Benjamin Lovell plans to use VSW’s project space to digitize a selection of well-worn VHS tapes, filled with recordings from broadcast TV and borrowed library videos by his father in the late ’80s and early ’90s. His goal is to reappropriate material from those tapes into an audio-visual collage piece. The work will foreground qualities imparted on the source material by imperfections in transmission, reception, and storage, and appeal to the way these qualities impact personal attachments forged alongside media consumption and shaped by modes of access. Much of the material on these tapes has been eroded by time, heavy use, and haphazard capture and storage – they were meant to pacify children on a tight budget in a cable-free household, not to constitute an archive. As an archive and presentation space centered around non-standard formats and experimental processes, he feels VSW is the best possible place to realize this project.

Benjamin Lovell is a musician and visual artist based in Rochester. Since 2011, Ben has operated Lily Tapes & Discs, a boutique record label focused on small-batch releases with handmade packaging. He dressed up as Charlie Brown for Halloween every year from the ages of 7 to 18.

Funds for this residency came from the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Andrew M. Cuomo and the New York State Legislature; the Max and Marian Farash Foundation; and Joy of Giving Something.