Electronic Echoes: Video Art from the 1970s and 80s

Thursday, February 26, 7-9 pm

$10, in-person [tickets]

When video became a commercially available medium in the 1970s, artists quickly began to explore it as a form for creative expression. For the first time, an artist could simultaneously record both image and sound on a single substrate, independently operate the recording mechanism, and build their own tools to experiment with the possibilities of the electronic signal. Many of the earliest video experiments took place at art centers around Upstate and Western New York.

To celebrate the launch of VSW’s current exhibition, Signal into Memory, this program highlights a range of approaches from abstract imagery to street documentary, made by artists over a two decade period when moving image tools, aesthetics and audiences expanded rapidly into the electronic realm. The screening will feature rarely seen video works by some of the most innovative video artists of the 1970’s and 80’s, including Sherry Miller Hocking, Ralph Hocking, Matthew Schlanger, Bridgid Polk, Peer Bode, Steina and Woody Vasulka, and others.

Program selected by Peer Bode, Nilson Carroll and Tara Merenda Nelson