In 1971, Howard Wise founded Electronic Arts Intermix as a nonprofit organization to "explore the potentials of the electronic media as a means of expression and non-commercial communication." EAI's founding mission was to develop and support the emergent video medium by providing artists with access to funding, technology, and other resources. At its inception, EAI served as the umbrella for projects that included The Kitchen, the Annual Avant Garde Festivals, the first Women's Video Festival, the Open Circuits conference at MoMA, Computer Art Festivals, and the patenting and distribution of Eric Siegel's Video Synthesizers, among others. This eclectic mix of art, technology and theory reflects the alternative artistic and political impulses that drove the early video subculture. The support provided by EAI, coupled with the creative energy and radical experimentation of the programs, fostered a burgeoning community of electronic media artists. The sponsored projects were independently directed; several became autonomous once they had established stable sources of funding. The Artists' Videotape Distribution Service and the Editing/Post-Production Facility--projects initiated within EAI--were thriving by the end of the decade, and became the organization’s core programs.