Young, Cynthia

Early Video History at Visual Studies Workshop Groups

Under director Nathan Lyons, Visual Studies Workshop established a media center in 1973 with production facilities, workshops and exhibitions; early video activity increased in 1974 with student workshops and an equipment purchase supported by a 1973–74 New York State Council on the Arts grant. VSW hosted events including Polyfusion (Strasenburgh Planetarium, Sept 20–21, 1974), ran a 1974–75 visiting-artist program that included Nam June Paik and Bill Viola, and collaborated with WXXI and Portable Channel on broadcasts and exchanges. The Research Center holds extensive media-center files, and the videotape collection—augmented by Portable Channel (1989) and Ithaca Video Festival deposits (1993)—contains over 4,000 tapes.