{"id":4305,"title":"Cultural History at Risk: Independent Media and Preservation","kind":"biblio","url":"https://www.videohistoryproject.org/cultural-history-risk-independent-media-and-preservation","version":"0e912ceede789ea12e72c33e619d0ec883f56ebbc052e5b2acbdd67c3cf3f20a","modified":"2026-09-13T19:42:08.2197099+00:00","credits":[{"role":"Author","name":"Independent Media Arts Preservation"}],"authorKeys":["Independent Media Arts Preservation"],"subjects":["Preservation Texts"],"metadata":[{"label":"Publisher","value":"IMAP","url":null},{"label":"Place","value":"New York, NY","url":null},{"label":"ETC archive","value":"ETC1102","url":null}],"citations":{"page":"\u0022Cultural History at Risk: Independent Media and Preservation.\u0022 Video History Project, Experimental Television Center, 2026. https://www.videohistoryproject.org/cultural-history-risk-independent-media-and-preservation.","publication":"Independent Media Arts Preservation. Cultural History at Risk: Independent Media and Preservation. IMAP. 2000.","risUrl":"https://www.videohistoryproject.org/citation/4305.ris"},"links":[{"label":"Scanned document","url":"https://archive.org/details/ETC1102","relationship":"linked document; contents not retrieved","contentType":"application/pdf"},{"label":"IMAP","url":"https://www.imappreserve.org/","relationship":"record body link","contentType":null}],"sections":[{"name":"body","source":"VHP record body","generated":false,"characters":30307},{"name":"summary","source":"existing VHP generated summary","generated":true,"characters":874}],"content":{"section":"body","source":"VHP record body","generated":false,"text":"INDEPENDENT MEDIA AND PRESERVATION American television and video heritage is now at a crossroads. One direction leads toward catastrophic losses of film and videotape, with the possible exception of studio and network programs in corporate archives that can be recycled for new income. Another direction leads toward the managed preservation of extant television and video materials that bear an important relationship to American history and culture regardless of their reuse potential or monetary value. -- William Murphy, Report on the Study of American Television and Video. Library of Congress, 1997. When pioneering artists, activists, and TV producers picked up the first video portapaks in the late 1960\u0027s, they did so with passion, but rarely with a thought to the longevity of their works ten, twenty, or one hundred years later. Although the clunky 1/2\u0022 open reel decks and cameras were a far cry from the palm camcorders of today, they represented the same impulse: to allow anyone to produce tapes derived from their own experience and imagination. Almost immediately after portapaks were introduced, non-profit centers sprung up across the country, dedicated to providing low-cost access to these new production tools. Electronic news gathering became an expected part of the TV viewing experience, a step away from the standard of studio productions. Venues for independent productions expanded, ranging from public television and cable, to libraries, community centers and street fairs. Working with tools that are dependent on the marketplace - produced at first primarily for a broadcast market, and later also for industrial or consumer use - independent producers were almost immediately confronted with the reality of obsolescence. For the most part, new tape formats and equipment were embraced with enthusiasm, as makers enjoyed improvements in picture and sound quality, ease of use and the addition of color and special effects. Tapes began to stack up, a study in changing production tools: 1/2\u0022 open reel, Betamax, 3/4\u0022, VHS, I\u0022. Just as families have tucked their treasured 8mm films away in a drawer, these historical works were shelved, to be dealt with at a future date. Thankfully, prudent people also saved the old equipment, knowing it would be needed to view or transfer early works. In the early 1980\u0027s, the first articles began appearing in media arts journals calling attention to the issue of preservation of independent media works. Tapes barely fifteen years old were unable to be played without bringing decks to a halt, risking loss of the signal and permanent damage to the tapes. It was recognized that not only were the majority of early media works unavailable, they were also at immediate risk of being lost forever. Producers and media center staff started to experiment with tape cleaning and transfer. They also began making tape lists and sharing experiences of preservation projects. The media arts field slowly awoke to the enormity of the preservation problem, and realized that, without a serious and sustained collaborative effort, its brief history would be lost. Looking around, they recognized there were many others dealing with the same problems -- public television producers, dance companies, libraries, audio artists, and community organizations. While experts in production, many groups with significant collections are unfamiliar with moving image preservation, conservation and collection management, and lack staff to perform such tasks. Thus, independent media collections remain largely uncatalogued, and unavailable or underutilized. Just as Hollywood film has been the focus of film preservation, video preservation has been largely focused on broadcast television. While in the past ten years there has been significant progress toward saving independent works, the media arts field is well aware of its position at the crossroads. Independent Media Arts Preservation (IMAP) has been formed to provide new leadership for the field\u0027s preservation initiatives and to ensure the preservation of independent electronic media for cultural and educational use by future generations. While the media arts community is the catalyst for IMAP, the organization embraces all forms of independent electronic media: time-based, non-commercial production incorporating video or audio, including but not limited to video art, audio art, and technology-based installation art. Also included are independent documentary and narratives, community media, and arts and cultural documentation. INDEPENDENT MEDIA AS A CULTURAL INVESTMENT \u0022Without a consideration of the contributions of video pioneers...any history of American television, not to mention recent American social history, will be incomplete, distorted.