Resources
Resource Guide
EAI's Online Resource Guide for Exhibiting, Collecting & Preserving Media Art is a comprehensive resource that addresses key issues on current practices and critical dialogue relating to exhibiting, collecting and preserving single-channel video, computer-based art and media installation.
Media art presents a unique and evolving set of exhibition, collection and preservation challenges. For four decades, artists have created electronic works, from single-channel video to art made from digital source code, that demand new practices and vocabularies for exhibitors and collectors. The variable ecology of media art, with its reproducible forms, changing technologies and mutable contexts, is one of its most dynamic if challenging attributes.
The guide features a range of essential information, including best practices; basic questions; agreements and reports; equipment and technical guidelines; interviews with artists, curators, educators, collectors, conservators, archivists, technicians and other specialists; case studies of significant projects and organizations; hard-to-find and out-of-print articles, conference papers and essays; a glossary, a guide to media formats, and related resources.
The EAI Resource Guide was funded by New Art Trust. The Preservation section, which was created in collaboration with IMAP, was supported by public funds from the New York State Council on the Arts, a state agency.
In 2007 the EAI Resource Guide was given the Award for Outstanding Contributions to Archives by the Archivists Roundtable of New York.
http://www.eai.org/resourceguide
A Kinetic History
A Kinetic History: The EAI Archives Online is a digital resource that celebrates a remarkable artistic and cultural legacy. EAI's 30th anniversary in 2001 was the catalyst for this ongoing initiative to digitize and provide online access to EAI's extensive archives of rare materials about the emergent video art movement of the late 1960s and early 1970s.
The project charts the history of EAI from its roots in the alternative art discourses of the late 1960s, and also illuminates the evolution of an artistic movement and its cultural and art historical context. Primary materials (documents, catalogues, video footage, ephemera) and contextualizing essays trace a rich and eclectic trajectory of art, artists and ideas, from Kinetic Art to the Avant-Garde Festival to contemporary video art.
The first two "chapters" of this project are currently available online: Howard Wise & the Howard Wise Gallery, and Beginnings: Sponsored Projects 1970-74.
A work-in-progress, this "living archive" will continue to expand, linking the history of the media arts to its future.
Digitization Project
EAI has launched a major initiative to digitize the media artworks in the EAI collection. The goal of this project is to ensure that the EAI collection of over 3,500 experimental video and media works by artists—which is recognized as one of the leading historical collections of its kind—will continue to be accessible and viable for current and future generations.
The first phase of this project was funded with generous support by the New York State Council on the Arts, a state agency, through their Digitization Program.
The initial phase allowed EAI to begin the process of creating and storing uncompressed digital files of the media works in the collection. This ongoing process will facilitate the preservation and distribution of the collection on current and future digital formats, and will ensure its viability as new digital technologies are developed.
In addition, the project will allow for broader and more efficient access to the EAI collection, through a series of initiatives that include enhanced online streaming of excerpts of works through our Online Catalogue, video documentation of our public programs, advanced access for research and preview; and a digital viewing station at EAI for educators, curators and the public.
In March 2009 EAI launched the first digital access component of this project: an "on demand" digital interface for EAI's on-site Viewing Room. This system allows visitors—including students, curators and educators—to directly access over 800 artists' video works from the EAI collection for private on-site viewing, research and study.
In the autumn of 2009, EAI launched the newest access phase of our Digitization Initiative: the EAI Online Viewing Room. This service allows for secure, private online viewing of works in the EAI collection for preview and research purposes. Please contact the EAI office to inquire about this new service.