- David Ross People
David Ross, President of Artist Pension Trust, was the world's first video curator at the Everson Museum of Art in Syracuse, New York (1971) and later served as curator and Deputy Director at the Long Beach Museum of Art (1975), Assistant Director for Collections and Programs and Chief Curator at the University Art Museum, Berkeley (1977–1982), Director of the Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston (1982–1990) and Director of the Whitney Museum of American Art (1991–1998). He organized over one hundred exhibitions of twentieth-century art, co-founded the Contemporary Art Television Fund and lectured and published widely. He participated in Documenta, the Venice Biennale and The Carnegie International, presented the 1998 keynote at the Video History: Making Connections conference and served on National Endowment for the Arts panels since 1972.
- Video History Conference: Making Connections (1998)
Video History: Making Connections took place October 16–18, 1998 at Syracuse University alongside the Common Ground Conference, sponsored by the New York State Alliance for Arts Education; it paired 1970s media makers with contemporary new-media artists and drew over 250 attendees. Programming included a reception at the Everson, a keynote by David Ross (Director, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art), the Ausprobieren performance, panels on video history and practice, Extended Play screenings by more than 20 organizations and an Open Screening; a Resource Room exhibited early analog and digital tools and continuous viewing of Pioneers of Electronic Art curated by Woody and Steina Vasulka (Ars Electronica, 1992).
- Everson Video 75 Groups
The Everson Museum of Art established a video department in March 1972 with funding from the New York State Council on the Arts; James Harithas was Museum Director and David Ross served as the first video curator, followed by Richard Simmons as Curator in 1975, and the Department closed in 1981. The Department developed exhibitions, a small archive, community education programs and plans for cable TV participation; a donation from the Rosamond Gifford Foundation provided hardware and Synapse supplied post-production equipment. The archive grew to more than 200 tapes; restoration and cataloging efforts resumed under Director Sandra Trop in 1995 with Syracuse University assistance, and restored tapes were shown in 1998 during the Video History: Making Connections conference.
- Mary Ross People
Mary Ross is a fine art photographer who began using video and computers in 1976 to produce still images on film and explore early convergence of photography, video and computer technology. She produced hundreds of multimedia performances with composer/performer Eric Ross, exhibited internationally and is in collections including Kunsthaus Zurich and the International Polaroid Collection; she received grants from the National Endowment for the Arts, published in Popular Photography and Videography, authored Video in the Artroom and curated the 1998 exhibition Pioneers of Digital Photography.
- Video History: Making Connections Chronology
Video History: Making Connections convened October 16-18, 1998 at Syracuse University in conjunction with the Common Ground Conference; it brought together over 250 media makers active in the 70s and artists working in new media and interactive technologies. The conference was sponsored by the New York State Alliance for Arts Education; funding and support came from The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, the New York Foundation for the Arts Technology Planning Grant Program, public funds from the Statewide Challenge Grant Program and the New York State Council on the Arts, the Everson Museum of Art, the Media Action Grant Program of Media Alliance, corporate donors Dave Jones Design and VidiPax, and individual contributors.
- Pioneers of Digital Photography Bibliography
Mary Ross curated Pioneers of Digital Photography at Open Space Gallery, Allentown, Pennsylvania in 1998 and lectured at the Video History conference at Syracuse University, Oct. 16–18, 1998; the exhibition was supported by the Pennsylvania Council for the Arts and private foundations. The essay surveys 1960s–1980s artists who combined photographic processes with electronic and digital media, assembling 60 works by 18 artists. It documents technologies such as photocopiers, Kirilian photograms, Portapak recorders, video synthesizers and early computers at Experimental Television Center, citing practitioners Nam June Paik and Sonia Landy Sheridan.