\u0022 -- Deirdre Boyle, historian and educator, testifying at a 1996 hearing for the Report on the Study of American Television and Video. Non-commercial media was first created when the availability of relatively low-cost, portable production equipment made it possible for tapes to be made outside of the broadcast studio structure. Arts and cultural organizations became focal points for early productions, and thus house some of the most extensive collections of independent media. The collections are scattered throughout the country in rural areas, small cities and urban centers, in a host of locations: libraries, museums, media arts centers, artists\u0027 spaces, college media departments, video collectives, non-profit distributors, and public television stations. In addition, thousands of individual producers have their own collections, with unique materials stored in attics, closets and make-shift libraries. The majority of independent media has been produced with substantial funding from public agencies such as the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, the New York State Council on the Arts, and the National Endowment for the Arts, and from private foundations including the Rockefeller Foundation, the Ford Foundation, the Jerome Foundation, and the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation. These collections of visual and sound works represent a major investment of public and private funds in a tremendous historical and cultural legacy. Unfortunately, the vast majority of the work remains out of the reach of scholars, educators, and the public. Artists\u0027 works include single or multi-channel works, presented in performance or as installations, in real-time, using time delays, or as edited pieces. Subject matter and approaches vary widely, from traditional documentaries, to narrative, conceptual, or image-processed work. Early works by nationally known artists such as Steina and Woody Vasulka, Nam June Paik, William Wegman, Bill Viola, Mary Lucier, Shigeko Kubota, and Joan Jonas are present in the many collections, as well as countless other artists that came later. Electronic media also has provided a new means of arts and cultural documentation. Taping has served as the only record of countless ephemeral arts events, in such disciplines as dance, theater, literature and performance art. Through interviews and other recordings, an artist\u0027s processes, techniques and ideas are preserved for study and teaching. Federal, state and private dollars have also supported many projects promoting the use of video as a tool for community development, dialogue and education. Through non-profit media programs, communities and individuals have been given the means to explore these dynamic and powerful tools of production. Early projects such as Broadside TV in Appalachia, University Community Video in Minnesota, and the Alternative Media Center in New York, were examples of this perspective. On a more grass roots level, early projects ranged from perspectives on Puerto Rican identity (in the collection of Centre de Estudios Puertorriquenos) to national politics such as the 1972 Republican National Convention and the first Women\u0027s Liberation March in New York City (Media Bus). Public television and community-based media grew out of democratic traditions and expressed such democratic ideals as free speech, equal opportunity, active participation in government, and government responsiveness. Diverse sources of media programming allow all people, regardless of race, creed, religion, income, or political ideology to speak, share their cultures, and take part in the development of their local communities and our national identity. As the field of independent media has continued to grow and develop, it has achieved recognition as a significant social and cultural phenomenon worthy of study and preservation. Interest in electronic arts production, as well as in the history of media and communications, continues to grow, and departments are being created and expanded each year. There are many possibilities for research, education and public programming of these materials, including but not limited to the areas of social/political history, cultural/ethnic studies, women\u0027s studies, local history, the history of media and communications and the history, theory and criticism of the arts, including media arts, dance, theater, music, crafts and photography. The preservation of these materials will significantly advance scholarship and research, enhance public education at the secondary, undergraduate, graduate and post-graduate levels, and provide new opportunities for public programming. IMAP is committed to a fundamental tenet of independent production: that media tools are more than their common commercial use suggests. They are powerful tools for communication and creativity in a democratic society. In addition to the inherent value as single productions, independent works also trace the history of our culture\u0027s use of telecommunications technology, and document in a compelling visual form our unique social and cultural history. These artworks, documentaries, and cultural recordings provide an important connecting thread between the past and present of our society\u0027s use of media technologies. SHARED PRESERVATION NEEDS IDENTIFIED \u0022...the fragility of independent video ...is a grim spectacle that resembles a sandy beach awaiting its annual visit by a Caribbean hurricane. The grains of iron oxide, like grains of sand, will be swept away unless they are trucked to safety; in our case to a video archive...\u0022 -- Robert Haller, Anthology Film Archives, testifying at a 1996 hearing for the Report on the Study of American Television and Video. As the media arts community has become more proactive in the last decade, a number of key strategies have been identified through regional and national meetings, research, and consultation with preservation experts. \u2022 All key collections must be catalogued in a compatible information system accessible through recognized research networks. While many institutions have attempted in their own ways to document and save their collections, there is currently no infrastructure to allow intellectual access to many collections, especially to tapes from 1985 and earlier. Thus, access to these collections is extremely limited, and in many cases impossible. Most groups also have no comprehensive paper records, coordinated paper catalogs, union lists, paper indexes or any other useful finding aids. As noted above, these organizations are typically unfamiliar with standard cataloguing practices. In addition, computer and human resources are often limited, existing hardware and software vary greatly, and there are few available training programs to teach cataloguing and description of moving image collections. For individual producers and artists, the challenges are especially severe. The lack of descriptive information handicaps the field, keeping it in a holding mode. Without a catalog of titles, there is little hope of convincing an archive or hinder that the collection is deserving of preservation dollars. Cataloguing enables groups to prioritize which tapes and/or collections to tackle first, as part of","offset":0,"nextOffset":12000,"totalCharacters":30307,"complete":false},"rightsUrl":"https://www.videohistoryproject.org/terms-service"}