{"id":5885,"title":"What\u0027s Next? An Open Discussion","kind":"book","url":"https://www.videohistoryproject.org/node/5885","version":"099b25e9ddb0bea2864f42e75703994601354de784500ff3e9274e8c3c3ec8c3","modified":"2026-09-15T19:02:19.0798924+00:00","credits":[],"authorKeys":[],"subjects":[],"metadata":[{"label":"Publication type","value":"Web Article","url":null}],"citations":{"page":"\u0022What\u0027s Next? An Open Discussion.\u0022 Video History Project, Experimental Television Center, 2026. https://www.videohistoryproject.org/node/5885.","publication":"What\u0027s Next? An Open Discussion.","risUrl":"https://www.videohistoryproject.org/citation/5885.ris"},"links":[{"label":"Looking Back/Looking Forward: A Symposium on Electronic Media Preservation","url":"https://www.videohistoryproject.org/looking-backlooking-forward","relationship":"record body link","contentType":null}],"sections":[{"name":"body","source":"VHP record body","generated":false,"characters":38397},{"name":"summary","source":"existing VHP generated summary","generated":true,"characters":613}],"content":{"section":"body","source":"VHP record body","generated":false,"text":"Looking Back/Looking Forward: A Symposium on Electronic Media Preservation: contents Facilitators: Dara Meyers-Kingsley (IMAP) and Luke Hones (Artists Television Access) Dara Meyers-Kingsley LUKE HONES: It might be best for me is to talk personally and summarize my experiences here. First, it has been very exciting seeing many people again. I have been out of video preservation, actually doing the work, for about three years, and pursuing other interests. It was great being on the panel with the folks from BAVC and seeing all the great work they are still doing, and seeing that there is still that inspiration to continue working on this project. It was also interesting discussing the economic issues, and hearing a lot of the same things coming up. In as much as we tried to make our process efficient and create a system that would work relatively consistently, there is still a price barrier for a lot of people. I heard Kate mention that the Media Arts Center wanted to be empowered; but having been from there, I would maintain that working with BAVC is part of that empowerment, because we are cut from the same cloth. But I\u2019d say I\u2019m fully behind empowerment, and including the entire community in the discussion to come up with the solutions. It\u2019s always interesting hearing about media formats; it\u2019s definitely something we have to worry about. In talking with Mona about the media formats over the last few days, it is interesting to realize what a real muddy quagmire this can become -- especially in the preservation world. What people often do is go out and shoot whatever they can afford. That may mean Digital 8, not even the DV or D formats that were mentioned, but something that is inexpensive and provides quality. Formats can be a real Achilles heel. When Sarah gave her presentation I leaned over to Mona and said, \u201CThis is very exciting.\u201D Often, when we who actually transfer the material go to conservation meetings, we hear about the need to be more specific and document things. It\u2019s great to have someone as knowledgeable as Sarah come up with a sheet and say \u201CHere\u2019s how we do it.\u201D I sat on a jury about six months. The sheet reminded me a lot of what forensics scientists do, as far as defining certain things. It was very exciting. It\u2019s also exciting to know that in the work we are doing, there seems to be people moving forward, and on a lot of different paths. When we were talking about coming up to do this final discussion, one thing Sherry kept emphasizing was that we needed to not only talk about the preservation of tape, but also the documentation - what kind of world this really was, who the people were, and the different types of documentation that surrounded the makings these tapes. As I say, spinning tapes, we may not always think about this but it is clear that this as a very important part, as is possible. Now, thinking about the last two days, we have to decide what we want to do next. I\u2019ll now ask Dara to discuss the different issues we saw, and broadly outline what we can do next. DARA MYERS KINGSLEY: I want to thank everyone here for what they have shared: Sarah having her priorities sheet; BAVC giving their financial accounting, and also giving the ins and outs of what a piece of what equipment costs and how to use them. I think it\u2019s really critical that we continue to share, because we are all working toward the same goal. It is nice to be amongst people working together, and I want to thank you. There is a lot more work to be done. I made a list of the types of constituents that attended today and yesterday -- the universities, conservators, technicians, artists, funders, distributors, exhibitors, museums, archivists, media arts centers, preservation consultants, and postproduction facilities. That is who is here. If we expanded our reach to seventy, ninety, a hundred! I think that\u2019s one of the things we want to do, plan to expand beyond just the small central community of media arts; but learn from our professional colleagues in the library, archivist, museum and conservator worlds. I think that\u2019s part of the road ahead. I considered this a broad outline of the areas we\u2019ve tackled over the last two days. In terms of the physical process of preservation, I know there were questions that came up about the research needed in collections management, cataloguing, prioritizing. Finding out where the resources and tools are for preservation work, and the expertise so that the tools can be used either for preservation and/or for production. That includes the tape and the different media: the machines, equipment, the documentation. The expertise should exist in those two areas. How can we increase our information sharing for the purpose of connecting to the next generation, who may not know this work or these artists and issues. Also sharing information about who has what. How do we amongst each other, and in these giant collections around the country and around the world, share where the materials are, where the expertise is? As I said, expanding constituencies to share expertise across disciplines. HONES: That\u2019s how we broadly broke down the topics that seem to demand a next step. It would be an effective use of our time for tomorrow, next month and the coming year, to come up with some actions out of this discussion and brainstorm about these different areas. KINGSLEY: Some questions may be: What research needs to be done? What questions do we need to ask? What are the strategies and who should do it? Who can tackle