A Conversation: Institutions and Mythologies in Experimental Media

An undercurrent of the preparations for this Congress, when compared to the 1989 Experimental Film Congress, has been a sense of the degree by which aspects of experimental media have become institutionalized. They have been institutionalized through mythologizing; through economic support (both through public funding and commercial models); through academic research; and through preservation and historicization. Even the current resurgence of new collectives (either modeled after or replacing historical collectivization) is a support mechanism that fends off fading away (if not burn-out!). This conversation looks reflexively at the precarious tension, as well as the obvious benefits, created by solidifying ephemeral practices through structural supports.



Abstract:

Steve Anker: “Institutionalization of Experimental Film and Video in the U.S.”

The institutionalization of experimental film in the United States has been erratic and relatively minimal when compared with Canada and in many parts of Europe, where artists and exhibitors have a reasonable chance of a modicum of support for experimental media through government and sometimes private funding. There was a brief period in the U.S., roughly between the early seventies and early eighties, when funding was available through government and foundation grants for avant-garde or experimental film and video. During this time many media collectives, some focusing on production, some on exhibition, some on critical writing and a few on all of these, existed throughout the country. In addition, there was considerable interest in colleges and in art journals in experimental media during these years, and the powerful figures who had established themselves in the sixties and earlier were being taken seriously through their art and writings. Since the eighties when arts funding generally collapsed in the States, it has become imperative that the production and exhibition of all manner of experimental media, especially work by younger artists, be taken up by grass-roots groups or individuals who inevitably operate out of pocket but have the freedom of not having to answer to increasingly conservative producers and institutional sources of funding.

Ed Halter: For the panel I will discuss my experiences with two models for the exhibition of experimental cinema that I have worked on. First observations based on my time with the former New York Underground Film Festival, which I oversaw from roughly 1996 to 2006. Second, my thoughts on running Light Industry, a weekly venue for film and electronic art in Brooklyn, which I founded with Thomas Beard in 2008 and have been operating ever since. Topics I will address will include the awareness and importance of historical models for the generations that came of age after 1990, the convergence of film and video with new media and the art world, and the question of the future of the cinematic mode of exhibition.

Tom Sherman: “Cultural Engineering: 1982-2010”

Back in the early 1980s I was concerned with the social engineering aspects of arts grants for individuals and institutions. I coined the term “cultural engineering,” authoring a book and titling a retrospective of my work with this term. The premise was positive feedback (cash, access to equipment, recognition) from single or limited sources would influence and shape the behaviour of artists. Negative feedback, on the other hand, fosters little consistency except cynicism and despondency. In the forty years the Canada Council and provincial arts councils have been supporting media artists and media/visual arts organizations through grants, these grants have undoubtedly altered the aesthetic and socio-political landscape. While this muse focuses on Canada, there are parallel systems in other countries that produce different though similar results based on similar methodologies. The peer-review, arms-length funding model is seen as the best way to avoid top-down political control of the arts. This model does not eliminate social conflict and political struggles in the arts, nor an increasing stagnation (redundancy) in cultural milieus. Positive feedback mechanisms, in balance with conflict, negativity and apathy, promote cultural stability.

Stefanie Schulte Strathaus: In Germany, the history of experimental film exists only in fragments. However, like everywhere in the Western art and film world, the past two decades have been about redefining the term “experimental film“ in the context of an increasing interest in the medium in the art world and the development of new technologies that enabled digital media to really compete with the quality of the film image. Experimental film can be understood as a medium that not only negotiates aesthetic forms and pushes their boundaries, but does so in close connection to specific cultural and political contexts in order to project a new view of the world by confronting the objectified with the subjective. Thus, I think it is important to look more closely at the specificities in a country where experimental film only surfaced for short periods of time and has never exerted a lasting impact.

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