New York State Council on the Arts Annual Report 1981-82. Reports by Film and Media Programs

Total Local Assistance Awards: $32,457,400

Media: $1,176,500

MEDIA PROGRAM

Director: John Giancola

Program Analyst: Arthur Tsuchiya

The Media Program's primary concern is the continued development of this new and evolving art form. The Media Program provides services to professional media artists and the general public through its support of programs that make the creation, exhibition and programming of audio and video projects possible and increase public awareness about the medium.

In 1981-82, the program's allocation of $1,306,300 (including $130,000 in NEA funds) was awarded to 63 organizations for a variety of media programs and services. Because of the nature of the art form and its broadcast capabilities, these media programs and services were accessible to and reached citizens throughout the State.

Over 20% of the program's budget or $256,723 was directed toward production and post-production of audio and video art, documentary and narrative projects. These awards were directed toward the support of individual artists through the sponsorship of co-producing nonprofit organizations. Representative of productions funded by the Council were Portraits by Joan Logue, twenty-eight 60-second video portrait spots of contemporary artists; Vacuums, an electronic image-processed video piece by artist Gary Hill; and Gold Mountain Dream by Peter Chow, a series of dramatic programs on the new Asian immigrant experience.

Another approximate 20% or $246,895 of the program's budget was directed towards artist-in-residence facilities and regranting facilities. These funds allowed organizations across the State to offer low-cost access to equipment and funds to media artists to create or complete media works. Highly sophisticated and specialized technical equipment for computer editing, colorizing, keying, and synthesizing, for example, could be used by media artists who needed those particular resources at a particular point of production. Regrant funds allowed artists to purchase the materials necessary to the creation of their art and literally bought them time to produce it.

These categories of funding provided substantial support to the individual artist. Other areas of support served to increase exposure of the art form and completed individual works. Exhibitions, for example, remained an important concern of the Media Program and received support for administrative expenses and artists' fees and installation costs. Thirty-six exhibition sites including museums, libraries, alternative spaces, media centers, and nonprofit broadcasting companies received support for numerous exhibitions, broadcasts, and cablecasts. The first retrospective exhibition of a major, living video artist-- Nam June Paik-- was presented at a leading New York City museum in 1981-82. This accomplishment alone was a healthy indicator of the acceptance of video art into the "mainstream' of the art establishment and represented the continued efforts made by the Council's Media Program in this area.

Other projects that continued to receive support through the Media Program included cable television programming, arts programming for television, media center programs including workshops, and a range of services to the field including distribution mechanisms and information networks.

ABC No Rio; New York City

$900

Amigos del Museo del Barrio; New York City

$4,950

Artists Television Network; New York City

$12,500

Artmusic; Brooklyn

$2,000

Asian Cine-Vision; New York City

$13,500

Bronx Museum of the Arts

$4,000

Brooklyn Arts and Culture Association

$5,000

Budapest-New York Theatre Arts Foundation; New York City

$2,000

Center for Community Studies; New York City

$6,000

Center for New Art Activities; New York City

$2,000

Channel L Working Group; New York City

$4,000

Chautauqua-Cattaraugus Library System; Jamestown

$3,500

Collaborative Projects; New York City

$4,000

Creative Music Foundation; Woodstock

$2,000

Debra Zaikind Dance Foundation; Queens

$5,000

Downtown Community Television Center; New York City

$46,000

Educational Broadcasting Corporation; New York City

$92,500

Educational Film Library Association; New York City

$3,270

Electronic Arts Intermix; New York City

$37,620

Electronic Body Arts; Albany

$5,100

Ethnic Folk Arts Center; New York City

$12,000

Experimental Intermedia Foundation; New York City

$14,500

Experimental Television Center; Owego

$63,532

Film Art Fund; New York City

$25,850

Film Workshops of Westchester; Irvington

$4,819

Foundation for Independent Video and Film; New York City

$30,000

Free Media; New York City

$3,100

G.A.M.E. (Growth Through Art and Museum Experience); New York City

$4,500

Global Village Video Resource Center; New York City

$19,000

Haleakala; New York City

$145,700

Hallwalls; Buffalo

$4,000

Harvest-works; New York City

$5,000

Holographic Film Foundation; New York City

$20,000

Hudson River Museum at Yonkers

$5,000

Independent Cinema Artists and Producers; New York City

$7,000

Institute for Art and Urban Resources; New York City, Queens

$3,000

Institute of New Cinema Artists; New York City

$5,500

Inter-Media Art Center; Bayville

$23,500

Ithaca Video Project

$42,140

Kineholistics Foundation; New York City

$7,500

L'Ensemble de la Musique; Cambridge

$2,500

Locus Communications; New York City

$25,097

Media Alliance; Buffalo

$20,000

Media Bus; Woodstock

$30,000

Media Study; Buffalo

$77,305

Mid-Hudson Library System; Poughkeepsie

$5,175

Museum of Holography; New York City

$5,000

Museum of Modern Art; New York City

$12,000

National Academy of Design; New York City

$50,000

New Wilderness Foundation; New York City

$12,000

New York Public Library; Astor, Lenox and Tilden Foundations; New York City

$11,560

Northeast New York Educational Television; Plattsburgh

$5,000

Pacifica Foundation; New York City

$20,000

Performing Artservices; New York City

$4,000

Pick Up Performance Company; New York City

$50,000

Port Washington Public Library

$14,300

Portable Channel; Rochester

$33,237

Radio Foundation; New York City

$45,500

Sisters of the Good Shepherd; Brooklyn

$5,000

Visual Studies Workshop; Rochester

$28,000

Whitney Museum of American Art; New York City

$38,700

Women's Interart Center; New York City

$20,000

Young Filmakers Foundation; New York City

$60,500

Young Men's Association for Mutual Improvement; Albany

$1,250

ZBS Foundation; Ft. Edward

$28,895

Advisory Panelists:
Mary Byrne, Executive Director, Visualscope TV; New York City

Lynn Corcoran, Independent Video Producer; Buffalo

Juan Downey, Independent Video Producer; New York City

Shalom Gorewitz, Video Artist; New York City

Joan Lapp, Independent TV Arts Producer; Schenectady

Daniel Mack, Professor, Media Studies Program, New School for Social Research; New York City

Sherry Miller, Co-Director, Experimental Television Center; Newark Valley

John Minkowsky, Electronic Arts Curator, Media Study; Buffalo

Marquita Pool, Associate Producer, CBS Evening News; New York City

Gregory Shifrin, Independent Radio Producer, Director, ZBS Foundation; Fort Edward

George Stoney, Professor, Department of Film and Television, New York University; New York City