Video History Project

People

Sherry Miller Hocking

Sherry Miller Hocking started working with the Experimental Television Center since 1972.

Trained as a teacher, she has taught workshops regarding video as a creative medium and served as advisor to undergraduate and graduate students.

Since 1992 she has been an instructor at the Summer Institute at Visual Studies Workshop, teaching A Natural History of Video, and participates in seminars and online forums concerning media arts, most recently at Munson Williams Proctor, for NAMAC and for Eyebeam Atelier.

She has helped curate exhibitions and presentations for the Everson Museum of Art, Anthology Film Archives, The Kitchen and the New Jersey State College Gallery. She has served as a panelist for the Pennsylvania State Council on the Arts, Media Alliance, and is presently on the Electronic Media and Film Program advisory panel at the New York State Council on the Arts.

She is a past member of the Board of Directors of Media Alliance and served on the Advisory Board of the Independent Media Arts Preservation Project. In 1989 she became Program Director of the Electronic Arts Grants Program which provided over $750,000 of support to New York's media artists and organizations.

Since 1993 she has been directing the Video History Project, a multi-faceted effort to reclaim the multiple histories of the independent media field.

She organized Video History: Making Connections conference at Syracuse University in 1998, with independent preservation consultant Mona Jimenez, and Looking Back/Looking Forward: A Symposium on Media Preservation in 2002.

The Video History Project on the Web is an interactive site constructed with 9 databases and over 2500 records relating to organizations and individuals, and containing a tutorial about video preservation, an extensive bibliography, biographies, and critical and analytical texts and essays. The site encourages visitors to make contributions to this ever-growing resource. The project was conceived by Hocking, with design assistance from Mona Jimenez and programming by David Jones.

Cite this record

"Sherry Miller Hocking." Video History Project, Experimental Television Center, 2023. https://www.videohistoryproject.org/sherry-miller-hocking.

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Summary

Sherry Miller Hocking began working with the Experimental Television Center in 1972, taught workshops on video while advising undergraduate and graduate students, and since 1992 has taught at the Summer Institute at Visual Studies Workshop. She became Program Director of the Electronic Arts Grants Program in 1989, which provided over $750,000 to New York media artists; since 1993 she has directed the Video History Project, an online resource of nine databases and over 2,500 records conceived by Hocking with design by Mona Jimenez and programming by David Jones.

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Last modified 13 May 2023

Related records

  • Credits

    Conceived and directed by Sherry Miller Hocking, the Video History Project has operated since 1994 as a collaborative effort; acknowledgements include Ralph Hocking and William Joseph Hocking. Kathy High and Mona Jimenez collaborated with Hocking on the book The Emergence of Video Processing Tools: Television Becoming Unglued (Intellect Press, 2014); Matthew Schlanger redesigned the site in Drupal and migrated the databases while David Jones assembled the original vhp web database. Listed funders and partners include the Andy Warhol Foundation, Daniel Langlois Foundation, New York State Council on the Arts, New York Foundation for the Arts, Everson Museum and Visual Studies Workshop; Visual Studies Workshop Summer Institute participants worked 1992–1998 on A Natural History of Video Art. Contact [email protected].

  • Ralph Hocking People

    Ralph Hocking taught at Binghamton University from 1968 and served as Professor of video and computer art and Chair of the Cinema Department until 1998; in 1970 he founded the Experimental Television Center, which provided residencies, research, equipment access, training and regional and national exhibitions. He consulted and served as panelist for agencies including the New York State Council on the Arts; his work has been exhibited in the United States and Europe and is distributed by Video Data Bank. He received support from the NEA Visual Arts Fellowship Program and the New York State Council on the Arts, compiled the video Work 1969-1986 during an Institute for Electronic Arts residency, and served as creative director for Experimental Television Center: 1969-2009 and The Emergence of Video Processing Tools (2014).

  • ETC History 2000 - 2001

    Experimental Television Center ran a Residency Program in 2000-2001 supporting 50 artists from 11 states, Canada and Switzerland; the studio provided image-processing systems, individualized instruction and work time. The Center organized exhibitions and distributed tapes via Electronic Arts Intermix and Filmmakers Coop; it administered grants and sponsorships (Finishing Funds, Technical Assistance, Presentation Funds) and received support from the New York State Council on the Arts, the National Endowment for the Arts and the Andy Warhol Foundation. The Video History Web launched Summer 2000.

  • Reports to the Field Preservation

    Experimental Television Center convened Looking Back/Looking Forward on May 31–June 1, 2002 at Downtown Community Television Center in New York, bringing over 50 media arts professionals, conservators, technicians and artists to address physical preservation of independent electronic media, related tools and ephemera. Sessions led by BAVC, Artists Television Access, George Eastman House and MoMA examined remastering workflows (including 1/2” open reel), formats, selection strategies, economics, oral histories and web documentation; BAVC received NEA funding to produce a videotape preservation DVD. The Video History Project, launched 2000 and directed by Sherry Miller Hocking with major contribution from Mona Jimenez, maintains resource databases and commissioned papers including Video Preservation: The Basics.

  • The Electronic Image: A Travelling Workshop Chronology

    Ralph Hocking and Sherry Miller Hocking of the Experimental Television Center conducted The Electronic Image, a travelling workshop concerning image processing tools and techniques; the record gives dates 1980 and 1979–1980. The program was sponsored by the University Wide Committee on the Arts for 20 colleges and universities around NYS. Presentations took place at Jamestown Community College, Monroe Community College, Orange County Community College, Sullivan County Community College, Visual Studies Workshop, Mass Productions (Ithaca), Utica College and Anthology Film Archives.

  • 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.