some part of this giant puzzle? Also, we should prioritize what needs to be done. What\u2019s the most critical thing? Mona mentioned maybe we should all go to Beta SP. Should we choose something like a format? Do we want to come up with an idea of making sure we have a union catalogue of everybody\u2019s collections? Should we make sure we have a database of all experts in how to run every piece of equipment? Should we get oral histories from every living artist in everybody\u2019s collection? I mean, yikes--but tell me! HONES: As the first brainstorming point, one of the exciting things that has come out of this weekend is a lot of the discussion that I\u2019ve had, not only with Jon and the folks at BAVC, but especially with Bill Etra; talking about how to make the act of transferring a tape and getting the tape to someplace else less invasive, less destructive. One of the things I threw out yesterday was the idea of this duplicating machine, where you can make a duplicate of a tape without having to run it through a tape machine. So Bill went on the web and grabbed information on it; there are already discussions going on among people who are very interested in the technical side of things, and where we can take that process. MEYERS-KINGSLEY: Another conversation I had was with Tony Bannon, from Eastman House, who talked about the fact that he has a collection of equipment, spanning the beginning of photographic and film history, whether or not he could continue to add to that collection, to bring in other types of media equipment. That wouldn\u2019t take care of the access to the equipment and using it for parts, but we would have at least have a study collection of every piece of equipment, with manuals. Maybe, we could create video training tapes on how to use the equipment, so there would at least be some source for that. SARAH STAUDERMAN: I have two additions or addenda to the list. We need to raise the consciousness of the funding community, wherever they may be, about this need. It\u2019s been easily seven years since the publication of Magnetic Media: Storage and Handling. The group that authored this, CLIR, has moved on to web-based research issues; they have not left it behind, but have said \u201CWe raised the issue; now where are other people coming to the table on it?\u201D It will be critical for people who need to get funding to not have to explain themselves over and over again. Another thing that might be a useful product of the conference would be to actually do an assessment or status report of where we are on several of these initiatives. I\u2019m not the only person who knows about various initiatives, such as the Variable Media Initiative; where are they in their process, and what are they doing? What is the status of the DVD that BAVC is working on, or the status of IPI research? What groups are out there actually looking at this? We don\u2019t want to reinvent the wheel. Who are the people that know what\u2019s happening and where--the connectors? We all know a little piece of it, but we definitely need to throw this into the ring: this is a bright person working on these issues, for instance they\u2019re focusing on prioritization. This is a bright person and they are focusing on the lost videotapes of the early seventies. I\u2019m expanding on what Dara was saying: Who knows what? We need to have lists of that. KINGSLEY: How do we do this? IMAP, for example, would be happy to take on an initiative -- and it\u2019s something I\u2019ve been thinking about. Since we are the sort of bridge to the various communities-- Do we need a roundtable? Do we need an interview? Do we need someone to actually go out and prepare a report on the field for all of us? We can either all get together, or someone can go do the interviews and report. Sounds like we may need a report; we don\u2019t necessarily all have to meet. So that\u2019s something that could definitely happen. KATE HORSFIELD: I would add, because this is certainly a priority, a lot of us are really interested in how we\u2019re going to pass this information on to the next generation. Heather was talking about something I found enormously interesting, which was to create a kind of catalogue of sort of like tape defects. And what\u2019s the difference between a tape defect and the normal look of a 1970s tape? Even in my office, the younger generation look at these tapes and they don\u2019t know. If they see yellow streaks across it, they think that\u2019s what all seventies tapes look like. I think we need to really concentrate on how we\u2019re going to educate and pull new people into this dialogue. You know, we are doing our share, but we need more people to help us at this point. KINGSLEY: I would say that would be a place where conservators working with us could write this up. First of all, people don\u2019t even know what a certain kind of tape looks like, as Sarah was saying. \u201CWell, it\u2019s kind of this big and that small,\u201D or whatever. But also, how do you know by looking if there\u2019s anything wrong with the tape, the physical object? How do you know what the tape should look like--correctly--in playing back? Those two areas need some study. HORSFIELD: NYU just started a whole preservation program in their Cinema Studies department. It would be great to lobby some of the universities and say, \u201CLet\u2019s get some interns out there in the field,\u201D so they can come to all of our spaces and spend two months -- and incidentally, be slaves for us for three months! But then they come out of it with a greater understanding of what the problems of the seventies, the tapes, and of cleaning, and transferring to a more stable format. HONES: And they\u2019ve gotten to rub shoulders with legends. They should be paying us. I wanted to add one of the things I was talking to Kate about this weekend is, after going to a BAVC presentation of video art and collections from the seventies, and after seeing Kate\u2019s presentation, one of my staff people in an exhibition space was very interested in doing a program that combines, or somehow mixes the material from the seventies, the activism from the seventies, with current activist video -- which is what we\u2019re showing at our screening space. We have a very diverse, very young audience. And they are very, very excited about hooking in with what the Video Databank has. KIM TOMCZAK: Just as information, the NAMAC just completed the video preservation log, one of their ongoing projects. A summary, which will come out in a NAMAC newsletter, really echoes most of what we\u2019ve ","offset":0,"nextOffset":12000,"totalCharacters":38397,"complete":false},"rightsUrl":"https://www.videohistoryproject.org/terms-service"}