tee Pee Video Space Troupe: The First Years (Part 1), 1970-71, 4:50 min Video Earth Tokyo Under A Bridge, 1976, 13 min Video Information Center La Argentina, 1977, 70 min (5 min excerpt) ___________________________________ Body Acts (89:15 min) Performance documentation has been one of video's most significant contributions to art history. Beyond merely documenting and archiving performances, video technology was often used by artists as an extension of physical and emotional gestures. Video also served as a way for artists to challenge and extend traditional definitions of the art object. Cigar Lexicon by John Baldessari merges Baldessari's project of compiling a "dictionary of images" with his strategy of defining an object's quintessence through the continued repetition of an action. Comparatively, the process documented by Hakudo Kobayashi's Lapse Communication is the gradual breakdown of a rigid conceptual conceit, in this case a series of imitated gestures that degenerate into nonsensical movements. Joan Jonas Left Side Right Side, 1972, 8:50 min Takahiko Iimura Observer/Observed, 1975-76, 20min (8:45 min excerpt) James Byrne Translucent, 1974, 2:15 min Norio Imai Digest of Video Performance 1978-1983, 1978-83, 15:35 min William Wegman Selected Works Reel 1, 1970-72, 30:38 min (8 min excerpt) Katsuhiro Yamaguchi Eat (Document of the Performance), 1972, 1:30 min Ante Bozanich I Am the Light, 1976, 3:57 min Mako Idemitsu What a Woman Made, 1973, 10:50 min Paul McCarthy Black and White Tapes, 1970-75, 32:50 min (5 min excerpt) John Baldessari How We Do Art Now (Cigar Lexicon), 1973, 12:54 min (6 min excerpt) Hakudo Kobayashi Lapse Communication, 1972 (Revised 1980), 16 min Nobuhiro Kawanaka Kick the World, 1974, 15 min Vito Acconci Flour/ Breath Piece, 1970, 3 min ___________________________________ 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's core program is the distribution and preservation of a major collection of over 3,500 new and historical media works by artists. EAI fosters the creation, exhibition, distribution and preservation of video art and digital art. EAI's activities include a preservation program, 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 (212) 337-0680 tel (212) 337-0679 fax info@eai.org ___________________________________ Vital Signals has been organized and produced by Ann Adachi of EAI. The video programs were curated by Ann Adachi and Yukie Kamiya, Chief Curator, Hiroshima City Museum of Contemporary Art, Hiroshima, Japan, and Hirofumi Sakamoto, Professor, Wakkanai Hokusei Gakuen University, Hokkaido, Japan. The Japanese screenings and lectures were organized by Shintaro Matsunaga, Curator, Yokohama Museum, Yokohama, Japan, with the assistance of Akihito Nakanishi, Cultural Affairs Assistant, U.S. Embassy, Tokyo. This program is supported, in part, by the U.S. Embassy, Tokyo and the Japan-US Friendship Commission. |