Video History Project

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Collaborations in Art, Science and Technology: Descriptions (1976, 1998)

Subjects
Groups
Group location
Syracuse, New York
Group
Collaborations in Art, Science and Technology

Participants included Joseph Scala, and Patsy Scala. The New York State Council on the Arts funded CAST in 1970 to explore creative uses of video. CAST exhibited at the Everson Museum in 1975 and the Scalas were included also in New Work in Abstract Video Imagery (1977) at the Everson. CAST also participated in the formative meetings for Media Alliance in the late 1970s.

Community Video
"Community Video", an exhibition of video work being done in Syracuse will open June 2 (1975) at Everson Museum of Art. Among the contributing participants will be Syracuse University students and instructors, local neighborhood groups, and area artists. The exhibition will continue through June 28.

Participants in the Community Video exhibition will include David Duff, No Title; Carl Geiger, Smooth Knots; Robert Edgar, December 1973 and Point; Joe Scala, Time Dream; Patsy Scala, Wipe Poem; Kirby Smith, Experimental Video; Tom Klinkowstein, Untitled; Judson Rosebush, Space; Lance Wisniewski, Delphi Stream; Penny Schwarz and Geoffrey Leighton, Reflections on a Cathode Ray Tube; and Jerry Speno, Experimental Video.

Also participating will be SCFFI, The Syracuse Coalition for Free Flow of Information in the Broadcast Media, who will exhibit They Still Love Bessie, Our Favorite Sexist Advertisements, Black Roses and It's Raining in the Prison Yard. SCFFI is composed of Johnny Bowles, Nola Claire, Lorraine Hoffman, Collins Millicent, Patsy Scala, Walt Shepard and Gail Wiltshire.

CAST Participants: Video and Film

Robert Charron and Lance Wisniewski, Cloroplast
Frank Gilette, Tetragrammaton
Tom and Kati Hanna, Moveable Type
Ron Hays, Music - Image
Harold Lehr, Landscape Dialogue
Wayne Miller, Stack Piece
Jack Nelson, Sabbat Brunch
Patsy Scala, Experimental Video
Peter Scheer and Mortimer Heller, Forgotten Tomorrow
Owen Shapior and Bruce MacCurdy, Search and Discovery of a Victim
Bill Viola, Information
 

From Everson Video 75 catalog. Everson Museum of Art. 1976.

Joseph Scala
Joseph Scala has BS in Mathematics and a post-graduate degree from Cornell University. He studied fine art, painting and sculpture and kinetic art. He was introduced to computers, and computer graphics. He was an instructor at the Department of Experimental Studios at Syracuse University, where he designed course work in the intersection of art and engineering. He took a workshop in computer graphics and was introduced to the work of Dr. Ken Knowlton. Scala introduced the concept of using computers by artists and art students to the University. The students applied this technology to a variety of media, including photography, weaving, collage, painting and film and video. Joseph and his wife Patsy offered an interdisciplinary course, along with a film instructor at the University, integrating film, video and computing. His personal work was highly involved in computers, and using digital technology to generate animated sequences, which he captured on film and transferred between film and video.
          Artist and Computer, Ruth Leavitt. 1976.

Patsy Scala
Patsy Scala has a background in poetry, but was always interested in visual imagery. She discovered video and understood the ability to create images in real-time. Her interests lay more in the area of color and complex imagery, rather than the black and white, verite imagery then possible with small-format portable equipment. She became artist in residence at the television studios at the SI Newhouse School at Syracuse University, and was able to access 2" recording technology and two SEGs. She then became interested in computers and attended a computer graphics workshop by Ken Knowlton at Eastern Michigan University. Her video was, she felt, connected to her poetry; video imagery was seen as a purely visual poetry. Her work created images which rapidly changed, shifted and moved in videospace.
         Artist and Computer, Ruth Leavitt. 1976.

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Descriptions (1976, 1998). .

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Summary

CAST was funded by the New York State Council on the Arts in 1970 to explore creative uses of video and exhibited at the Everson Museum in 1975; the Scalas were included in New Work in Abstract Video Imagery (1977) at the Everson. Community Video ran June 2–28, 1975 at the Everson Museum. Joseph Scala held a BS in Mathematics and a postgraduate degree from Cornell and taught at Syracuse University's Department of Experimental Studios, introducing computers into artistic practice; Patsy Scala, with a background in poetry, was artist in residence at the SI Newhouse School, accessed 2" recording technology and attended a Ken Knowlton workshop.

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Last modified 13 September 2026

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