{"id":4745,"title":"New York State Council on the Arts Annual Report 1988-89. Reports by Film and Media Programs","kind":"biblio","url":"https://www.videohistoryproject.org/new-york-state-council-arts-annual-report-1988-89-report-media-program","version":"0ea28f61810791964af28aefa3fb61c9c165222afc0a522534d7d5b5e1d13dd1","modified":"2026-09-13T21:52:08.197518+00:00","credits":[{"role":"Author","name":"New York State Council on the Arts"}],"authorKeys":["New York State Council on the Arts"],"subjects":["Groups"],"metadata":[{"label":"Publisher","value":"New York State Council on the Arts","url":null},{"label":"Place","value":"New York, NY","url":null},{"label":"Type","value":"Annual Report","url":null},{"label":"ETC archive","value":"ETC1769","url":null},{"label":"Group dates","value":"1960 -","url":null},{"label":"Group location","value":"New York City","url":null},{"label":"Group","value":"New York State Council on the Arts","url":null}],"citations":{"page":"\u0022New York State Council on the Arts Annual Report 1988-89. Report by Media Program.\u0022 Video History Project, Experimental Television Center, 2026. https://www.videohistoryproject.org/new-york-state-council-arts-annual-report-1988-89-report-media-program.","publication":"New York State Council on the Arts. New York State Council on the Arts Annual Report 1988-89. Reports by Film and Media Programs. New York State Council on the Arts. 1989.","risUrl":"https://www.videohistoryproject.org/citation/4745.ris"},"links":[{"label":"Scanned document","url":"https://archive.org/details/ETC1769","relationship":"linked document; contents not retrieved","contentType":"application/pdf"}],"sections":[{"name":"body","source":"VHP record body","generated":false,"characters":14589},{"name":"summary","source":"existing VHP generated summary","generated":true,"characters":687},{"name":"archive_summary","source":"existing ETC archive summaries: ETC1769","generated":false,"characters":122}],"content":{"section":"body","source":"VHP record body","generated":false,"text":"Total Aid to Localities: $51,511,000, Media: $1,659,655 (1988-89) MEDIA PROGRAM Director: B. Ruby Rich Acting Director: Arthur Tsuchiya (until January, 1989) Program Analysts: Linda Gibson, Jerry Lindahl In 1989-90, the media program awarded a total of $1,659,655 to 102 organizations for a total of 255 projects in the areas of video, audio, radio, or television. It was a year marked by difficulties, both economic (as Albany struggled to meet the budget deficit and the Media Program\u0027s budget changed over the course of the year) and structural (as the Council proceeded with a plan of merging the Media and Film Programs, with an implementation set for the start of the next fiscal year). Despite these difficulties and challenges, the Media Program carried out the funding of a number of notable initiatives, sustained the growth and stability of its exhibition and organizational development categories in particular, and helped a number of important new productions see the light of day. One landmark event that catalyzed the field was the opening this year of the Museum of Modern Art\u0027s major retrospective of the work of video artist Bill Viola, made possible with the Media Program\u0027s support. Incorporating both installation work and the exhibition of videotapes, the exhibition marked the first time that the Museum has presented a retrospective of a video artist and only the second time that any New York museum has so favored the field. In this sense, it was a coming of age both for the Museum and for the field as a whole. This museum attention to video installation was paralleled by the Media Program\u0027s concern with finding broader outlets for such work and developing sites throughout the State with an interest in the exhibition of installation work. To that end, funding went to Parabola Arts for the first phase of a new touring initiative for audio and video installations, in conjunction with the Gallery Association of New York State. Meanwhile, on Long Island, the Inter-Media Art Center in Huntington received funds to tour a program of video art on the Island. And the Museum of the American Indian was funded to tour a new program, \u0022Video Native American,\u0022 around the State. The touring and distribution of original video works to reach new audiences has been a particular emphasis this year. The \u0022Icono Negro\u0022 will be circulated to sites in New York State by Camera News, while Buffalo-based Hallwalls is circulating \u0022Infermental 7,\u0022 an international compilation of video art curated by Hallwalls. The Black Filmmaker Foundation was awarded funds to distribute videotapes by black makers statewide. Extending further the accessibility of new video works to the public, Upstate Films in Rhinebeck got first-time funding to begin showing video. Radio and television play an important role in the dissemination of independent work to a broad audience. The Committee on Poetry, Inc. received funding to distribute a pioneering radio series exploring international poetry, beginning with a survey of the radio stations in New York State with an interest in innovative programming. The Educational Broadcasting Corporation (WNET-TV) continues its \u0022New Television\u0022 series premiering innovative video, while at the same time continuing to dispense production funds that makes the completion of such work possible. A first-time grant to Staten Island Community TV is providing the public with television access as producers rather than mere consumers, through a series of production workshops to be held at its sophisticated new facilities. To enlarge awareness of audio art, the Archive for Contemporary Music has been funded to create and distribute both a catalogue and a computerized listing of its large collection. For the field to develop, service organizations that serve the artist as well as the public are crucial. First-time support went to the Latino Collaborative, the first artist-service organization for Latino makers. Also in the category of institutional development was a special award to Camera News, enabling the hiring of a new administrative director to help stabilize this key distributor\u0027s operations. In the Buffalo area, greatly increased funding to Squeaky Wheel is intended to strengthen a young organization that has proved itself to be a vital stimulant to video production, exhibition, and training for both emerging and established talents. Artists will also get a boost from the award to Light Work Visual Studies in Syracuse, where the money will establish a video/computer studio for computer imaging. Finally, the Funding Exchange received a substantial award to regrant production funds to both women and minority producers working to create video documentaries on issues of social importance; as a condition of the grant, the Funding Exchange is committed to matching Media Program funds on a one-to-one basis thereby enlarging the pool of funds available to artists in New York State. Although video is a relatively recent medium, its past is already endangered due to the lack of archival technologies thus far available. In order to preserve videotapes from even the recent past, more work must be done to transfer endangered tapes to the most currently stable materials and to conduct research into the viability of authentic preservation. Grants were made to both the Museum of Modern Art and Film/Video Arts to establish two different approaches to the problem. The Museum will be developing a sophisticated 1\u0022 restoration facility to restore early video art, while Film/Video Arts will be establishing a low-cost \u00BD\u0022 preservation and recovery facility for artists. If preservation of the actual physical medium is important, so too is the less tangible preservation of the values, intentions, and aesthetic complexities of the work that is produced. For this reason, writing on video art has been supported for several years as a category of funding aimed at strengthening a field still nascent in its own interrogation of itself. Two awards were made in this category: one to Coco Fusco on the promotion of Latino media in the late-80s market, and one to David Trend for an essay on the distinction between amateur and professional at a time of increasing sophistication in consumer products. Finally, and of foremost priority for the Media Program, a quarter of the year\u0027s budget went to the support of video and audio production by New York State artists. See the listings in the Individual Artists Program section of this annual report for details on all the artist initiated projects that were funded. The significance of past funding was made clear by the success of \u0022Inside Life Outside,\u0022 a video documentary on the homeless that was completed this year and has been presented to wide acclaim, including a presentation at the Berlin Film Festival. In addition, this year the Media Program experimented with a separate category of funding for video, television, and radio projects that were organization-initiated. A total of 12 projects were funded out of 47 requests. Awards included one to WSKG-TV in Binghamton for a one-hour documentary on jazz great Slam Stewart; one to Pacific Street Film Project for a videotape on Caribbean culture in Brooklyn, slated for airing on WNET-TV; and one to the Seneca Nation in Erie County, for a documentary on snowsnake, an ancient Iriquois game of skill, and the turtle rattle, a sacred musical instrument used in ceremonies of the Longhouse tradition. Artists-in-Residence: Bronx Museum of the Arts $5,000 Hallwalls; Buffalo $3,500 New York Hall of Science; Queens $8,000 Visual Studies Workshop; Rochester $2,500 WSLU-FM; Canton $4,000 Distribution: Alternative Media Information Center; Manhattan $20,000 American Federation of the Arts; Manhattan $7,500 Black Filmmaker Foundation; Manhattan $6,000 Camera News/ Third World Newsreel; Manhattan $3,000 Committee on Poetry; Manhattan $3,000 Electronic Arts Intermix; Manhattan $32,200 Film Art Fund/ Anthology Film Archives; Manhattan $2,000 Giorno Poetry Systems; Manhattan $2,000 Haleakala/The Kitchen; Manhattan $5,000 Hallwalls; Buffalo $5,000 Women Make Movies; Manhattan $12,000 Equipment Purchase: Camera News/ Third World Newsreel; Manhattan $7,000 Collective for Living Cinema; Manhattan $3,000 Experimental Television Center; Owego $3,828 Haleakala/The Kitchen; Manhattan $1,200 Harvestworks; Manhattan $5,600 Visual Studies Workshop; Rochester $1,500 Exhibition: 55 Mercer Street Artists; Manhattan $1,500 Alternative Center for International Arts/ Alternative Museum; Manhattan $3,000 American Museum of the Moving Image; Queens $20,000 Amigos del Museo del Barrio/ El Museo del Barrio; Manhattan $7,000 Artists Space; Manhattan $12,500 Asia Society; Manhattan $2,000 Bronx Museum of the Arts $10,000 Center for New Art Activities; Manhattan $4,500 Center for Photography at Woodstock $3,500 Channel L Working Group; Manhattan $8,000 Collaborative Projects/ COLAB; Manhattan $3,000 Collective for Living Cinema; Manhattan $7,500 Cornell University/ Herbert F. Johnson Museum; Ithaca $8,500 Council on the Arts for Cortland $4,492 Crandall Library; Glens Falls $4,000 Dance Theater Workshop; Manhattan $1,000 East End Arts and Humanities Council; Riverhead $6,000 Educational Broadcasting Corporation; Manhattan $25,000 Exit Art; Manhattan $7,000 Fund for the Borough of Brooklyn/ Rotunda Gallery $5,200 Haleakala/The Kitchen; Manhattan $28,500 Hallwalls; Buffalo $15,000 Inter-Media Art Center; Huntington $7,000 International Agency of Minority Artists; Manhattan $2,500 International Center for Photography; Manhattan $10,000 Jewish Museum; Manhattan $10,000 Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts; Manhattan $7,500 Mid-Hudson Library System; Poughkeepsie $4,500 Museum of the American Indian; Manhattan $12,585 Museum of Modern Art; Manhattan $20,000 New Radio and Performing Arts; Brooklyn $3,000 New York Hall of Science; Queens $8,000 New York Public Library, Astor, Lenox and Tilden Foundations; Manhattan $3,000 Niagara Council of the Arts; Niagara Falls $1,250 Port Washington Public Library $17,175 Public Art Fund; Manhattan $3,000 Raindance Foundation; Manhattan $4,000 Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute; Troy $3,000 Tompkins Square, Arts Festival; Manhattan $2,000 Upstate Films; Rhinebeck $2,275 Visual Studies Workshop; Rochester $11,000 Western New York Artists Gallery; Buffalo $7,075 White Plains Cable TV Access $3,500 Whitney Museum of American Art; Manhattan $19,700 General Operating Support: Asian Cine-Vision; Manhattan $17,700 Downtown Community Television Center; Manhattan $57,200 Experimental Television Center; Owego $36,400 Experimental Intermedia Foundation; Manhattan $14,000 Global Village Resource Center; Manhattan $22,000 Harvestworks; Manhattan $30,000 Locus Communications; Manhattan $35,000 Media Alliance; Manhattan $34,000 Media Bus; Woodstock $6,000 WSLU-FM; Canton $5,000 Institutional Development: Camera News/ Third World Newsreel; Manhattan $13,000 Latino Collaborative; Manhattan $8,750 Organizational Production: Black Filmmaker Foundation; Manhattan $9,000 Charas; Manhattan $8,000 Crown Heights Youth Collective; Brooklyn $5,000 Improvised Music Collective; Manhattan $6,000 Livewalk; Brooklyn $4,000 Metro Act of Rochester $5,000 Pacific Street Film Project; Brooklyn $5,000 Seneca Nation Education Department; Irving $5,000 Syracuse Alternative Media Network $2,500 Vivian Beaumont Theatre; Manhattan $4,000 WSKG Public Telecommunications Council; Binghamton $5,000 Wooster Group; Manhattan $8,000 Preservation/ Archival Conservation: Film Art Fund/ Anthology Film Archives; Manhattan $1,500 Film/Video Arts; Manhattan $7,860 Museum of Modern Art; Manhattan $2,500 Regrant Program: Checkerboard Foundation $12,000 Educational Broadcasting Corporation; Manhattan $22,500 Funding Exchange $20,000 Niagara Council of the Arts; Niagara Falls $6,665 Oswego Art Guild $2,000 Visual Studies Workshop; Rochester $5,000 Writers Guild of America East; Manhattan $15,000 Services t","offset":0,"nextOffset":12000,"totalCharacters":14589,"complete":false},"rightsUrl":"https://www.videohistoryproject.org/terms-service"}